Tuesday, June 10, 2014

May 6, 2014...The day the nightmare started again...

After the first stroke, I worked really hard at eating a lower sodium diet (grocery shopping took forever!!  Good grief everything is packed with sodium...its insane) and "downsizing" my stress level/work level. At least what I considered downsizing.  In retrospect, I didn't really. 

Yes, I did less than I had been doing previously for several months but then I caught myself gradually building the big monster again.  When May 6, 2014 rolled around, I once again had 4 retail locations, was booking shows like crazy (and not small shows either, mind you, multi-day shows out of town), had now started a thing in my business called "Wreath of  the Month Club" that had me making 20+ wreaths for customers each month (which I LOVE), and was back to going to bed between 2am and 4am and getting up between 8am and 9am.  But I had a vision of "rebounding" from those several months off that I had had to take in 2013.  I kept telling myself that "2013 was a fluke, it was a bad year, the number 13 in the year should have told me something"...but no!!   I was too damn stubborn to listen.  Did I mention that the doctors could never conclude what caused the stroke in April of 2013?  Yep...no answers. 

So, on Tuesday, May 6, 2014, when I woke up and went about my business of delivering custom orders to stores, and the usual stopping by a supplier for supplies and such, I had no reason to believe that the fluke would soon hit again.  Why would I think that?  I was doing well, physically...better than I had been doing the year before, in my mind.  That afternoon was the first really hot afternoon of the year.  Temps reached mid-90s and it was a HOT mid-90s...no wind. 

Given the nature of my business, I have a need to have a storage unit for items such as displays for shows, supplies that I've bought in bulk and haven't used all of yet, and those types of things.  When I moved to my current storage facility, I really wanted a 10x20 storage unit, like I had had at my previous location, but there were not any at the time.  So, instead, I had a 10x10 and a 5x10 unit for several months.  However, at the end of April, the manager of the facility had notified me and told me that a 10x20 had come available if I'd like to consolidate and move my two units into one.  Of course I jumped on that opportunity.  So my task for this day was to work on the consolidation. 

I had started moving stuff slowly but surely and after about an hour and a half, I was drenched in sweat (kept telling myself it was a free sauna) and had only put a slight dent, I thought, in the stuff I needed to move.  But I kept working.  Once or twice I thought about going up to the rental office and soaking up some cold a/c but then I talked myself out of it for fear that if I did, I would never get back to work. 

On about my fifty-millionth trip back and forth between the old unit and the new unit, I saw a shelf that I really didn't want anymore and thought that I should take a picture of it and put it on one of facebook's lovely "for sale" sites.  My phone was in my left pocket of my jeans so as I got into position to take a decent pic, I put my hand in my pocket to get my phone out and the next thing I knew, my phone was lying on the concrete floor....shattered.  I stood there, leaning against the metal wall of the unit staring at my precious iphone. 

I was in disbelief.  I had just recently taken the cover off of it and now I had done the unthinkable...I had dropped and shattered what my husband jokingly calls my "security blanket". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I said, out loud, "dammit".  And when I said that, I knew I was in deep trouble.  Not for having broken my phone but because that was NOT what I heard.  I heard the strange garbled words I had heard the year before.  This could NOT be happening again I thought, so I tried again...this time louder and with more force..."DAMMIT, dammit, dammit"...only again, it was not coming out right.  I thought, 'I'm too hot, I just need to cool off...yeah, that is it...I just need to cool off....' so I managed to pick my phone up with my right hand (surprised now looking back that I didn't completely lose my balance and fall over when I bent down to get it off the ground) and stumble, yes stumble, leaning up against the random crap that I had in my storage unit along the way until I got to my van.  I crawled in my van and turned it on, hoping to make use of its usually awesome and quickly cooling air conditioner. 

The cool air was not there...instead it delivered hot, coarse, sticky air...(that's what my skin felt).  My head was killing me...a horrible, insane pain that felt like a hot poker being jabbed into my forehead right above my right eye.  I just wanted to cool off.  I kept thinking if I could only get to my house and lay on my bed under the ceiling fan, I'd be ok.  But then, as I looked up from where I was seated in the driver's seat of my beloved Wag's Mobile my vision was blurry...I knew I was in no shape to drive the mile to my house.  But I had to get there.  I couldn't stay where I was, that much I was sure of. Immediately I tried to figure out how to get home, and the only way I knew to get home was to have somebody take me.  So as best as I could, I called one of my other dear friends that lived within a few miles of the facility. 

When she answered, I asked her to come get me...but since my speech was so weird and garbled and slurred, she thought I was pulling a prank on her.  I had to say several times (and the more that I had to repeat myself, the more scared I was becoming), "please help me, come get me"...because I honestly didn't have the energy to say any other words.  Finally after about the third time, she realized I was not joking around and that I was being very serious and she asked where I was.  I don't recall all of the conversation but I do remember telling her I was "at storage" (which she heard as "at the store")...when she realized that I was saying "storage" she asked where it was...I could not tell her the address...good grief at the time I could not have probably told her MY home address.  But somehow, (God's mighty hand), she and I managed to communicate to each other that I desperately needed her and where I was.  So, she dispatched her off-duty police officer husband to come rescue me.

Now keep in mind, my friend's husband is a very nice looking man to begin with on any normal day, but this day, I thought he was absolutely the best thing I had seen in a bazillion years, granted my vision was super blurry...lol.  I was so grateful to see somebody...anybody...that could help me.  He immediately commandeered my poor broken phone and called my husband, who instructed him to call and ambulance.  I did not want an ambulance!  I wanted to go home and cool off.  (Did I mention that I get a bit belligerent when I'm having a stroke?)  So, once again, firefighters showed up...I remember two short ones and a tall one (dadgummit, how did I miss them AGAIN!) and one of the short ones started putting the lovely sticky pads all over me  that they hook up to some machines and the other one was trying furiously to get a blood pressure reading (he tried 4 times to no avail).  The tall one I remember kept asking me questions...then he wanted me to write on a piece of paper (assuming he couldn't understand my garbled speech either).  Crazy thing is, he had no paper or pen for me to use.  Fortunately, the Wag's Mobile had a bunch of junk in the floorboard and there were both paper and pen available within arm's reach.  I don't really remember what I wrote or much after that other than being wheeled into the back of the ambulance as my husband and dog show up (he had been at work and Shadow had been at daycare and he had stopped to get her in hopes of making me feel better with her).   Lights and Sirens...we were off.  Next stop...Emergency room...so I thought.

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