Centrum doesn't include that

She sat in the waiting room at the ER, a 300lb heaving mass of near-hysteria.

"Oooh, lawdy! Ohh, hep me jeezuz! Oooh, caint breefe! Oh, LAWD, ma chess hurt!!!"

Her friend who was as skinny as she was fa.....err, I mean large, was fanning her face with the HIPAA paperwork she'd been given and making comforting noises.

I called her name, and for a moment it seemed as if she'd forgotten about her complaint. She got up from the chair with surprising agility for her size and complaint and quite literally ran towards me. Four or five steps into the trot she remembered that she was supposed to be having chest pain and SOB and clutched dramatically at her breasts

"OOOHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Hep me, Im'a dyin'! Hep ME!!!!"

Despite the obviously agonizing pain she was in, she made it to the cubicle and flopped herself onto the gurney (I had visions of the gurney buckling and collapsing underneath her, but it proved it's worth and held - wobbled, but held).

"When did this start? Ever had anything like this before?" I asked, struggling to free her from her pup tent, I mean shirt, and getting the EKG leads ready.

"Yes, it happen a LOT. Matter of fack, it feel EZZACKLY like a panic attack. Yeah, thas what this iz. A PANIC ATTACK!! Oooh, I need some o'dat medicine they give me, that stuff that start with a A......"

"Adderal?" I suggested?

"Naw, it aint that. Addi.....addivent? Sumpin' like that"

"Ativan?"

"yeah, thas it! ATIVAN! Thas whut I need! Where the doctor at? I need me some ativan!!" And, seeing the doctor approaching, she went off on a "OOh, tha pain! PAIN!" tangent.

After the doc was done examining her, he stepped out from behind the curtain and smirked at me.

"She's got a vitamin A deficiency" he said.

Later, when I went in to help discharge her, she caught me by the elbow

"Can yew tell me where to get that Centrum with the vitamin Ativan in it at? I sho would like to get me some o'dat....."

I told her she should go ask a pharmacist *snark*.

I wonder if she ever did?