The Advent Bag (TM) has continued to offer up wondrous seasonal wares, from Christmas pajamas to Nativity stickers to a Fair Isle sweater dress.
Though frankly, some people seem to find empty boxes just as thrilling as all those carefully selected goodies.
We're all home for the last two weeks of the year, which means lots of family togetherness and many hours logged in playgrounds to burn off the ya-yas of one mighty energetic child.
This kid is apparently impervious to cold; after a few minutes in the park in the screaming wind, Joe and I are ready to start a brush fire to keep warm and she is racing around, mittenless, only keeping her hood on to humor her fretful parents.
As you can see, nothing truly newsworthy has been going on -- oh, except for the night when Joe called the paramedics because he thought I was having...an episode, I guess is what one would call it.
One evening last week, I started getting a dreaded aura in my vision, the harbinger of a skull-crushing migraine to come. I took some Excedrin Migraine and curled up on the couch, my face pressed into the cushions to block out the light. An hour or so later, I was still seeing flashing, squiggly lights and my head was starting to pound, so I took two Advil and retreated to my prone position.
After Joe got Felicity ready for bed, I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick, so I crawled down the hall to the bathroom. I felt really strange, like my brain was full of fuzz, but my heart was hammering away in my chest and I was sort of panting. I tried to tell Joe what was happening, but I couldn't really get the words out. So of course we both think that I am stroking out on our tile floor, and he calls 911 while Felicity wraps herself around me on the bathroom floor. Even as he was calling them, I started to feel better and could think more clearly, but the dispatcher said they would send an ambulance to check me out anyway.
The EMTs came and did some mumbo jumbo to see if I might be having a stroke, which I was not. My blood pressure was pretty high, especially for me (usually it's just a notch above cadaver level), and at first I was still stammering and having trouble getting words out, but within a few minutes of Lance and his partner arriving and calming me down, I could talk normally. I still felt very weird and of course had a blazing migraine; but they assured me -- with legal caveats that they still recommended I go to the hospital -- that I wasn't having a brain bleed or anything. I declined the ride to the hospital, signed a waiver, and they packed their things up and left. Then I put Felicity to bed and was able to piece myself together enough to eat some dinner and watch TV.
So! That happened. I hope it does not happen again anytime soon.
(I realized after the fact that the Excedrin Migraine has rather a LOT of caffeine in it, and I haven't had caffeine in quite a while so my tolerance is way low. Considering that a decaf latte can give me a serious case of the shakes for HOURS ON END, probably that was part of what made me feel so messed up. Whoops.)
so glad Joe had called the paramedics! So glad I didn't know about this until now ; I think two paramedic events is enough now, thank you ;0
Posted by: terri codlin | December 19, 2011 at 10:41 PM
That sounds scary!! Caffeine doesn't affect me unless it is in Excedrin or some other medication. So weird. But that stuff makes me feel jittery and sometimes dizzy. Glad you are okay! I don't comment often (maybe never? sorry!), but I read all the time. Love your blog! And Felicity is SO adorable :-).
Posted by: Jen | December 20, 2011 at 08:09 AM
Holy cow that's scary! I've only had one headache/migraine in my whole life that scared me enough to require medical attention, and it was just like yours in that it was...off. Weird. I felt completely not right and very different from how I usually feel when I get migraines. What the hell, bodies?! It hasn't happened to me in 3 years so here's hoping it never happens to you again. Blech, scary.
Posted by: Ris | December 20, 2011 at 08:30 AM
That dress is adorable!
I've had that headache and I've had that caffeine-related heart pounding. As if the pain in your head couldn't already feel every single pulsating fiber in your being.
Posted by: Shelly | December 20, 2011 at 09:23 AM
I'm glad that you are feeling better. It's a good thing that Joe called the paramedics, it is always better to be safe than sorry.
LOVE the sweater dress by the way!
Posted by: Elizabeth | December 20, 2011 at 11:05 AM
That sounds awful!! I also don't drink caffeine, so any at all (like the occasional decaf latte) is very noticable for me. I don't take Excedrin for that reason. I hope it doesn't happen to you again!
Posted by: Jesabes | December 20, 2011 at 12:42 PM
GAH that sounds horrific and scary! I'm glad you're okay. I had my own "episode" a few weeks ago - it was the weirdest thing, I just fainted dead away after a few brief moments of increasing sweatiness and general icky-feeling. Very little warning at all. My sister saw it happen and told me later she was convinced I'd had an anyeurism, right there in our front hall.
Posted by: nonsoccermom | December 20, 2011 at 04:31 PM