Yesterday I got to visit the UW Medical Center emergency room for the second time. The first time was for a slice in my face that needed a bit more than a butterfly to prevent a nasty scar. This time was a bit different.

I woke up yesterday morning at like 6:45 and figured it was time to hit the head. While sitting there I realized that I felt like hurling. I got up to get the garbage can and promptly passed out. I woke up a bit later (later determined to be about 10 minutes) and managed to sit back down. Then I went blind. This kind of freaked me out a bit. I've blacked out many a time from standing up too fast or from blunt trauma but this was way different. Normally when I black out it just fades to black either from the edges first or from the center out until I'm gone. This one was pretty much instantaneous, and all I could see was dark red with a black crackly background. For part of the time I was perfectly lucid but just blind. It was bad enough that I had to yell at my roommate to wake him up and have him call 911. After a couple of minutes I could see again and finished my business.

I then went into the living room and collapsed on the floor while fading in and out. The black/red thing wasn't happening. Instead it was fading to grey then back. That's when the fire department medics showed up. They tubed me up with oxygen and had my lay down and explain what happened. During this I kept fading in and out, and it seemed like I was thinking really, really slowly compared to normal. I just couldn't catch my breath. I didn't have any strength and couldn't really stand up either. I also realized that I'd broken out in a severe cold sweat when I'd been passed out earlier en el bano.

Since this whole scenario was a bit of out the norm for me we decided that it would probably be a good idea to ship me off to the emergency room. A couple of minutes later (I think) the paramedics showed up in an ambulance and carted me off. All I was wearing was my boxers so I took minimal clothing and my wallet with me. I don't remember the ambulance much other than explaining again what had happened. I also remember seeing vehicles out the back window and having the weird sensation of not being able to figure out if the ambulance or the vehicles outside were moving.

At the hospital they promptly wired me up to about a billion different things. I had tubes in my nose, wires stuck to my chest, and a clamp thing on my finger for heartrate. Later on I got a bunch more wires all over for an EKG and an IV for added fun. The best part was when they had me try to stand up a couple of times while wired to all of that crap. I was like "I'm stuck" and they just didn't get it. The tubes kept getting trapped between the mattress and the railing.

Another fun thing about the hospital was that I got to explain what had happened like five or ten more times to various doctors and triage people. I wasn't exactly fully lucid so my memory started getting hazy, and I kept forgetting parts of what happened. Even at the best of times my memory is pretty suspect so I'm sure you can imagine the fun I was having.

Interestingly enough the entire time I was laying in this bed in just my boxers. I did have a blanket covering my lower half to keep from freezing my ass off but that's it. I remember thinking it was a good thing I didn't have any qualms about not wearing much in public. I wonder if its common to have the patients almost nekked.

After I'd been there awhile the nurse came and tapped me to siphon some blood for testing. She took four vials, and then I kind of wigged out. I started seriously passing out and couldn't breathe. It was kind of like what happened when I'd got up but it was the normal fade to black blackout rather than the black and red crackle blackout/blindness. I think I was twitching pretty good, and know I was hyperventilating. The nurse dropped the bed so that my head was below the rest of me. I remember not wanting her to do so because I couldn't get my equilibrium and was seriously spinning in a bad way. I pretty much just passed out though other than trying to stop hyperventilating. I do remember the nurse bitching at me to stop breathing so quick and relax. It pretty much took all I had to manage to do that. About when I got control of my breathing is when my memory stops for a decent period of time.

After I came to the nurse hooked me up on an IV and ended up putting two and a bit bags of fluid into me. IVs are kind of weird. The feeling of liquid twenty-plus degrees cooler than body temperature running into you isn't particularly pleasant. I don't recommmend it.

This whole time I was pretty out of it and didn't really have a cognitive sense of time. Around about when the second IV was half-empty I finally came back to myself. I was watching the IV and the ceiling wishing the damned IV would hurry up and finish and that someone would show up. The doctor came by and released me after the second IV was done. Of course the nurse had just hooked me up to a third IV bag so they had to unhook that from me. I'd already pulled all the sticky pads off me and untubed myself.

So what was wrong with me? Well, it wasn't booze or drugs like they asked me about multiple times. I'd had three drinks three days before but nothing since then. There isn't anyone who is more anti-drug than me. I've got enough issues with reality without distorting my perception of it further by taking drugs. My guess is it had something to do with the all you can eat fish I'd had the day before. I'd eaten a ton of different kinds of cooked fish in addition to a small plate of sashimi nigiri. It had all been tasty except for the ika (squid) nigiri which tasted like it was pretty old. The doctors didn't know what was wrong other than saying it was vasovagal syncope (a fainting spell.) I've always been susceptible to blacking out when standing up so they focused on that, and said this was just a more severe episode of it. I don't know that I'm convinced but will take their advice and have a physical next week.

I ended up walking home from the hospital around 10:30. Along the way I met my roommate to get his keys to I could get into the apartment. I'd been incapable of figuring out where mine were when the ambulance had taken me away. I got home and called my buddy Greg to make sure he hadn't gotten sick from the fish too. He was fine. I then went right to bed. I woke up a couple of times but didn't get up until 5:30pm. It's now like 11pm the next day, and I'm still a bit light-headed and weak feeling. I did feel good enough to drive up to the store today at least though. Yesterday, no way could I have possibly driven anywhere.

The suck thing is that this actually happened during my vacation. My plan for Friday was to go for a run, go shopping, buy some CDs and play a ton of videogames. Instead I rode in an ambulance for the first time, visited the emergency room, had an IV for the first time, and pretty much slept the day away. Today was slightly better but I'm too tired and weak to go running or do too much. I've actually been feeling more light-headed and weak for the last couple of months but it seems to be getting worse lately. I'm still having troubles catching my breath all the way too. Hopefully the doctor can figure out what the heck is going on because it is interfering with my training and with stuff like my artwork.