The panic attack that wasn't.

My wife and I have been married 26 years, and I've been a doctor for all but the first two of them. That timing matters to this story.

Early on, when we were young, we'd be out walking and she'd suddenly put a hand to her chest and say, “I think I'm having a panic attack.” And I — in the finest tradition of the young, know-it-all physician — would say, “Why on earth would you be having a panic attack?” We were in love. We were happy. We were raising little kids. Neither of us thought we had a thing in the world to be anxious about. Over the years it became a running joke between us: “I think I'm having a panic attack” — cue my eye roll. This went on for a long time.

Then one day, when I was medical director of a busy emergency department in Knoxville, I got a call from the leader of my wife's exercise class. “Dr. Petersen, your wife had a panic attack in class. We've called an ambulance.” Oh no, I said — she's had these for years, you really don't need an ambulance. I'll come get her, she'll be fine. I called back fifteen minutes later to say I was running late — just sit her down and tell her to relax. He said, “I'm sorry, Dr. Petersen. The paramedics insisted on taking her in.”

He didn't know which hospital. So I drove to the closest one — where, as it happened, I was on staff — and walked in through the ambulance bay. My partner, Dr. Barry Cummings, was standing there holding an EKG. He said he'd just been heading to the desk to call me. “Do you want to take a look at her EKG?”

I did. Her heart rate was 200. She was in SVT — a sudden, dangerously fast heart rhythm — and it had nothing to do with anxiety. I nearly hit the floor.

I learned something that day that made me a better doctor and, I hope, a better husband: you have to actually listen. The moment I heard “panic attack,” I stopped listening. This was the person I loved most in the world, the mother of my children, with no medical training and no other words for what her body was doing — and for years I'd waved her off. She wasn't wrong. She just didn't have the vocabulary, and I hadn't bothered to dig.

It changed how I hear every patient now. A symptom isn't always black and white. Sometimes there's nuance in what someone is trying to tell you, and the worst thing a doctor can do is decide it's nothing because of the words they happened to choose.

My kids are grown now. They've heard this story a hundred times — and they still love to trot it out to put their dad back in his place. It's become a bit of a family legend. I don't mind. It earned its place.

God has some interesting ways of teaching you a lesson.