My face made friends with my chair

Isn't it odd, friends, that despite having an exciting, action-packed autoimmune disease, most of my serious hospital ventures in the past 6 or so years have been utterly unrelated? For example, having my lemon-sized cyst removed was by far my most serious procedure to date. Or how about my foot surgery that was the result of breaking my toe during a game of keep-the-balloon-off-the-ground?

Or, just for fun, let's consider last night. It was a nice night, ladies and gentlemen. I wrote several pages of my Chaucer paper (it's going to be nauseatingly long but I'm having so much fun with it) I cleaned my room (which for those of you who have ever SEEN my room is really an impressive feat. No, really. I cleaned it thoroughly), I watched some Blackadder, and then I fell asleep at one in the morning.

Not odd yet.

I woke up at four and realized I'd fallen asleep without really getting ready for bed. I got up, changed into pants that were less sweltering than my sweats, brushed my teeth, started my Harry Potter audiobook (shut up.) and sat on the edge of my bed to take a drink of water.

Somehow that drink of water ruined everything. I am told I must've swallowed it wrong, but instead of coughing and hacking what happened was I had an intense sudden chest pain and felt really dizzy. Next thing I knew, I woke up on the ground with my nose bleeding profusely and my right eye burning. Waking up to pain is one of the most discombobulating experiences ever, and sometimes if it's after surgery it freaks the nurses out if you wake up and cry and then they give you more morphine, which is fun. But in this case I just made a lot of noise before I even figured out where I was, that the wet on my face was blood, and that chest pain and preceded the fall (at first I thought I'd just fallen out of bed in my sleep).

I went to the ER, more because I was terrified than because I thought something was really wrong. I felt okay, not dizzy or anything, but I have never fainted before so I was FREAKED OUT, yo.

Turns out if you go to the ER on a Saturday night NOT drunk off your ass, they don't really know what to do with you, but the doctor was very nice and calmed me down and I was in the ER from 4 til about 8 in the morning. Everything was normal (the ninety-seven tests they did, including an EKG and a CAT scan). The doctor said it was called an "esophageal spasm" which is, I guess, exactly what it sounds like. He said it's not uncommon, though normally it doesn't happen so bad that one would pass out from it. So we're all clear there. Hooray.

Now I am very sleepy, have the rest of my Chaucer paper to write (though may ask for an extension) and my eye is really puffy and bruise-y.

So that was my Saturday night. Raise your hand if you are jealous!