My ER experience and the unsustainable health care trajectory

My story begins with a return flight home on a Friday night after a stressful business trip. During the flight, I began to experience multiple symptoms: shortness of breath, rapid and irregular heartbeat, and varying pain in my calves.

There was some turbulence on the flight, and while I’m not typically affected by it, I attributed my symptoms to anxiety over a subconscious fear of the plane not landing safely. But my symptoms continued throughout the night even after my safe arrival home, then carried into Saturday and Saturday evening. When I woke up early Sunday morning and continued to experience the symptoms, with even more acute pain in my calves, I did what every self-taught “physician” would do and entered the various warning signs into WebMD. WebMD indicated that my likely condition was a pulmonary embolism and instructed me to call 911 as my condition was urgent.