And It Started So Well
The weather was getting nice again.The apartment search was going smoothly. I woke up early to discover that work had been cancelled for the rest of the week. Well, that last part was of dubious fortune, but things seemed alright. For some reason, I woke up around 7:00 on Tuesday after getting a very small amount of sleep. I wandered around for the morning and generally had a good time. Something about the long weekend caused my boss to give me the week off when I went into work, and I started making plans soon after. I got a call from a friend without a phone, and I tentatively decided to meet him for coffee in the evening. For some reason, my apartment started to seem particularly cold in the later parts of the afternoon, and I decided to lie down under the blanket for a few moments to get a bit of warmth. The next thing I know is darkness. I think that I regained consciousness around 10:00. A slightly panicked sort of consciousness it was. I immediately started running, but I’m still unable to remember the first part of that run for some reason. The pain in my arm was the main clue of the seizure that had taken my evening from me. I still don’t know why those things always seem to affect my left arm so acutely. On the return from this excursion, I began to worry that I’d be unable to sleep, but I managed to get to bed quite easily. Obviously, seizures aren’t the most restful experiences. But they are annoying! Alright. First. These things only happen to me when I lose an extraordinary amount of sleep. That’s why I always try to get a minimum of one hour of sleep per night. It’s just responsible, guy. If my body was desperate enough for a bit of extra unconsciousness to shut itself down without regard for its health or my feelings, it shouldn’t have woken itself up at dawn for no reason. Damn! And I honestly don’t know the exact nature of the relationship between my left arm and these episodes. Perhaps my memory’s being selective, but that limb always seems to play a starring role. I remember the first one. I didn’t even know that it was happening. I was just sitting in a room with my parents, thinking that I was jokingly hurrying the conversation along with the rotations of my arm. Then the arm kept moving. Then I was unconscious. They’re just inconvenient, man. Fortunately, I don’t get these when I’m actually focused on something. Still, that doesn’t seem like any great consolation when you’re interrupted in the middle of a breakfast conversation with your family. In one moment, you’re trying to hear your brother’s words over the din of cartoons and your own munching. In the next, your feet are in your cereal. But I don’t think that I’ve ever known the arm thing to last for such a time. The pain was pretty constant for days, and it’s slightly sore even now. And it totally twisted my mood around too. You know that thing where a physical illness will bring you down somewhat even when your mind’s completely healthy? It’s like that, but these things affect the brain directly too. I’m fighting chemistry now. I’m not saying that I’m inexperienced or ill-equipped to do that. I am the master of my mind, sinners. But it’s still a pain sometimes. Whatever. I’ve been feeling pretty good for the last day, and I should be nearly perfect by my return to work on Tuesday. And I did happen to run into the friend I missed on this Tuesday. He came upon me as I was walking with another dude on Thursday, and he didn’t seem to mind the other day’s inconvenience at all. We made up for that, and he also pointed me in the direction of some new apartment possibilities. Good times. In light of all of this, the luck of my leave seems much less dubious. That’s going on the assumption that this little occurrence would have taken place anyway. I think that this assumption is one with which I shall go. Reset to zero. Feel good. Let’s go.
Bonus Question!
Worst way to get a seizure? I always felt pretty bad for those dudes who got them from cartoons. They'd miss the rest of the episode. That seems like a bit of a pity.