So this weekend is the Power Tool races in Georgetown. It's a lot of fun to watch these dressed up power tools like saw and sanders racing down a Pinewood Derby track and I've been going for years. For some reason it always worked out that Lisa, my wife, was out of town so I'd go myself. But two years ago she was around and we'd finally arranged to go.
That Friday I felt kind of fluish, with a low fever and upset stomache but I figured I'd get better. By the time we got going on Saturday I felt really sick, dizzy, headache, fever, nauseous. But I'd been looking foward to this I put on a hoody for the chills I was having and had Lisa drive. I felt like I was getting sicker with every mile. By the time we parked I was sweating buckets. We started to walk around the fair that was part of the event and there were a lot of food vendors but I was so sick that the thought of food made me feel worse. Lisa looked for some food and I saw a Vitamin Water booth and got a free bottle of that. I drank a little thinking it would help, but it only made me sicker.
Lisa went to a food truck and I started feeling light headed. I've passed out once or twice in the past and I had a feeling it was coming. I can only describe it as a softening of focus around the edges of my filed of vision, a slight buzzing in my ears and a feeling of coming untethered from the world. While she looked at a booth I found an older brick building that had windows with a little ledge around the base. I sat/leaned on the ledge and felt myself suddenly fading more. It felt like I had just drifted into a deep sleep, when I suddenly started hearing carnival noise and Lisa yelling "Jeff, Jeff wake up,"
I woke up finding myself laying on the ground with a pair of broken sun glasses and a sore face. I sat up and Lisa looked panicked. I was a little disoriented but I've always had this ability when drunk or out of it to sound very coherent. I insisted I was fine but Lisa wasn't having any of it and she made us go home.
Now here is where it gets embarrassing. Somehow over the years I had developed a pretty bad medicacl phobia. I hadn't been to a doctor in over 10 years. I knew that High Blood pressure ran in the family and whenever I tested it myself it was high. I'd been treating myself with herbal medication and had convinced msyelf that my pressure would go down over time; it had already been 3 years of self treatment.
The ride home was tense. Lisa was insisting that we stop at the drug store and take a blood pressure, but I knew that it was going to be high. I tried to persuade her that I didn't need one, that I just had the flu and needed to go home. Fortunately I lost. We went to Bartells and took a pressure. I thought my arm was going to fall off from how much it had to pump. Finally after a long time, the number came back....300/120.
This sent Lisa into panic mode and me into full denial mode. When we got home I insisted on just needing to get into bed and rest to which, suprisingly, Lisa agreed. I got into bed upstairs and a few minutes later I heard a whispering phone conversation. Lisa was on the phone consulting nurse at our medical center.
The gist of it was that the nurse clearly wanted me in the hospital right that minute. I hollowly argued with lisa and the consulting nurse, but in the end I knew it was time to get some help. I pretty much felt like an alchoholic who had just hit rock botom and had an intervention.
5 minutes later I had a small bag packed and was wearing sweats sitting on my couch gloomily waiting for Medic One two show up. There's something very odd about hearing a siren like you've heard a million times but knowing that it's coming for you. For some reason I kept hearing the lyrics to I heard that lonesome whistle blow.
(to be continued)
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