Late Night Rescue

Soo I think I freaked a bunch of people, including myself, out last night.

Not on purpose, let me assure you.

I'm not even sure how 'it' happened or 'why' it happened, though there have been theories tossed about.
So perhaps writing it all down would bring something to light to make it clear....clearer.

Yesterday started out normally enough. With work. lol I was slightly sleep deprived, but that's kinda typical with work life.
But after work, is when my routine changed from the 'usual' sort of stuff.
As I dropped by Kikay's to pick her up so that we could drive north for the gem fair that was in town.
ROCKS! Sparkily Objects everywhere!
It was totally a ton of fun, and I spent waaaay too much money.
Yet, I was feeling pretty good near the end of it.
Which meant that I hadn't yet started feeling the usual headache that comes from being in such a crowded place. I mean, there are so many different vibes, auras, personalities are combining together in a mass 'ZING' that sometimes I can't handle it.
I was doing pretty good though.
Yet, we ended up taking longer than expected -or I guess I should say 'wanted' because usually we take too long whenever we're there. But this time, we were expecting to be pretty good as we were both watching the clocks as we both had somewhere we needed to be by a certainish time.

But. We ended up getting distracted at the wrong moment and time slipped by.
Not so bad, only I had friends expecting me to meet up with them at a certain time...and that time had passed us by. :S Oops.
So knowing that I was delaying my friends...is probably would be what started the headache. The tension.....knowing that it was me they were waiting on and nobody else.
We left as soon as we could.
Only to hit rush hour traffic.
So though I assured my friends I'd be like half an hour...
It was like an hour later that I finally met up with them.
They were kind enough though to stick around and actually make room for me in one of their cars so I wouldn't have to find the place myself.
As we were going up to one of my friend's cabins up the canyon in the valley there.
I mean, I would have been fine driving up there myself.
...I kinda wished I had in the end. Cus you know...if you're in charge of driving, you're also in charge of leaving.

Yet, I hadn't been too concerned about carpooling because I thought I was going to be meeting up with a bunch of my Institute Council friends.
Only...when I hopped into the car...I only knew one person there. Everyone else was a complete stranger. O.o Huh?
I knew that the original plan was for Council to meet up and bring their 'significant' others.
But apparently, somehow...that ended up not happening.
So the tension I'd already felt at being in an energetic area (gem show) compounded upon the stress of trying to meet up with my friends as quickly as possible...compounded upon the realization that I only knew one person in the car.
Again, I tried not to be too concerned. I mean, other people were invited. And I would be meeting up with my friends at the cabin. Right?

So, I tried my best to massage my headache away on the drive up, listening to the others in the car.
I wasn't totally comfortable...there was a bit of a disconnect between me and my carmates. That sort of antagonism that can only come from being stuck in a car with three other girls and one cute guy....which meant there was a bit of vying for attention off and on, and me feeling like an intruder.....

Then I heard the magic words. "Food."
I'd been expecting to eat up at the cabin, but again the plan had been changed. We were apparently going to a place called "Burger King." in the city before we reached the cabin. While a surprising change, it wasn't displeasing at all because really....I hadn't eaten much all day. Usually I have snack foods to well...snack on during my breaks at lunch with more 'real' food coming when I got home. However, I hadn't had a chance to eat since my last break at work hours before due to going to the gem fair and having to rush to meet up with my friends. So perhaps my headache would go away if I got some 'real' food into me. So yah, totally looking forward to the eating place.
Where, I met up with two others of my Council...and like twelve other people I didn't know at all.
And most of them...seemed to know the guy I'd ridden up with (as it was his cabin we were going to.)

The food really seemed to help me chase the headache away.
Being at a table with the other two people I knew, was also a benefit to chasing the headache away.

Yet, things got a little tense for me as I realized how far 'up the canyon really meant.'
We passed through the town, into the suburbs, into the mountains with paved roads into further up the mountain with dirt roads, into the point where there was still snow thick upon the ground, to the point where the cars behind us had to go back down the mountain to a church parking lot to wait for my driver to drive us up to his cabin to drop us off so that he could drive back down the roads to pick up the rest of the group and shuttle them up to the cabin.
Yah. Deeeep into the mountain woods.
Which I loved. :) It had like three things I enjoyed.
Mountains (with forest kinda a like not really an enjoyed)
Snow. (Which meant COLD. Love the cold!)
And a fireplace. Totally cool!

Only, I hadn't realized how 'cold' 'up the canyon' would be, so I only had a light 'jacket' on. If it could be called a jacket, It was a button up shirt over a t-shirt....and the cabin was freezing cold.
Not bad because I loved the cold. I promptly sat on a couch to work on getting that spot warm and curled up into a ball to keep my body heat in a condensed area.

