Down and Out for the Moment

I woke up with this feeling of ill-ease and was not sure what was wrong with me. I just knew I was not well.

I had been up and down all night, sniffling and coughing, was sounding more like a moose trying to call out a mating call, than having an actual human voice. The memories of throwing up and feeling queasy come to mind.

The long restlessness and feeling of not getting sleep, at least not either in my body, not in my mind and my brain was filled with a foggy sense of being. I knew this was the beginning of something worse yet to come.

I limped to the bathroom, after stumping my big toe on the corner of the nightstand and was very amused by the mishap. I leaned into the sink, then the toilet bowl, as the dizziness and sickness were at its worst still, I moved forward and ended on the floor knees hitting the bowl part, heaving.

It was my childhood all over again. I had been a very sick child growing up, had leukemia when I was 9 and then had three cancer scares, Lupus being the worst. I had fought all my life to become one day an adult. I was envisioning the thoughts of fear and dread.

"How could a simple cold or the flu, cause me such a fuss, racking my body, worse than most, putting me out for more than a week?" "I was middle school teacher, and I was wondering had I finally reached my end with this simple flu?" "Or was the worst yet to become an enemy of my frail and unpredictable immune system?"

The thoughts of my getting worse, then going from worst to near death, then becoming more closer to death, were not the most horrifying thoughts. It was the idea of what would happen to my family, to my co-workers, to all the ones that I called friends, and to all those whom I held dearest to my heart.

The thoughts of who was willing to and able to be the strongest, when acknowledging my identity, and then having the task of carrying out my final wishes, as I had instructed the place, I had chosen to handle all my burial and even how I should be laid to rest.

I was making a huge bit out of this moment, not looking at the big picture, nor feeling like I would recover from this, I was overthinking this and was not allowing myself to get better. This felt like a lingering hangover. Like the one you experienced when you tried alcohol for the first time.

I was warned that the medications I was taking would not allow me to afford a drink, much less a whole bottle of Jack. First it was the introduction of the booze, being swallowed and then going down my esophagus, later to enter into my stomach.

It was the last part that not at the moment it entered, but more like afterwards. It hit my stomach. then mixed with my recently ingested medications, then swirled and was what caused me excruciating pain, nausea, then the vomiting. Wow!! the minute I stood up to try and make it to the toilet, missing the toilet and then just falling down, hitting the edge of the tub.

When I awoke, there were 30 or more people standing around me, including the EMT workers, and other first responders. I was under a blanket, with as I was told later, cuts and bruises, and a big gash on my forehead, oh and one hell of headache that made me feel nauseous once more, but instead dry heaved.

This moment I was feeling sick, I was in horror of the idea that I would have a repeat of my childhood and possible a relapse. Not anyone who had been there throughout my childhood, was aware I was sick as a dog. It made the moment more terrifying, an uncertainty that I was not willing to go through again ever.

The moment I was getting up to return to bed, was when I then turned around and hit the toilet once more. It came in waves of thinking I was done then not done then done. It made me feel like a yo-yo. Up and down, side to side, standing then kneeling. No, it was no fun, and I was not laughing either. It was an endless nightmare of trying to get from here to there, or wherever I was trying to get to. It would not stop.

I was feeling like a volleyball being hit back and forth across the net, then being missed and hitting the floor, hard. As if I was not already miserable and weak. As if there were not enough tissues that had missed the trash can or messed up bedding, or wrinkled pajamas that I was laying in to make me feel worse, it was the head cold, the sore throat, the body aches and pains and all the other little things, that had me thinking the worst case scenario.

I was missing work. I loved my job, and I was missing work. It was like an escape for me as I would mold and shape young minds, when as I teach each one, this was the way to help guide them and share with them about the realities of the real world. "It would surely not be setback by this minor obstacle?" "Or was I just mentally making this out to be worse than it actually was?"

Being sick makes you hallucinate and think things are not what they seem. It makes you feel like you are part of something that does not exist. You are feeling less than whole or well. You want to believe you can go on and feel better, with magic. Instantaneously, at the drop of a hat. Medications that dull the senses. Doctors prescribing more to make you feel better and to remove the sickness that you are presently experiencing. You are in the middle of a battle that may win if you don't take the meds yet will leave you vulnerable if you do take them.

You finally make it back to the bed. You are weaker and not sure if you are getting better. You are sweaty and clammy. You see the TV in the bedroom, feeling for the remote, are become frustrated at the idea of not locating it, at first. It is found, up under your back and you grab it hurriedly.

You aim to turn on the TV, but you cannot see the TV screen clearly. Your vision is blurry at best. You feel around and touching a syringe, notice that you also laid down with this sticking out of your butt. You start to slowly lose consciousness. You fade off into the blind side of your mind.

The moment was last seen as you are not able to make out the ones who were there, as you started to black out. You hear the voices, which become muffled and you are not sure what happened after that. The sickness is making you hallucinate once more.

You are surely sicker than a dog while being under the weather. It has to be raining cats and dogs outside, while you look for an umbrella.