December 11, 2007

Yellow Toes and Cold Floors

My friend Patrick had knee surgery one summer when I was in high school.  The day of the surgery, another friend and I went to visit him.  The smell of the hospital greeted us and I immediately got nervous.  I hated hospitals, needles, blech.  It all made me feel queasy. 

We got to his room and Patrick was out cold.  We quietly went into his room and stood beside his bed.  He had an IV going into his arm, which made me think about the needle that went into his arm, which made me start feeling sick.  I had never even had blood drawn at this time in my life, so the slightest thing bothered me. 

In an effort to avoid looking at the IV, my eyes moved down his sleeping body to his leg.  It was bandaged and under a thin sheet.  A couple of his toes were sticking out the bottom of the sheet though, and they were yellow.  I knew they were just yellow from the antiseptic they put on before surgery, but that bothered me.  Yellow antiseptic made me think about what they did right after they put that stuff on and that made me even more sick. 

I tried to concentrate on Patrick’s peaceful looking face, but my brain decided to override it and began controlling my eyes, making them look at the IV (NEEDLES!) and then the toes (YELLOW!), the IV (NEEDLES!), the toes (YELLOW!), the IV (NEEDLES!), the toes (YELLOW!). . .

The next thing I knew, my friend was asking me if I was feeling o.k.  I didn’t realize it but I had broken out in a sweat and was feeling extremely hot.  She told me I was very pale.  Then she got very fuzzy looking, like a TV station that has gone out due to a storm. 

My hands reached for the wall behind me, and I slowly slid all the way down until I was sitting on the floor; but that wasn’t good enough.  So I slid down even further and flipped myself onto my stomach and put my cheek on the cold floor.  It felt so good and I started feeling less dizzy.

Meanwhile, my friend was strongly encouraging me to get up off the floor, but all I could say back to her was, "Floor cold.  Floor good."  At that moment, a nurse walked into Patrick’s room to check on him and found me on the floor.  "Oh my God!" she yelled and started yelling for some help, "We’ve got a girl down."  My friend calmed the nurse down and told her that I was really o.k., that I just needed a cold floor.  My friend peeled me off the floor and helped me up.  I took one last fuzzy look at Patrick, IV, yellow toe, and my friend had me out the door. 

When the fresh air greeted me outside, I instantly felt a lot better.  I’m hoping that the two natural childbirths I’ve been through will help counteract those "fuzzy" feelings.  Otherwise, I might just stay passed out until someone washes off what will probably be yellow toes.

***The drawing at The BBM Review is today!  Go see if you’re a winner and check out the other reviews.  We’ve added a new reviewer this week whose first post will be debuting soon!   

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Posted by on December 11, 2007 in ACL Hell, Mental Strain for Mama | 7 Comments

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