The mystery of "Himmmm"

I passed out on the Green a few weeks ago. It was kind of a perfect storm of terribleness. Things were hurting. Aleve lasts 8-12 hours, but Tylenol wears off after 5-6, so that's when I woke up.



I am allergic to everything that pollinates right now. Medicated for that. Took my multivitamins, too, even though they have iron in them and taking them on an empty stomach makes me queasy. I've never actually thrown one up, so I ignore it.

When I walked out to the kitchen, it was such a disaster I almost cried. I had to cook if I wanted to eat, I had to clean before I cooked, and I was not up to mucking out the Augean Kitchen without having some food first.

A roommate was also stationed there. I like my roommates. I am aware that feeling unwell makes me irrationally cranky. I try not to take it out on anyone else. Throwing her out of the kitchen because I felt bad would have been stupid. My mother used to do that, and I thought it was stupid then, too.

I convinced myself I could justify spending the money to get food when I got into town. It took enough effort to force myself to get up and go that I forgot my water bottle. I opted not to go back for it. Water also exists in Cambridge, and I might not make it out a second time.

The weather was hotter than I thought. I had a coverup anyway, because leotards aren't worn with bras, and that's about 400% more potential staring than I need. The train, inexplicably, was full. I ended up standing up by the window, so I could keep my hoop out of the way. There was nowhere for me to put anything down so I could get my coverup off, so I didn't.

I saw it coming. I got very light-headed, my vision developed video static, I broke out into a cold sweat, and was suddenly incredibly nauseated.

I want the record to reflect that I do not freak out when these things happen. All I thought was 'okay, time to sit down'. I slipped the bag off my arm and did the best I could with a loose hula hoop, and crouched carefully, hanging my head low.

Next thing I know, someone's asking me if I have a seizure disorder (no) and if I'm okay (yes). I told one lady, "As long as it's still Monday and I'm still on the Green Line, I'm fine." The best way to convince anyone with any medical knowledge that you have not just had a seizure is to be A&O times eleventy billion. I could also have told them the date, the approximate time, where I was headed, how glad I was that Obama is still in office for a few more months, and why exactly I was the last remaining holdout who had not downloaded Pokémon GO, if they had asked.

I talked them out of calling EMS. This is not a life skill anyone should need. I am nonetheless very good at it. I readily agreed that I must have "locked my knees", even though I still have no idea what this means. My knees do a number of things that might be interpreted as 'locking'. Many of them make scary crackling noises. Probably none of them are normal.

It helps if you tell people that you and the entire rest of your family have a genetic thing that they have never heard of before. It reassures them that you know what's going on better than they do.

As soon as people stopped fussing, I got right back on the train and went to the studio. Doing things did not hurt appreciably more than not doing things, and I really cannot just stop doing things whenever something breaks.

Life has really just gone downhill from there.

After having to call the Transit PD on a creeper in Park Street on Saturday night, I keep coming undone over nothing. Just panicky and disintegrating. That seems to have been the last straw. I woke up pre-disintegrated three and a half hours before my alarm this morning.

I am trying really fucking hard to not end up in the ER anymore. I tried to see Urgent Care the last time, because that's what that's for: Taking care of problems that should probably be fixed today, but maybe not this very minute. The hospital I tried then turned out to be lying about having a non-emergency clinic on their website, so I tried a different place, which hopefully had updated their page sometime since 2010.

I held it together really well through check-in. The waiting rooms at this one aren't running CNN constantly, which was nice. I did my paperwork and waited and followed the intake nurse calmly back into the maze of exam rooms like a good girl, I realize no doctor wants to hear 'hello, please give me Xanax,' so I try to be as respectable as I can manage when I'm a basket case.

I told her what my immediate problem was. She told me, as nicely as she could, that the clinic there does not handle controlled substances.

Oh, I said.

I don't deal with it very well when I ask for help and don't get it. It is my very last resort. If it doesn't work, I don't have the resources to do anything else. I tell myself that most people want to do something, but can't. Whether this is true or not makes no practical difference. No help is still no help, but this way, I get to keep thinking that people are mostly decent. I figure the intake lady wanted to do something for me, or she wouldn't have suggested Benadryl as a stop-gap anxiolytic. Never had that one happen before. They normally tell me not to do that.

I didn't even get to the part where things hurt. What would they do? The only things they have to offer that aren't just fancier NSAIDs are opiates, which don't work on me at all. When I broke my arm as a kid, they gave me so much pethidine I think my eyeballs were floating in it, and I still almost went into shock when they set the bone. I dunno where you even go from there.

I apologized with as much dignity as I could for wasting their time. I started crying when she left the room to get a pamphlet for me. I've gotten very good at crying quietly, which is another life skill nobody should ever need. When the lady came back, I asked her if I could take one of their little boxes of tissue, as I seemed to be out of them, and if she could please tell me where the nearest ladies' room was.

I came home to have the rest of my breakdown, because where else can I go?

I'd taken a copy of my medical records with me. They come sealed, like transcripts, presumably so you can't tinker with them. This hadn't done me any good, so I opened them up to have a look. Don't ever do this unless you actually want to know what your doctor thinks of you. As I had surmised, the last ER people had not listened to a damn thing I said. I didn't figure the people who took over my care disbelieved me, since the attending doctor once sat down and typed her notes up right in front of me, but apparently they think my dress sense is eccentric. They also, like everyone else, agree that I am probably right about the EDS Type III, but they don't know enough themselves to make it official.

If anyone wanted to know how I am doing, there you have it: Badly. I am now going to go abuse my antihistamines as recommended by someone who has some kind of medical certification, and try to sleep through supper.