What wasn't cool...was that there was limited cell reception up there.
What was a bit disconcerting was that everyone who drove up with me brought stuff to sleep over with.
What was scary was that our ride...didn't come back in the expected time frame.

So our ride was delayed...problems on the road with one of the other cars as it happens. But it brought out the paranoia of 'we're trapped in the middle of nowhere!' out.
The fact that everyone else brought stuff like they were sleeping over made me wonder...had I missed something? Was everyone staying over? I knew it had been an option, but now was it a fact? Because 1. I hadn't brought anything like that with me. And 2. I had work in the morning. Would I be able to get back down on time? If we were stuck up there without a car or if I was stuck up there...would I be able to contact work w/ the spotty reception to let them know I would be late?

Unfortunately....I didn't have much fun at this cabin adventure. I managed to hold conversations with the strangers I'd been left with. -Since the one guy I knew went to pick up the others- but it took me a lot of effort, and when the 'party' showed up and everything got noisy.....

Yah...I ended up just curled up on that couch. Not totally interacting with people as my headache just got more and more pounding. I would have taken meds for it, but the twisty path we took to get to the cabin had left my stomach...unsettled. And I didn't want to risk not keeping it down.

It became a bit of a waiting game for me. As I did confirm that there was a group going back down the mountain at 11pm that night. So I would just try my best to not...well...make a scene I suppose. Wait it out. Wait it out. Wait it out.
Which I managed to do until about 15 mins before time. When I realized...what if they aren't leaving at 11? What if they decide to stay later?
This was added to the new worry of 'would my car get ticketed/booted/towed if I didn't get back to the visitor parking lot where I'd parked to meet up with my friends before a certain point?

So I went up to the ride leader, admitted that I wasn't feeling well.
-The fire had started giving off it's 'smoke' smell and that was making my stomach feel worse.

lol Which totally started off a flurry of "Oh I have this medicine, I have this oil thing that helps with that, let me get you some water that helps!"

I only accepted the last because again the med might not have stayed down, and the smell of the oil might have brought everything up. But the water. So cold and delicious. I liked that.

However, it was a relief to know that I would finally be heading home. I knew it wasn't going to be the most enjoyable ride as it was a twisty mountain road.
And I knew that we were like...an hour away from my car. An hour away from being home and being able to hopefully sleep and get rid of my headache.

The shuttle drive down to my carpool's car wasn't too bad. The roads were as I expected them which meant I wasn't feeling the best. However I wasn't feeling worse.

And then we started the drive down in the other car.
It was somewhere along the drive down the canyon to the town....that I realized my pinkies were tingling.
You know that tingling where your foot's fallen asleep?
It was like that but it was just in my pinkies and the side of the palm below them that were tingling. On both hands.

That couldn't be good. Yet, moving things around I felt totally fine.
-Beyond the headache/nauseous stomach thing.

Of course, having taken anatomy, having a family full of nurses.
I knew something had to be wrong. Was I having a stroke? Was I fainting? Was this something related to my headache or not at all? Was this how it felt like to be paralyzed?

And then it got worse.
My whole hands started tingling. It started going up to my elbows.
My left leg began to experience the same feeling. A tiny bit in my right.
Behind my left eye and the skin next to it...

About that point we stopped at a 7/11 for a pit stop.
I got out, and by the time I came back...nothing had changed.
I thought that getting up and walking about would help. It didn't.

-Yah, totally freaking out my carmates I suppose. As my two friends had never seen me like this, and the two strangers in the car had never met me before. Imagine their thoughts? lol No idea. But I'm sure I made quite the impression on them. If at all. I was kinda just a huddled shadow behind the driver's seat. But it was to the point where I was like "Everything is going numb."
-Only spoken because both my friends were in the 'doctors' sort of field. One tutored/did labs for Anatomy classes. The other had just been accepted to grad school to go become a doctor.

Their answer was...surprising.
I don't know who it was, but somebody asked if I would like a priesthood blessing.
By this point...I realized I was freaking out. Silently. My whole body was shaking like I was going through shock. Trembling like I was cold though my body felt warm. Tears were falling from my eyes because seriously guys...this was one of the scariest things I'd experienced. Tingling all over? Never happened before and I didn't know the cause because seriously, I felt as normal as I could be for being slightly 'sick.'

I accepted the blessing. Oh, I needed it now. That was for sure. It did bring a measure of comfort to me, just knowing that I was in a car with guys who were able to provide such a blessing in an emergency. Having my other friend wrap her arm around me and let me lean on her shoulder for most of the rest of the car drive home. Oh so comforting along with the blessing to help me get through it.
The tingling didn't go away right away though.

Which brought on another worry.
How was I going to get home?
I mean with a headache and an upset stomach...I thought I could have managed my way home.
But with my body going all tingly on me?
I didn't trust myself. I didn't know what would happen next. What if I fainted trying to drive home?
And then there was the problem of 'Hey....it's basically Midnight....who would be up to come to my rescue?"

