A Bad, Bad Night

Last night was one of those exceptionally bad nights... a bad, bad night...

When Sheila and I headed to the bedroom for the night, I was feeling rather lousy and suspected my health would be crashing before long.  My stomach was upset and gurgling... I was very nauseated holding back vomit... I was a bit dizzy... and I had been flushed all evening.

I should have jumped on taking extra medications and emergency medications right away. I don't know why I didn't... perhaps I was experiencing cognitive problems also so was not thinking clearly. Anyway, I didn't take any extra medications. Before long the dizziness felt more like light-headedness and I definitely need to get to the bathroom as soon as possible.

I was sick as a dog.  At this point, I knew I needed extra emergency medications but now I was stuck in the bathroom, sick, without a glass for water to help down a few emergency pills.  

I knew the first thing I needed was anti-nausea medications. The nausea was now unbearable. I also needed extra H1 blockers and extra H2 blockers and they needed to be much more powerful than my usual, everyday doses.  This would also mean grogginess as a side-effect but I should begin to feel slightly better within an hour or so.

In the meantime, breathing was becoming more difficult and the dizziness was getting worse as well which, in turn, made my nausea worse.  I checked my pulse...  hmmm... I had difficulty finding my pulse...

My pulse was exceptionally weak...  I needed to grab my epinephrine and get some of that in my body as soon as possible.  Fortunately, I knew my health was crashing when I headed to the bathroom so I brought my epinephrine along for the ride.  I also suspected I would be trapped on the toilet for a while.  Unfortunately, because the need for the toilet came on suddenly, I never made it to the kitchen to grab a glass for the other extra emergency medications (H1 blockers, H2 blockers, anti-nausea medication).

After the epinephrine, I managed to find my pulse again...  It was still rather weak and difficult to find, but it was now up around 120-140 beats per minute.  This was good.  This meant that my heart was responding and working to push blood to my brain, lungs and extremities.  Slowly, my pulse felt stronger but stayed elevated.

Eventually, I made it to bed.  I think it was around 3:30-4:00am.  Yet, I was still not ready to lay down without feeling like I would start vomiting.  I didn't need gravity helping that along!  So, I sat up in bed reading a magazine on my Kindle Fire until I just could not keep my eyes open any longer.

The good news is that I awoke this morning and, fortunately, I am feeling fairly 'stable'.  Of course, a term like that is relative.  

I suspect I will sleep most of the day today.  I'm actually starving this morning although quite groggy and fatigued.  Come to think of it, my whole body hurts too...   hmmm... come to think of it, my whole body hurt last night too even before we headed to the bedroom.  Clearly, that was another sign I should have noticed and prompt me to jump on extra medications before my health crashed...

Hmmm... Just another day with Systemic Mastocytosis, I suppose.  Wow, I am tired...

It is clear that today is recovery time...

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