I am not sure how to judge on this when I read:
“I elected not to tell anyone about my experience including my bosses, Sean Bock, my media colleagues and immediate family. This will be the first they are hearing of it. Instead, I stayed quiet and wanted to focus on work…”
As a manager / boss, an employee not showing up to a jobsite and then telling me after the fact they are have been unwell due to a panic attack they just happened to suffer during Christmas break would smell like BS.
Not sure how that conversation does not happen. It’s pretty easy and you for sure would want to let your boss know what is going on in some manner, you can still keep it vague if embarrassed. A simple “Bossman, I have been struggling with some health issues starting December 19th that I would rather not discuss and will not be able to cover the game in Orlando but still plan to crank out articles remotely”