Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [36]
About half an hour later the Valium began to kick in. I didn’t feel better, I felt euphoric. I wasn’t dying. For the first time in a month and a half, I didn’t have a hot spinning asterisk inside of me. My insides were fine with being on the inside. I climbed out of the tub, wrapped myself in a towel, and phoned my parents. I told them I had almost died at work, but I had taken a Valium and now felt better. They told me that is exactly what happens when you take Valium, and asked if I had any idea what time it was.
I did indeed: It was time to go back to work. I didn’t go back that night out of any sense of duty or responsibility. I went back simply to see what it was like to be inside the walls of the building while not dying. I decided to take a taxi back to Midtown. I sat in the back of the cab and struck up a conversation with the driver. He didn’t speak much English, but it didn’t matter. I was speaking; someone was responding. We passed street signs. I looked out the window at all the bars and restaurants, with patrons spilling out onto the sidewalk. For the first time I could remember I was just like them…living.
When I arrived at 30 Rock, I tipped the driver twenty bucks. I rode the night elevators up to the eighth floor and said hello to everyone I saw. The elevator was regular-sized and the walls were just as wide when I got off as when I got on. Since the first day I had arrived at the show, I had kept my panic and fear to myself. From the time the Valium kicked in, I felt an urge to tell anyone who would listen how great I felt. When I walked into the studio, the show was nearly half over. Since I wasn’t in anything, I roamed around saying hello to anyone. I was smiling.
I dropped in on Sarah Silverman, whose dressing room was next to mine. She wasn’t in any sketches either that week. We sat and talked for a few seconds before I told her about how I had almost died and ran home and took a Valium and now felt better. Sarah’s eyes lit up and she said, “You had a panic attack. You have got to see my doctor! She’s the best!”
How the hell did Sarah Silverman know I had a panic attack? What was a panic attack? More important, how did I get in touch with her doctor? Sarah wrote a number down on the back of one of the pages of a sketch that neither of us were in. “You have to call her,” she said, handing me the number. “She saved my life.”
I walked from Sarah’s dressing room to mine and dialed the number. Since it was past midnight on a Saturday, the answering machine picked up. The outgoing message said that if it was an emergency, I could page the doctor and she would get back to me as soon as possible. Figuring that living your life in a constant fear of dying was an appropriate emergency, I paged her.
To my surprise, by the time I got home from the wrap party, there was a message on my answering machine from the doctor herself. In the message, she stated matter-of-factly that it sounded like I was suffering from a basic panic disorder and she could see me first thing Monday morning. All I had to do was survive Sunday.
I woke up Sunday feeling like a zombie from the combination of red wine and Valium from the night before. I stayed in bed all day and counted my breaths until Monday rolled around. At 8:30 A.M., I showered, shaved, and went to visit the woman who would save my life.
The doctor had an office in a hospital on Second Avenue. To reach the elevators to her office, you had to walk through the emergency room. I found this incredibly comforting. If anything went