On inadvertantly nearly killing oneself:
It's been an odd summer. Yes it has.
For the past few weeks a small detail has been missing in my life. Not rational thought. That's always in short supply in my anxiety-ridden head. No, the missing element has been: Water! I haven't had any water in the past few weeks. I had replaced it with coffee and espresso and blissfully didn't notice. I probably would have gone on not noticing if I hadn't suddenly been struck with a killer headache and high fever last Tuesday.
After some over the phone diagnosis with a friendly nurse, I spent the earliest hours of Wednesday shivering in an ER bed being poked again and again in an attempt to pierce veins so shriveled from dehydration that I'm pretty sure my blood was largely stationary. I now have little marks around my arms and neck where they kept trying. They managed to hit a couple of veins, but they had a tendency to immediately collapse (furthering my theory that my blood had dried up). They finally managed to tap into one vein in my neck and I went from half-alive to mostly alive after two liters of fluid dripped their way directly into my blood stream. I went home at four in the morning tired but feeling a bit better. I was still running a light fever but fell asleep not worried too much about it.
Till the next morning, when the shivering the night before had returned. The fever turned into a roller coaster from there on until probably Sunday when it finally dipped back to normal for awhile. Headaches continued, and my ability to do anything other than lay on the couch and drink liquid was nil.
All in all, it's been a ride and I think some of my convalescence was helped by Kara making a surprise trip up when I was suppose to drive down.
For the past few weeks a small detail has been missing in my life. Not rational thought. That's always in short supply in my anxiety-ridden head. No, the missing element has been: Water! I haven't had any water in the past few weeks. I had replaced it with coffee and espresso and blissfully didn't notice. I probably would have gone on not noticing if I hadn't suddenly been struck with a killer headache and high fever last Tuesday.
After some over the phone diagnosis with a friendly nurse, I spent the earliest hours of Wednesday shivering in an ER bed being poked again and again in an attempt to pierce veins so shriveled from dehydration that I'm pretty sure my blood was largely stationary. I now have little marks around my arms and neck where they kept trying. They managed to hit a couple of veins, but they had a tendency to immediately collapse (furthering my theory that my blood had dried up). They finally managed to tap into one vein in my neck and I went from half-alive to mostly alive after two liters of fluid dripped their way directly into my blood stream. I went home at four in the morning tired but feeling a bit better. I was still running a light fever but fell asleep not worried too much about it.
Till the next morning, when the shivering the night before had returned. The fever turned into a roller coaster from there on until probably Sunday when it finally dipped back to normal for awhile. Headaches continued, and my ability to do anything other than lay on the couch and drink liquid was nil.
All in all, it's been a ride and I think some of my convalescence was helped by Kara making a surprise trip up when I was suppose to drive down.
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