It was well past midnight and I was dozing in my (still wonderful blue paisley!) recliner. It was one of the rudest awakenings imaginable. Eyes hardly open in the abruptness of being pulled up hard by a sudden wave of strong nausea. What the blazes?
I sit up and lean forward, trying to breathe my way through.
Stay calm.
In. Out. In.
Don't panic.
Wait for it to pass.
Except suddenly I knew it wasn't going to pass. The situation was completely out of my control. I was going to off-load and fast. The only question was how ugly were things going to get before I was done.
To understand how alarming this was, you have to realize that I have a tendency to pass out whenever I throw up. Vasovagal syncope is the medical term that describes the wonderful process of my heart simply slowing down whenever I toss cookies. Sometimes I only brown out. Most times I go the whole way down. Living alone, you can imagine how exciting this makes my life when I get ill.
Now I might have made a dash for the bathroom, but that was three rooms away. I might have bolted for the kitchen sink just two rooms away. Truth was, I wouldn't have made either. Added bonus too, is the fact that passing out in either room would probably involve falling and injuring myself on any number of hard and unforgiving surfaces. ( I got myself a hell of a black eye from hitting the bathroom counter on the way down last time I went full out.)
Just seconds to act. There on the floor in front of me, was Lucy, fast asleep, curled up in one of the cardboard boxes I leave out for amusement and destruction. It really wasn't a debate. I definitely had the greater need for that box, so I scooped the sleeping Lucy out of the box and rudely tossed her on to the sofa. (She awakened mid-air and, using the inborn magical physics of her kind, landed on her feet, sticking a perfect landing just as I knew she would.) grabbing the box desperately, I dropped onto the bed. If I was going to fall I wanted a soft place to land.
Then I did the inevitable. Wretched nasty retching, sitting on the bed with my head in a box, the evidence before me (which I shall not describe, for which you can thank me later) gave me to realize that it must have been my evening meds, taken on an empty stomach. That will teach me to skip supper.
Not having much to bring up, the episode didn't last too long. Even better, I only browned out for a few seconds. Got shaky and scary briefly, then the waves subsided, my stomach unknotted, and life proceeded.
One of the major disadvantages of living alone is that there's no one to help you through life's little explosive indignities. No one brings you a damp towel to wipe your face or a glass of water to rinse your mouth. You're just there, alone, sitting on the bed shakily recovering from a quite disconcerting episode with a box of sick in front of you that has to be dealt with before the nasty seeps through the sodden cardboard.
Sigh. We do what we have to do, but we don't have to like it.
As I stood up and started shuffling towards the plastic garbage bags in the kitchen and the toothbrush in the bathroom, Lucy watched me impassively from the sofa. Her golden-green eyes held no resentment and no judgment - just a one word question -
"Hair ball?"
She's a cat. She knows these things just happen.
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