It’s about 1:30 in the morning right now, and I’m still not sleeping. Have you ever been just too tired to go to bed? Too tired to do anything at all? That has been me since November. I’m just flat worn out, beyond that even. I’ve heard before of movie stars or rock stars being admitted to the hospital for exhaustion and I would scoff at their weakness. I mean, NOBODY gets so tired they have to go to the hospital. These are just pampered wimps who can’t deal. Right? One of these days, I’ll learn to keep opinions to myself because it seems like I always wind up eating my words.
We all know how hard it is to be a parent, whether you’re a mom or a dad, working in the home or outside the home. It’s the hardest job there is! I never doubted that for a second, but when I became a single mother to three children, with the oldest being only seven, I knew I was in for it. I was keenly aware there would be sacrifices, and while I can’t really say I was up for it, I steeled my nerves, avoided my problems, and chugged along. I was nervous to go back to work after three years home with the kids, but I knew I could do it. And I got a job that I love (at times) but it, too, came with more downsides than I realized. The hours I work are gruesome. Every week is at least 45, often 50, and sometimes even more. My job is certainly not physically demanding, but I work my ass off every day. Working in collections is very stressfull, and it takes a certain person to be able to do it. I’m good at it, and even enjoy it for the most part. And in case you’re wondering, my conscious feels good about it, too. I treat my customers with respect and friendly professionalism.
It all has gotten to be too much, though. Last week, Monday or Tuesday, I can’t remember now, I didn’t sleep well the night before. I got a total of maybe four hours of sleep, and it was broken by bad dreams. It must have been Monday night that I didn’t sleep well. I think. The day doesn’t really matter, I guess. We’ll just say it was so I can stop worrying about it and move on.
Anyway.
Tuesday morning at work I didn’t feel well, but as usual, I ignored it and kept working. By noon, I started getting dizzy. I thought my blood sugar was low, even though I had eaten half a Slim Fast bar for breakfast. I popped a glucose tablet in my mouth and kept working. I was still dizzy fifteen minutes later, so I popped another one. And another in fifteen more minutes. My head felt strange. Disconnected, like I was watching an uninteresting movie through a tunnel. I couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t think at all really. I was still really dizzy, so I told the boss I needed to go get lunch right then, and went across the street to Taco Bell. It was strange, I didn’t feel hungry at all, and I didn’t have the shakes or cold sweat that usually comes with my sugar being low. I brought my food back to the office, worried about wrecking the whole time because I was so dizzy it was hard to drive.
I ate a little in the breakroom, unable to force myself to eat more than a taco and a half. The dizziness still did not leave. I realized it couldn’t have been low blood sugar, but I didn’t know what it could be. Friends on Twitter and Facebook suggested I drink some water, that maybe I was dehydrated. I tried that and still didn’t feel any better. In fact, I began to feel worse. I went back to my desk and told the boss how awful I was feeling. He was concerned, but I brushed him off, saying I would be fine. I tried to focus on my work and couldn’t. It was a strange feeling, like I was spinning round and round. I thought several times that I was going to faint, and had to grab onto the desk to keep myself from falling.
By 4:00, my boss was freaking a little. He insisted on closing the branch and taking me to the hospital. I had held him off for over an hour, but I continued to feel bad, the tunnel vision was getting worse, and the dizziness was almost non-stop. Had the hospital been further away, I still would not have allowed him to take me. So he got me to the emergency room, held my hand while he walked me in to keep me from falling. I shooed him back to the office, and went into Triage. They got me back pretty quickly, considering the number of people waiting. I only waited about fifteen minutes before they got me in the back.
The nurse came in and asked some questions, then the doctor came in and asked the same questions again. Three hours and a cat-nap later, and I was diagnosed with exhaustion and excessive stress. And I feel like an idiot for going to the ER because I was tired.
I’ve tried to take it a little more easy this week, but it’s hard. I didn’t clean at night, and the house was a disaster, which made me feel worse about everything. I was able to rest a little today, though, and got a little cleaning done. I just need to get through this next six day work week, then I’ll be fine. We’ll be back to five days a week again, for the most part. Then I can work on getting rid of some stress.
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She couldn’t find the right place and kept moving the needle around inside my arm.
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She finally found the right place and got just enough blood for the tests.
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My skin is in full stressed, freak the fuck out mode. Even the cirlces under my eyes are bad.
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They left a bored girl with a thing for electronics in a room all by herself. Did they really expect me not to play with it?
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The aftermath