Kikay? I sent her a text asking her if she was up.
And then a few minutes later...I sent a text to Mirleki who happens to be her roommate, just to be on the safe side.
Luckily Mirleki responded in the affirmative that she was awake.
Which allowed me to make my plea. Could she drop Kikay off at my car so that she could drive me home? Because I wasn't feeling well and didn't think I could make it home myself? And that I was still about 15 minutes away from my car.

Yah...probably the quickest way to freak out my friends. ^^;; Oops.
I'm glad though that they realized that they would need to carpool over to my apartment as well so that Kikay could get a ride back home with them after she dropped me and my car off at my place.

Once I got confirmation that they were able to do that, I called the next person I knew could help me.
My Daddoo.
Since he's a nurse, with a lot more experience then my fellow college aged friends, I figured he could help me.
Ah, it must have been soo difficult to understand me those first few sentences because my voice was soo wavery. But just hearing his voice. Calmly talking to me and asking me questions about my symptoms, helped me to calm down. To stop freaking out.
What we came down with was that I was probably too tense and that if I could stretch out and work on relaxing the tingling should go away, perhaps a hot shower would help with that as well.

After that phone call, even though nothing had changed, I felt a lot better. Because I knew I had friends and family nearby willing to help me.
Even more comforting the people in the car began talking about how they would get me home, if anyone knew where I actually lived, what they could do with my car in the meantime.
Lol it was good to know that they weren't just going to drop me off and say "Good luck!" and leave me there.
I did tell them that I'd already covered that, my sister and friends were coming to drive me home."

Ah the relief.
The relief seeing my rescue party waiting for me besides my car.
I'd made it.
To them, the tension was released a bit from them when they saw that I was able to get out of the car and 'walk in a straight line' by myself. lol.
I hadn't told them how sick I was, just that I was unable to drive. Soo they could have possibly been imagining me curled up in the car unable to move moaning my little heart out.
So to see that I was still mobile. Was good.
Though not good that I chose to get into the back seat of my car so that I could lie down.
But. I was in my car.
Kikay was in there with me. Driving me home.

I didn't stay laying down for long.
It was like just being in that 'familiar' setting finally released the last of the tension.
Within a few minutes the tingling in my limbs had disappeared and just as quickly I was able to sit up in the car. By the time we got to my place, I felt almost normal. Even the headache had managed to fade if not the uncertainty of my stomach.
I was at a point where I knew I would be steady on my feet, but it felt like if I lost my 'will power' over my muscles I could collapse at any moment. But still I walked normally with Kikay up to my apartment where she could make sure I got inside alright before she returned to her roomies.

I ended up taking a nice long hot shower -which probably woke my roomies up....it was late....- and was soon in bed with a heat pack, and after a quick Foray onto Facebook (where Mirleki caught me still up....^^;;) I fell asleep.

And felt basically normal when I woke up.
I still had that 'unsteady feeling' when I stood up on my feet. That thought where I knew I was steady as a rock, but that feeling that the wind could topple me at any moment. But it quickly faded as I got to work and went about the usual Saturday craziness.

Sooo in the end, I'm still not sure why I felt this tingliness.
Was it just being in a tensed up 'balled positions' (I would change positions) for hours?
Was it the lack of good food?
Lack of sleep?
Something related to the headache?
Just over working myself?
Perhaps I was low on Iron?

Still not sure, but I really hope it never ever happens again.

But in any case, I'm soo grateful in the end for all those who came to me in my hour of need. As seriously, I wouldn't know what I would have done without all they did. The blessing, the arm around the shoulder, hearing the calming voice, the willingness to figure out a way to get me home, actually coming to drive me home.....
Was totally heart warming.

Thanks guys. Thank you so much.

Until you next see these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi

The Dream

I was going to a family reunion, for the first time in forever. I felt like the prodigal son who had been away for a long time, but was trying to come back home and live a normal life. Only I kept messing things up. Badly. Ruining things. Three times it happened. And everyone was soo disappointed in me to the point where I threw up my hands into the air and said "Why did I even decide to come back?" To which my little sister -Kikay but younger- said something along the lines of "Because I love being around you. I love you." And the total trust in her voice, the hero worship in her eyes where she saw me as a better person calmed me down.....enough for the family reunion to start discussing what sort of memorabilia we'd be selling that had our family name on it this year to people. And these two guys pulled out cats that were wearing knitted black hats with holes for their ears in them and these light tan cottony bears around their faces. I had no idea why we would ever want to sell that or who would actually want to wear it. Even the cats agreed with me, one quickly finding a way to toss both of the things off her head....

Then the unholy tones of daylight pulled me away....
and I became myself again. :)

-S.N.D