Passed Out

Today was my first day back to work in 3 weeks. I thought it would be difficult to get up in the morning after 21 days of sweatpants and unscheduled sleep. Instead, I popped out of bed like it was the first day of school.

Against my better judgment, I left the house with barely a cup of water and some essential meds in my belly. I hadn't had anything in my stomach (henceforth, the "Mini-Fridge") in 12 hours. That's not good.

I figured I could make it to work before needing a protein shake. Hell, I'd lounged around for over an hour before eating on other mornings. Surely this wouldn't affect me.

Oh, it did.

I got on a crowded bus this morning, even though an empty one was right behind it. I wanted to get to work early on my first day, packed bus be damned. I was doing all right for awhile, standing in the aisle, bothered only by the unnecessary closeness of the guy behind me.

Then I got that spotty sparkly feeling that I get just before I pass out. I remember thinking, "Okay, I should probably ask someone for a seat. Nah, I'll just concentrate really hard on not passing out." Instead of concentrating, I ended up having a pleasant dream about singing the song Breathe from the hit musical In the Heights.

I came to, a blurry vision of my purple coat lapels splayed before me, a woman's voice, hands unbuttoning my coat and untying my scarf. A guy said, very sweetly, that I could have his seat. People in the front of the bus told the driver I was awake; the bus had been stopped on the shoulder of Lake Shore Drive, and once my safety was confirmed, he slowly merged back into traffic. "Are you diabetic?" No - just low blood sugar. "Are you okay?" Yeah, I just need to breathe. I breathed, shallow panting. I realized a woman's foot was stuck under my ass, and she was kind enough not to say anything about it or attempt to move it out from under me. After some breathing, I crawled into a seat.

We reached my stop a few minutes later, and the same nice lady that helped me asked me again if I was all right. I told her I was, thanks so much. I was still too shaky to feel embarrassed yet. I hustled the block to my office, and thankfully an empty elevator was open to rocket me to the 25th floor. I went straight to the bathroom and continued to shiver, sweat and shake. By this point, my shirt and sweater was drenched with sweat, and my long hair was soaked through.

It took all my strength to get my phone and call my friend/coworker Lyzz. She saw me come in, and asked me where I was. I told her, and asked if she could bring me some milk. She did, and she brought KH, one of the nurses who works in our office. KH was very nice, asked Lyzz to bring some sugar packets dissolved in a little water. I slowly downed the milk and sugar and began to feel better. KH took my pulse and blood pressure, and after a half hour or so, I felt good enough to get to my desk and deal with emails.

I learned my first post-op lesson: Always eat something FIRST thing in the morning! It's not worth spending the day wondering how many fellow commuters you crashed into on the way down to a dirty bus floor.

So there's that,

Laura