Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Sunday was weird

I've reached the age where I know I can expect things to go wrong, health-wise. Sure, really bad things can happen to young people and also people can live until they're quite elderly with very few problems. But once you hit 40, it's like all of your warranties expire and you really shouldn't be too surprised when stuff starts failing with little or no warning. You can crack your pelvis in half by rolling up your car window wrong. A turkey sandwich could make your pancreas explode. An eyeball might fall out for no reason whatsoever. There's no telling. I realize, understand and reluctantly accept this, as most people my age should. Because, basically, if you're over 40, you've already lived longer than John Lennon did and by comparison, you've accomplished and contributed absolutely nothing to the world and nobody wants to hear you bitch about your stupid life problems.
So shut up.

Still, since I have space here to fill, I feel like I need to talk about how what happened to me on Sunday was very weird. 
Saturday night, I worked til about 8, had dinner - peanut chicken at a local Chinese place; not a buffet, just a normal human dinner-sized portion - and went home. I felt perfectly fine and stayed up til 1am because Saturday Night Live was the one where Louis CK hosted. The next morning, however, when I got up, I knew something was wrong. I was dizzy, borderline nauseous and felt absolutely exhausted. I had an entire day of chores planned but felt like I needed to go back to bed immediately. I did and tried again two hours later, but felt exactly the same. I was hungry but the idea of eating any kind of food whatsoever nauseated me. I tried to get going every two hours all day long but never felt any better. I just stayed in bed and drank water.
A BRIEF ASIDE -  Can we talk about water for a second? We go through life craving ever-more colorful, chemically altered, sugar-infused drinks of all kinds but when we feel terrible, whether it's being sick or just really, really thirsty, who's there for us? Good, old, plain, cold water. I think we take water for granted and I feel bad about that. I pledge to making up for it in the future.
I love you, water. So much.
All day long, I slept for two hours and then tried to get myself going, which launched internal dialogues like this:
"Okay, I'm up. I'm up. I think I'm good now. Let me take a step. Oops, no. Let me lay back down please."

"Come on now. While we're up, let's go to the bathroom."

"Please, no. I don't want to. Just let me pee in the bed and lie in it. I don't mind."

"No no no, we'll go to the bathroom and refill your sippy cup with water and then you can lay back down."

"Okay, but let's hurry. Ooh, not too fast though."
Monday morning, I was all better. The appetite hadn't - and still hasn't - fully rebounded. I eat a granola bar which is basically the same as eating nothing at all and I feel kind of bloated and the idea of eating anything greasy makes me feel kind of oogy... which actually isn't a bad thing at all.
This does nothing for me.

But otherwise, perfectly fine. Whatever it was just came and went that fast. I don't think it was the flu because at no point did I ever actually get sick, as in at no point did I ever have any abnormal expulsions of fluids from any orifice (and yes, that's as tactfully as that can be written). The symptoms of whatever this almost-exactly-24-hour malady was were limited to dizziness, nausea (which, one of those may have caused the other) and fatigue. I just felt bad.
Weird, huh?

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