A Brief Meltdown

Parkside
6:51pm

I woke up in a panic face-down on the massage table.  I was sweating profusely and I couldn't breathe very well.  She had already worked her way to my head, behind my ears and onto my skull and I couldn't recall anything before the lower back and ribcage pursuits.

Where my forehead rest on the face cradle, sharp deep pains penetrated my head.  My stomach lurched and I thought Oh god I am going to pass out.

How can you pass out if you were just asleep?

Something was wrong.  I felt intensely ill, hot and uncomfortable, like I'd just puke right there on her feet.  She is such a great person, though, that she'd make it seem like it wasn't at all unusual.  Though I would never ever show my face in there again.  And I'd have to buy her new shoes.

I stayed this way for many minutes, quietly panicking, having a silent freak-out in the still, dim room.  I tried to control my breathing to see if I could make it subside.

I couldn't.  It only grew more intense.

I didn't know how much time had passed.  Was it almost over anyway?  Had it just begun?

Thinking back now, it's actually a little ridiculous how long I waited before I said something.  I am much too polite.

"Um, Missy?  I feel a little faint."

Turns out it was almost over anyway.  And, as I expected, she was awesome and understanding and didn't contribute in any way to my feeling embarrassed.  Because I did feel embarrassed.  I know it's not really a situation to feel embarrassed - afterall, I couldn't help it - but I did anyway.  Must be that very shy part of me.

I rolled over under the sheet onto my back and tried to regain my breath, sweat dripping from my upper lip.  I calmed and steadied my head, my stomach, and stayed there for a few minutes. 

Had I just overheated?  Was I having a hot flash?  It was a warm day, and I did have some heat on my muscles, but I didn't think it was that extreme.

Even after I no longer felt I'd faint, a strangeness remained.  I felt like I'd gone to sleep and awoke in a different time and place.  Like I slept for a hundred years, the whole world changed around me while I slept, and I awoke not knowing where I was or why I was.  Like my life is a dream and I woke up into real life.  On my walk home, the air stirred in the big new leaves on the trees, and something stirred inside me, too.  Something mystical was happening.  It felt like I was floating.

Was it because right then, at that moment, not one muscle in my entire body was aching?  Is that why I felt so strange?  Like my body wasn't mine, and I was feeling the earth and sky through some other means?  Because at any given moment on any given day, I experience some amount of pain or discomfort, and to not feel that was completely foreign?

The strangeness continued the rest of the evening.  I made a salad but I was scattered and disorganized.  I told the Boy a story and got some of the words wrong.  Like, way wrong.  Clouded and mystified and odd.

I woke up alive today, so I'll take that as a good sign.  I can check seizure, stroke, and aneurism off the list.