Panic attacks in the wee hours

As the others have said, your response is quite normal. I remember the days just after my husband had a massive heart attack and was in ICU on life support, I would sit in the hospital courtyard (when I was kicked out for a procedure to be done) and watch people going about their daily business. I wanted to jump up and grab them by the throat and yell "How could you...how could you all look as if everything is normal...stop...stop right there...my husband may die and you're just strolling around as if nothing has happened!!!" Then forward to 2016 and I was in hospital for detailed tests for another medical issue. My breast cancer was found incidentally on a chest CT scan. That same feeling returned from before with my husband. Even my hearing was affected. It felt as if I had been listening to really loud rock and roll on my earphones and had then taken them off. My ears were ringing, but also felt as if they were stuffed with cotton wool. Voices sounded like when you lie in the bath with your ears submerged and someone talks to you...a sort of muffled echo. I had feelings of panic. Everybody else was walking about as if the world was normal. Well it wasn't. Cancer was in my breast and was trying to kill me. The doctors seemed in no great hurry. They were faffing about with more tests, more meetings, more planning and in the meantime the cancer cells were multiplying, growing stronger, and bigger, and spreading...and they didn't seem overly concerned. Maybe that extra day would make the difference. Maybe that day would be one day too many....We all had similar thoughts racing through our minds, I'm sure. Nights were worse...all the rest of the world was sleeping...and here I am, with a deadly enemy in my body..and I want it out...now. But as in any war, the generals don't just hand out machine guns to the soldiers and point them in the general direction of the enemy and say "shoot...shoot any baddies you come across". Your medical team will be assessing your cancer, knowing it's weak spots as well as its strengths. Then they will decide what weaponry and in what sequence to use it. They know what will be best for you, and once the ball starts rolling you will feel less panicky. You will feel that at last "something is being done about it". We all get it, and we've got your back. Ally.