Did that just happen??

Hello again,

So today was day 1 of volunteering for the San Jose Clinic. All my classes are around 11:00 am so I had forgotten what Houston traffic was like at 8:00am. So after fighting my way through traffic, I arrived at the clinic, fumbled around and waited patiently until I found Samantha since it was my first day and I had no idea where to go. She then told me that the doctor I was assigned to would not be coming in today and she warned me that today may be a slow (kinda boring) day for me. BUMMER! A nurse then told me that she had reassigned me to Dr. Finkle, an orthopedic surgeon, and I would be assisting him today. My spirits were high again. I saw him tell the girl working behind the desk all the notes that he would normally chart and she typed diligently as he spoke. I had always seen doctors chart their own stuff, I found it interesting they did it this way. He then briefed me on my first patient: a woman, mid 40's with herniated disks with already having had surgery to have some other ones removed. He asked, and I translated basic questions like: how is the pain, is it spreading, when it it worse etc. He then gave her a basic check up and found that a nerve was pinched causing her right leg strength and reflexes to be significantly less than the left. Since she was already on medications and had been exercising, losing weight, and not lifting heavy objects, there was nothing immediate that could be done for her. Again BUMMER! Doctor recommendation: live with it or get surgery. When she heard her options I saw her happiness slowly fade. She told me she could not afford having surgery but she was in a lot of pain which broke my heart. It made me realize that I had been taking for granted the simple ability to go to the doctor for any little incident and know I would be able to receive any treatment necessary. It's hard to believe that not all people have that liberty and must factor in other things; their job, kids, house etc before their own health because of the finances. BUMMED again.. and then BOOM! It happened and out of nowhere while I was speaking to the patient. I started feeling EXTREMELY hot and started to sweat profusely. It looked like I was running a marathon outside. I began to feel very weak and shake. After leaving the patients room, I rushed to the restroom and noticed I was completely pale and I started to black out a bit. I tried to gather myself together and went outside and sat down and began feeling better. The next patient was an English speaker but the Dr. invited me to watch anyways. I went in and as I was standing in the corner...BOOM... it was happening again. I excused myself from the room, went up to Samantha and told her (and she could very clearly see) that something was wrong and I would have to leave. She was understanding but I was still very confused as to what was going on. I grabbed and orange juice because I didn't know what else to do since it didn't seem like any kind of medicine would help and was then on my way to our cell exam. Great timing for my body to breakdown like that right? Anyways, I slowly started to feel better throughout the day and other than my mishap at the clinic, I can tell I am really going to enjoy and learn a lot at the clinic. Until then...