According to the doctor, I have what is known as Vasovagal Syncope. According to everything I’ve been able to read on the syndrome it means that I have the tendency to faint. LOL. No Duh!
The doc gave me a long list of circumstances where I could have this happen to me. Out of the HUGE list, I only found 3 that applied so far.
1: Sight of blood – No kidding
2: Holding my breath – I’ve had this happen once
3: Standing up too fast – Really? This has been happening to me my whole life. Stand up too fast, watch my vision cloud, wait a second till it clears, carry on. I’ve always assumed this was normal and happened to everyone. No wonder I’ve gotten some strange looks when I tell people about it.
On Friday, I had scheduled myself to attend First Aid training. When I was getting ready to go, the secretary asked me why I was dallying around. She knew I didn’t want to go, but she didn’t know why. The truth is, I really enjoy the classes, but I hate looking at the gory pictures. It didn’t used to bother me, but it’s been getting worst as I get older. The first time I had to go to and Air Force first aid class was when I’d first gotten to Schriever in 2000. I recall looking at the pictures and feeling nauseous and dizzy and watching my vision go all tunnel on me. I fought hard and didn’t pass out. The next time I had to go I made sure to not look at the pictures. While at Gunter, they didn’t hold any actual training, but instead sent out the briefing over email for us to go over at our leisure. That made it really easy to skip the pictures.
I was determined that I would again do my best to not look at the pictures. What I didn’t know was that the instructor had quite the knack for description as well. Whenever a gory picture came up I’d be sure to stare intently at the instructor as always, but I could still see the pictures out of the corner of my eye. Not quite the Ostrich approach I’d hoped for. And then the instructor would start to describe stuff. Bones scraping, blood oozing, etc. Well, as I started intently at him I again watched my vision go all tunnel…and then I was in happy land. The next thing I knew he was in front of me asking me if I was ok. Apparantly, I’d passed right out. Damn. Oh well, no big deal, let’s get on with the class right? Right? Nope. Instead they called 911 and sent me to the hospital. The instructor apparantly thought I’d had a seizure. WTF? I know he had my best interests in mind, but that seems like quite a leap to me.
At any rate, I had a good time telling jokes to the EMTs, police and the ambulence drivers. Then I got to have an exciting wait for the doctor at the hospital for 90 minutes. Oh the fun. Was anything actually wrong with me? No. The doctor said that it’s quite common to pass out at the sight of blood.
Of course, now I get to face the music back here at work too as more and more people take their pot shots at me. Yay! Go me!
:-\
So I am still enjoying my wonderful home. It’s really all the great. Except I have no internet. I’ve crossed the 6 week boundary now and I’m starting to go a little wonky. I keep wanting to check my email or look up something only to realize that I’d have to drive onto base to do so. I don’t really want to do that unless I have to so I’m stuck feeling frustrated without internet.
I was supposed to get it installed last Thursday, but I had to cancel due to the base war readiness exercise we were conducting. I’d completely forgotten about it when I’d scheduled my install date. I rescheduled for this coming Wednesday only to find out that my boss won’t let me have any time off to meet with the installers since our office is so undermanned this week. I guess I’m going to have to see if they can come in the evening or on the weekend even though I’m never really sure if I’m going to get either of those until they’re in progress.
Grrr. I’m just frustrated is all.
On a positive note, Sharron and I are planning to have her come over to stay with me on or around 1 November. She will be able to stay here until I go home for Christmas when we’ll both go to my parents house before parting at the beginning of the new year (although hopefully not for long if all goes well at the tail end of this year! :-) Wish us luck!
After a long hard day (and week so far) yesterday I got back to my car and was loading my gear into it and somehow decided it’d be a good idea to close the hatchback door with my keys inside. Wow. Now, I was pretty tired, but this was a bone-headed move. :-)
After about an hour and a half of dealing with the security forces they got my door open and I didn’t have to spend $75 on a lock smith. Props to them! :-)
However, a long day/week and then this had put me into a foul funk. I didn’t get home until about 8pm and I needed to be asleep by 9pm so that I could get up (again) today at 0400. I’d been looking forward to watching Smallville all day and I knew I didn’t have time for that, and I also wanted to talk to Sharron but I didn’t have much time for that either. She did end up calling me at about 8:20 and we talked until about 9. Like I said, I was in a foul funk and I definitely took it out on her. F-ing brilliant.
I’m sorry Sharron.
Since Labor Day is a federal holiday, that already gave me a 3 day weekend. Then, the Air Force gave me Friday off. THEN, I took leave on Tuesday. In total? 5 day weekend baby! :-)
What made it really great was that Sharron came to visit me. We have definitely had some strain on our relationship over the last 3 months, and I’m not sure if one awesome weekend together will completely fix all of that, but I am definitely sure that we both realized that when we’re together we’re still as great as we were in Montgomery/Atlanta.
What did we do you ask? Well, as it turns out, not a lot. We had originally planned to go tour a castle, but I decided that with all the jetlag and such that Sharron wouldn’t be happy with a scheduled weekend. I then planned out several short outtings we could take if we wanted to, the shortest of which would be to just walk down to the creek a short ways from my house. In the end, we only did a tour of my base, a quick trip to one of the department stores and had a few dinners out. The rest of the time was just spent together doing usualy pAT and SEM type things. It really was a lot of fun. I can’t even remember when I laughed so hard. :-)
So now we’re looking at having her come over here for a longer visit before Christmas. Perhaps Thanksgiving through Christmas. I’ll keep you posted.
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