Another thousand words, I guess.
Definitely on the mend. The Snot Faucet has become the Goo Tube. I am horking up sputum on a regular basis, which is a good thing, although I wish the coughing wasn’t so hard that it makes me think I may puke sometimes.
Either way, SOMETHING is coming out of my face.
But so far, knock on wood, it’s just been sputum. Lovely word, that. Sputum. It is the only proper medical term for a substance that sounds pretty much exactly like what a five year old kid would call it.
So yeah. Progress is being made. My lungs are clearing themselves (albeit painfully) and my salty diet has restored my ability to think clearly and feel human.
I still have a small appetite, but that’s way better than no appetite at all. I have been munching the same bowl of popcorn since midnight last night, having a bit here and a bit there, usually with some fruit and maybe an ice cream treat.
Before I get any further away from it, though, I have to tell you about one thing that happened to me during my illness.
It was when it was at its worst, last Wednesday night (Thursday morning). At around 3:30 am, I got up to drain my bladder for like the fifteenth time that day and I guess I got up too fast, because on the way back to bed, I experienced the worst head rush of my life.
And that’s saying something, because I have gotten them from sinus issues or from low blood pressure before. And hey, if too much sodium gives you high blood pressure, guess what too little sodium does?
No, Timmy, it doesn’t give you mutant powers as Saltless Man. Sit down.
So I get this enormous head rush, with a roaring sound in my ears and an intense feeling of dizziness, disorientation, and faintness. And the worst part of it is, it just won’t stop.
Usually, when this happens, it is over in four or five seconds, leaving me feeling weak and sort of giddy. But this time, it just kept on happening.
Eventually, I managed to get to my bed and sat down on the edge to wait for this thing to play itself out. That took a subjectively long time. And during that time, I thought I was going to die.
I thought that the illness plus my inability to eat much had led to a total blood sugar crash, and any second now, I was going to slip into unconsciousness and just plain never get up again.
After all, it’s not like there is even anyone else awake at the time to help me. Even if there was, how would they know I needed help? Even if by some gigantic fluke, they entered my bedroom to talk to me at just the right moment, they would just assume I had fallen asleep.
And they would be right. I mean, a diabetic coma is a lot like sleep.
So all that was roaring through my head as I sat there awaiting my fate. Luckily, the storm subsided and I was left covered in sweat and shaken to my core, but still alive and ready to go back to sleep.
The reason that I have not written about this incident until now is that until I regained my proper blood saline levels, I could not deal with revisiting it.
And that, in turn, has really got me thinking about just how good I am at just forgetting incidents like that. It’s like I am a little kid who falls out of a tree, is all freaked out and scared and crying for a few minutes, then gets up and goes right back to playing.
I mean, three cheers for resilience, but I can’t help but feel I am completely failing to learn anything from these experiences. Sure, the kid is okay, but did he learn how not to fall out of the tree next time, or maybe even that tree climbing might not be for him?
Still, it does point to a vast reserve of resilience in me, a well of power to just get back up and keep going no matter what, and if I can tap into that for uses other than ignoring and forgetting potentially useful medical information, it could be a powerful source of drive and success.
The picture in my mind is less “unstoppable juggernaut” as “wind up tin toy that rights itself and keeps zipping along no matter how often you push it over”.
But I got issues.
I am not out of the woods yet with this cold thing. Granted, the Snot Faucet is down to a slow seep and my throat feels around ninety percent better, but what I really want back now is my goddamned lung capacity.
It really sucks to run out of breath while taking a dump. I mean W. T. F.
Also, my chest still hurts, and that continues to irritate me.
Still, I am counting my blessings. This is definitely one of those Big Yellow Taxi teachable moments when you learn to value something by losing it. In this case, that something is my health.
In my more normal mode, I might not be the healthiest of people, but it is still a fuckton better than how I have felt this week. And if I want to stay out of the hellhole that is true physical sickness, I have to stop fucking around with my health and start taking it seriously.
I know I say that a lot. And I can’t guarantee that this time will be any different than the others. That’s the thing about being my particular breed of jackass. When the crisis is over, we go right back to how we were before like nothing happened.
That would be highly admirably in some situations, but it’s just plain stupid in others, including mine.
It’s like I never learn!
I’ll talk to you again tomorrow folks.