We All Fall Down

The good news is the emergency room was empty at 2 AM Sunday morning. The bad news is I was there.

The last time I slept uninterrupted through the night we were worried whether Y2K would signal the end of the world as we know it and Donald Trump was not yet a four letter word. So, when I awoke at around 1:30 and headed to the bathroom, it was just business as usual. Until it wasn't.

In mid activity, a wave of nausea arrived. I gave immediate thought to possible food poisoning. I made the decision to try to return to bed. Although I fainted, I imagined that I actually heard the sound of my fall, my jaw banging into the edge of the small night stand in the hallway with the lamp on it.

I am told I kept repeating "I lost my wife". I broke into a drenching sweat. I could not stand up. And for several minutes I scared the heck out of my wife and son. Then it seemed to pass. As quickly as it appeared.

A couple of years ago, in the middle of a meal, my wife had gotten up to get a glass of water, heading to the sink and passed out, face first, to the floor. It was then I first learned of vasovagal syncope, a sudden drop in blood pressure causing fainting. An aberration, with many possible causes, not indicative of a significant underlying problem. So it was for her. So, I assumed, it would be for me.

After a little internal debate, it was decided I should go to the hospital to get checked out. That maybe self diagnosis was not the correct way to handle this. And there was the issue of the aching jaw.

Fairfield Hospital is a 25 bed facility located a drive and mid iron from our apartment. If one had to fall down and go boom in the middle of the night, what better time and place to do it.

I received care in the same amount of time as if royalty had walked through the door. Three nurses and a doctor with nothing better to do then to tend to some old guy who just wandered in.

In the end, it was nothing more or less than expected. There was some fancier name attached to this event as related to old men in mid pee in the dark of night, but it seems, apart from a medical degree, our family could have collectively been the doctors on this case. And my jaw, much like my ego, was bruised but not broken.

As we meander through life, from time to time we all fall down. If we are lucky, we get to stand up again. I am lucky.