Bad Day

Found here

I have several interesting and unique blog posts in mind that I wanted to make this afternoon, but this was a wretched day. As I sat at my computer in bed, writing a talk that I have to give on Friday night, I suddenly got terribly dizzy. With my head spinning like a top, I lay in bed clutching the side of the mattress so I wouldn't roll off onto the floor. Sam had just gone out to mow the lawn and within five minutes I was sick. Separation anxiety? I hardly think so. Lying down didn't help. Sitting up didn't help. Covering my eyes so I couldn't see the whirling ceiling fan didn't help. Hugging the bowl with dry heaves did help some, though I couldn't guess why.

My concern was that it came on so quickly. Being a retired ICU nurse, I wasn't thinking stomach virus or inner ear inflammation. I was thinking the worst case scenario: brain aneurysm, stroke, brain tumor, or some sort of virus that would send me into a persistent vegetative state like an atypical Guillian-Barre type syndrome. I was very frightened and horribly dizzy. For awhile, closing my eyes helped. Then when I opened them, that seemed to help. But neither one really did much for me. I felt my way down the stairs and out into the garage. I needed to get Sam's attention because I felt so horrible. He was listening to his iPod, edging the grass. He is as deaf as a stone with his earbuds on. So I stood in the garage and weakly waved my arms to get his attention. I was in my robe and didn't want to make a spectacle of myself out on the lawn. (what if I barfed out in the yard before God and the neighbors?) He blissfully continued edging with the most intense focus on his work that I've ever witnessed. I slunk back into the house.

Sitting in the recliner seemed to help me feel a bit better. Otis was worried and had trailed me all morning, trying to help by licking my hand and gazing into my face. He shouldn't have been at such close range when I suddenly started feeling sick. Suffice it to say, he'll probably not be as solicitous again in the same way. Cats can fly...

After a three hour nap on the couch in which I never moved once, I think I'm feeling a bit better. I still feel like I've been hit by a truck and my stomach feels a bit secondhand. So much for writing brilliant blog entries.

Interesting--some people want to be left alone when they are ill. Others want to be hovered over. I get scared and fear dying. After so many years of being my own nurse when I was ill and alone, my need is great for having someone experience my worst times with me. I don't want anything to disrupt the way my life is now. I would hate to say goodbye to this life just as I am experiencing so much that is overdue. But even as I lay in the recliner today, I prayed as though I was dying. I certainly felt as though I was. What I said to God today still stands: my concerns for friends and family members whom I love. My regrets that I haven't been able to be closer to some people, couldn't correct some disrupted relationships, haven't had the wisdom to know how to do certain things in life. And overall, I felt ready to go if that was my fate.

It wasn't.

I'm still here.

Thank God.