Recently I was sitting with some people and all of a sudden the room seemed to get brighter. Then I realized it wasn’t getting brighter so much as everything was beginning to be bathed in a soft glow. A fuzzy, blurry, soft glow. I covered up my left eye and things looked mostly normal. But my left eye seemed to be losing focus. It was happening quickly.
I didn’t say anything to anyone I was with because internally I was terrified. I though my eye’s were failing and I was about to go blind. I started thinking if I knew anyone in my family who had severe eye problems. I couldn’t think of anyone. Then I started thinking about what I could do if I went blind. What kind of job could I get if I can’t see. I was almost finished reading the Amber Spyglass and I would not be able to read the end of it.
I noticed if I kept my left eye closed for longer periods it didn’t seem as bad when I opened it back up. So I became closing that eye for long stretches of time. Slowly it seemed to get better. Then I got nauseous. Then I got super hot. What was going on?
I thought back to my day. I hadn’t eaten anything unusual. Then it struck me. I had cleaned the bathroom floor with some sort of bleach cleaner. I couldn’t remember washing my hands after that. I might have, but I couldn’t remember doing that. And then I ate a sandwich hours later. I smelled my finger tips. My right hand smelled fine, but my left hand had a hint of bleach.
So I got up to go home (still having not mentioned to anyone how sick I felt). There were no open bathrooms where I was, so I headed outside. I felt like I was going to vomit. Out on the street of manhattan people were everywhere. I didn’t want to vomit in front of everyone. It might seem stupid to care about that, but that mental thought kept me from being able to stop and vomit in a street garbage can. So I started walking down side streets looking for privacy.
You might realize this, but its hard to find privacy in New York city. I ended up getting on a subway and going home. On my way to the subway I had to stop every few blocks to steel my stomach. When I got to the subway station I figured I was going to hurl before a train even came, so I walked all the way to the end of the platform which was blissfully empty. But moments after getting to the end people started walking over there. I couldn’t vomit here.
I got on the train preparing to jump off a the next stop. But each time the train stopped I told myself I could ride one more stop. So I did. Soon I was in Astoria. It was only a matter of time before I got to my own stop. So I slowly sipped some water I had with me trying to distract my brain.
I finally got to my stop and began the long walk home. I stopped every few blocks to continue to try and steady my stomach.
I walked in my apartment and Cat was still awake. I told her I felt sick and ran to the bathroom where I hovered over the toilet. But it was too late. I couldn’t vomit. I missed my vomit window.
I didn’t tell Cat what had happened until the next day. I think she would have been too upset to think I had eaten bathroom tile cleaner. I stayed up until 3 am and by then I felt mostly better.
Part of me was worried that I had ingested poisonous material and not gotten it out of my system. But mostly I felt awesome. I felt that I had beaten back the poison by sheer will power. Mind over body.
Truthfully it was probably such a small amount of bleach that I wasn’t in any real danger. But I prefer to imagine I was like the Dread Pirate Roberts drinking iocane powder. Or that I had a healing factor like Wolverine. Or that I ate the 96er like John Candy in the Great Outdoors.
Apr.17.2008 ::
Tags: anecdote, Cat, sick, subway
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