I was working out last night with Cecilia when I started to feel a bit short of breath. This has happened quite a bit recently, and I've usually been able to work through it. I've been trying this over-the-counter inhaler, Primatine Mist, so I darted downstairs to the changing room to take a shot of it, and then continued with my work-out. As we finished the last set, I still felt short of breath, so I just sat there on the bench, waiting until I felt better.

The problem was that I didn't start feeling better, in fact I started to feel gradually worse. I didn't want to be a bother, and I almost told Cecilia she could just go, thinking that it wasn't anything serious. But then my face started to tingle, and I started to get a bit more worried. I tried lying down, but I found I couldn't breath as well lying down as I could sitting up, so I sat up again. Finally, I told Cecilia she'd better find somebody downstairs with medical experience.

As soon as she was gone, I started feeling much worse. It seemed like I just couldn't get enough air in, and the tingling sensation spread over my upper body, until it felt that every blood cell was doing violent aerobics through my arteries. I began to panic, and I grabbed the nearest person. I tried to tell him what was going on, but I suddenly realized my muscles were so weak I could hardly talk. I managed to grate out that I needed help. Fortunately, there was a medically trained trainer nearby, who instructed me to lie down, and he elevated my legs, and started talking soothingly to me. Soon, it seemed, I was surrounded by people, all trying to talk to me, but it was almost impossible for me to move my lips. I heard a siren pull up outside, and I worried about how much of a drama queen I must look.

Bit, by bit, the tingling began to abate, and my breathing started to slow down to a more normal pace. About five paramedics arrived, and started to ask me questions, which I could scarcely answer, because I felt so weak. I kept pointing at Cecilia in the vain hope that they would ask her the questions. To my complete embarrassment, now that I was beginning to pull myself together, they hoisted me into a wheelchair and wheeled me to the elevator. Once downstairs, the guy at the front desk just looked at me, as I was pushed outside, saying "Oh, Keith?" as if I'd just received a phone call. I managed a grin at him, but all I could think about was what everybody must be thinking.

After the paramedics had fussed around for a while, taking my blood pressure, and checking my heart, I told them that I didn't need to go to the hospital, and I was able to walk back into the gym, and get changed. Cecilia went to get my car so that she could drive me home. While I waited, I walked around the gym, trying to find the people who had helped me, to thank them. I felt a few eyes on me, wondering, hey, wasn't he just wheeled out in a wheelchair? But by the time I was in my car, I'd started to have problems with my breathing again. I felt that all I needed to do was to get home, and lie down with my feet elevated, and that I'd calm down that way. But Cecilia hadn't driven since we drove down to LA together a couple of years ago, and she felt awkward and dangerous conducting my SUV through the tight streets of the Castro, and her anxiety was transmitted to me. Things came to a head when we turned up my narrow street to find it blocked by a big truck. I was nearing panic again, and I asked her to run up and ask them to clear the road. But they couldn't, so I grated out instructions to Cecilia to back up, and go round the long way. Which she did, but then we couldn't find a single parking space. I asked her to stop outside my apartment, and that I'd call her from inside, telling her where she could park.

I ran in, and lay down immediately on the sofa, trying to calm my breathing. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and now it was happening twice in one evening. I was desperate to go to the toilet, but I was scared to get up, since my muscles felt like I had no control over them. But I didn't want to pee my pants, so I made myself get up and go to the toilet. When Cecilia had finally parked, and arrived at my place, my head and arms were tingling again, and I gestured to her to call 911. Once again, the paramedics came, eight of them this time, including two that had helped me last time. Again, I had to tell my lifestory, and the complicated explanations about which medication I'd taken when. All this when I felt I didn't have the strength to move my lips.

I knew that if they were to take me to the hospital, I had to find my housekeys. I couldn't remember what I'd done with them when I'd flown in to go lie on the sofa, so I gestured to the paramedics to help me find the spare set, which I'd concealed outside. Barely able to catch my breath, and feeling dizzy, I groped around in the darkness, but nothing seemed to make sense. The ledge where the key was supposed to be didn't even seem to exist. But my fingers knocked against something, the key clattered down, and we were on our way. I still had enough sense of embarrassment to notice my screensaver flashing a series of cute, semi-clothed young men on my computer as they took me out.

In the ambulance, my breathing was returning, but I still felt incredibly weak, as I answered questions for the fifth or sixth time that evening. The paramedic, an attractive African-American named Keith, asked me my social-security number, address etc. When it came to asking me my age, something made me gasp out "How old do you think?", which got a laugh out of him.

At the emergency room, I felt a lot better, though still very weak. All the tests showed up normal, and I was told that it was just hyperventilation, probably as a result of an anxiety attack exacerbated by the asthma inhaler I took midway through my workout. An anti-anxiety drug dissolved under my tongue made me feel a lot better, and, around ten, after a long, exciting evening, I took a cab home.

It was a scary thing, though. I'll never forget that moment of panic on the bench at the gym when I just didn't know what was happening to me, and I had to tell someone "I need help."