This was in my camera, I think it is the story of my day compressed into 10.2 million pixels. Looks familiar.
Prolog: Yesterday started like so many others. There didn't seem to be anything unusual or different at the starting gun. Just another day out of the blocks, in the rat race, and on a very familiar track. The drive into work? Unremarkable. De-caf coffee and sammich at S-Bux predictable. Just a small headache nibbling in the background almost unnoticed until undistracted.
Act One: The first hour of work, productive. The second hour the head started to ache, the hands started to tremble. By eleven it was obvious what was going on. I 'borrowed' three ibuprofen from a coworker knowing full well that it was not going to help much. I could feel the pulse of my enraged heart pounding in my wrists, chest and temples. The trembling hand told me that the jungle beat in my chest was building up a hyper-tension episode like one or two previous episodes I have barely survived. Jenni shows up for lunch and I am in throes of it. I decide to go eat and see if I can calm the raging beast in my chest and quiet the sanitarium of screaming maniacs in my cranium. It was the right call, and the wrong one all at the same time. Eating in a darkened Ikes with a hat on and sunglasses, taking deep slow breaths, and drinking about a half -gallon of water probably brought down the blood pressure a lot. Still I had to wait for the wife. I had to get to the Doctors office for the next act to play out.
Act Two: I'm sitting in exam room 3 (I think) the hat is pulled down, the sunglasses are on, the lights are off, the shade drawn over the window. Nurse Sheryl is wrapping my biceps with a velcro bag, pumping it up and getting a reading. The high end of my blood-pressure is two ticks under 160. (I 'normally' run between 120 and 125). I am doing the long deep breath thing and sitting easily in the chair. Time passes. The Doctor finishes with his scheduled patient, comes in and we discuss my occasional Migraines, the severity and the frequency. He takes another blood pressure reading, down to 154, an improvement, a plan is reached and he steps back out.
Sheryl returns with a needle for my 'hip' Toradol (sic). Loosen pants, slide slide down waist band, cool alcohol on upper buttock (hip) the sting. The injection brings a remarkable sensation. Nettles injected under the flesh, expanding nettles, or is it bee stings, lost of bee stings. I am asked to lay down for a bit in another room just to see if I don't die. Finally Jenni is led back to where I am in stupor. The nurse, Sheryl again says, We have something that belongs to you to Jenni. They laugh, nervous twitch makes my lips work a smile from an insane asylum and I start to sit up. One more blood pressure check, 146 and I'm released to the payment window. I pay in cash, they talk. I'm holding my receipt, and don't realize it. I'm waiting for a receipt I already have. eventually it dawns on me and I'm led squinting into a super-nova sunlight orgasm.
Act Three: I lay down in a very dark bedroom at home, I leave my sunglasses on anyway. It's 2:35 PM.
It's 5:45 PM I take off the glasses, and roll onto my side a pillow under my ribcage, Jenni came in to check on me.
It's 8:28 PM, I'm trying to get my regular glasses out of the case next to the bed. The head is dull and the room is soft-focus in the background watching me. I sit up. I'm better. I'm hungry.
Its 9:16 PM, I've eaten a bowl of cereal I'm back in bed. I turn on AMC, its after midnight Jenni is coming to bed, the TV is off.
It's 5:50 AM first alarm. I'm alive. Awake, and I have a foam rubber head the size of a medicine ball. Everything is dull, reactions, sensations, perceptions. I sleepwalk through the morning routine. I post an update. I post photos and I decide to do a blog, since I have something different to decry.
Epilog: 7:49 AM I'm finishing up the post and going to work, I will see if the sun is as bright as my memory of it yesterday. I am better, but the skin on my head feels like patchwork quilting applied with short staples. I'm better.
Chuck Pace ©2009 
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