Of Blood and Butterflies

So, lemme tell you 'bout yesterday morning and why I didn't go to class last night. 

As you may have gathered by now, my health has been questionable for the past two years, but it's mostly been my mental health, with a dash of "WHY CAN'T I SWALLOW ANYTHING???"

Yesterday, my physical health had an interesting turn. 

See, I was all sure of myself, and I had eaten breakfast and everything…

I was gonna be an adult.

So, I decide I'm going to make myself some pizza rolls (adults do that, right?) and I reach my hand into the bag, which is frozen… 

And holy shit it hurts.

Now, normally, cold does kind of suck on my hands… but this was different.  This was a shocking pain.  I attempted to run warm water over my hand, but it couldn't get warm enough. 

Then my head got unreasonably cold, and a slight nausea started. 

It was kind of like Spidey-senses were going off but there was nothing going on. 

At first, I thought I was having an allergic reaction, because that is always my assumption.  

Then, I looked into it and checked my symptoms, which is generally how I calm myself down. 

I noticed that I wasn't having a panic attack because my heart wasn't racing.  In fact, I had trouble finding my pulse at all. 

This thought did cross my mind: 

I went to the bathroom, because the nausea had pretty much stopped, but I figured maybe something was going on down there.  

When I sat down, my vision started to go. 

I'd like it stated here that I, among the panic and thinking I'm dying, took the time to consciously decide to flush the toilet.  

Like, I thought to myself, "Well, that would just be impolite." 

So, then I rush to the bedroom. 

I have experienced little bouts of vertigo before, but they are normally when I just get up way too fast, and then I sit down, or lay down for a second and I'm fine. 

This wasn't that. 

Here is a rough blueprint of how not-right I was in my mostly blacked out state:
 

If that doesn't make any sense, basically, all I had to do was go straight forward from the door to the bed. 

Instead, I took a hard left and found myself in a tiny area between stuff on the floor next to a giant computer desk and the guitar. 

EDIT:  I realize that we have a lot of guitars in this place, so this is what I woke up to: 

My Knight figures I subconsciously wanted to play on the computer while being blacked out. 

Our housemate found me.  I woke up to him very gently trying to remove the stuff that had fallen onto my feet, and looking concerned as to whether I had hit my head or broken my leg or anything like that.

Thankfully, I was fine. 

He handed me juice and I climbed into bed. 

At some point, I started texting people about what had happened, because I realized that it was not normal.  


Naturally, my Knight flipped out and wanted to come save me… from… something?

I got an appointment with my doctor and fled with my mother to see what could be wrong.  My Knight met us there. 

My doctor was understandably confused as to why I had a posse with me to talk about my period lasting two weeks, a possible inner ear problem, and hey, lets do blood work for good measure. 

She agreed with all of these points.

What didn't get said, for whatever reason, is that my mother used to faint a lot when she was my age.  My grandmother used to faint too.

THIS RUNS IN THE FAMILY but my mom just like… forgot.  I guess. 

So, hopefully that means it's fine.  My thought is that if no one else ever went to the doctor about it, maybe there is a way to fix it, and even if not, clearly they both lived their lives just fine.

I'm hoping it's not a thyroid issue.  Every lady in my family has one. 

Some hyper, some hypo, but everyone does.  

I've had mine tested a few times already, though it would explain a lot if there was actually something wrong with it now. 

It's also not the worst thing in the world, but since I'm still panicking over taking a new kind of Advil if I ever have a headache, I can't imagine the intense stress that would come from having to take a pill for my thyroid every day. 

Obviously, I would do whatever I need to do…

But come on.  I just want a break, you know?  For a little bit? 
 
It all comes down to the fact that I do freak out inside my head about every single thing ever, so when there is actually something dire going on, I tend to assume that there is no reason to panic. 

I don't trust myself anymore, and so I automatically become MORE chill if something is actually wrong. 

In any case, I was really nervous about getting blood work done.

I have gotten a lot of blood drawn in the past couple of years, but I'm always nervous. 

About everything, really.

The lady was really nice though. 

Plus, she didn't blink an eye when I asked for a sticker after getting my blood drawn. 

She asked the logical question, of course, which was, "Do you have any children?"

The answer is no…  I just wanted stickers.  I responded, "Nope, but I have a boyfriend."

Her perfect response?  "Ah.  Well, that's pretty much the same thing." 

She gave me the prettiest (and probably most adult she had) stickers ever:

 CLOSE UPS:

 Can you tell I'm really excited? 

My Knight and I stopped by my parent's house for some well needed protein, then went off to shop for food.  I got interestingly irritable at some points, like a panic attack wanted to show up but just wouldn't come. 

It was like the emotional equivalent of not wanting to burp, needing to burp, and just having it not happen either way. 

We bought pumpkins!  I still want a slightly larger one, but these are decent sized pumpkins… and the big one I wanted was full of bug holes. 

Worms and bugs have become a thing in my life.  …  I'll get to that in the next post.

In any case, by the time we got back home, I had an hour left of class, but about half an hour to get there.  It just wasn't worth it. 

I sent a few emails back and forth to my teacher.  She asked if I should talk to my advisor about having some time off. 

The fact is that even if this was partly from stress, I'm not willing to take any other years off from school.  I've already been in it too long, and already have started questioning over and over what I'm doing with my life. 

I have to finish.  I'm doing well enough in two out of three of them that I'm not concerned (yet) and I'm half way though. 
 

The trick will be doing well on my presentations, which is what screwed me up a bit in my Wednesday class. 

I still assume I'm not going to fail that class, but that doesn't mean my grade will be particularly stellar either. 

We'll see. 

For now, I'm going to just… Keep going. 

And if it turns out there is something wrong that needs fixing, so be it.