Our bodies are designed in such a way that it automatically adjusts to a change in environment. When faced with a stressful situation, it's a case of fight or flight. For me, most definitely it was a case of flight. My body somehow seems to possess this great ability to deal with almost any tense situation. It just shuts down. Simple as that. When i wake up, tension gone.
The instances are too many to list out here, but I thought I might entertain by listing out a few that stand out. The earliest memory I have was probably when I was maybe five or six. I was spending summer with my grandparents in Kerala, and since we had always lived out of Kerala, the climate and the environment was harsh on me. I always developed sores or boils on my legs and arms. I remember that I had one huge boil on my forehead. One day my grand mother decided that it was time to get rid of it and she heated some butter and told me to apply warm butter on the boil, so that it would break. I found the idea fascinating and told her that I wanted to see the process. So I held a mirror in front of my face and with one hand took a swipe of warm butter and put it over my boil. Within one minute, the boil parted and an opening appeared as if out of nowhere, and out oozed the puss, like toothpaste out of a tube. I remember my head spinning and before I knew it, I was falling backwards, thankfully on the bed, with the heavy mirror falling on my face. I woke up to see a panicked grandmother doing all she could to revive me. I was fine. I had my first experience with the world of fainting.
When I was in the 7th grade, I needed braces. Before they could be put, I needed to pull out four of my unwanted teeth. This meant four separate trips to the medical college that was far away from home, on working days. The first tooth was all ready to be pulled out. My father took leave from work and rode me to the dentist. As I waited for an empty chair, I couldn't help but notice the dentist work on another extraction. I heard the agonized screams from the patient and I saw the dentist struggle as if he was pulling out a long nail from the wall. I watched and watched and before I knew it, my vision started fading. I forget which way I fell. It didn't matter. I woke up on the dentist's chair, to the hellish smell of smelling salt. The doctor sent me home, and I rode back with a new appointment, and a very pissed off father.
Maybe two years later, I developed viral fever. We tried medication but it never went down, so a trip to the doctors seemed like the best idea. We sat in his room and explained what I was going through. He mentioned that it was only a regular viral fever and nothing to worry about. His words were, "It's just a viral fever. Nothing that a drip and an injection cannot fix". Those two words, injection and drip, struck a bad chord inside me. This time I think I fell face down, on to the doctors table. I woke up in the comfort of my own bed in the hospital. The injection and drips followed soon and i spent two days on that bed.
I could never wake up and jump out of bed immediately. I need at least thirty minutes, lying awake in bed, before I can get up. When I was in 12th grade, there was a time when I was home alone. Our milkman had this sadistic habit of delivering milk at exactly 4:00am. What a nut bag. Anyway, I kept the vessel ready and exactly at four, he was ringing our bell and banging on the door. I wake up and instinctively grab the vessel and head to the door. I take the milk back to the refrigerator and decide to make a pit stop at the loo before I jump back to resume my slumber. I remember peeing and this time I am quite sure that I fell backwards. I hit my head on the sink and it broke and fell over me. The pipe broke and the water fell over my head, speeding up the outflow of blood. Call it a miracle, but someone decided to walk into our house at 4:00am on seeing the lights on. When he heard no answer and saw that the door was open, he walked all the way inside and spotted me lying cuddled to a broken bathroom sink, with blood for company. He rushed me to the hospital. The scar at the back of my head with four stitches reminds me quite clearly of how good I can be at this.
Few incidents in between are too embarrassing to mention, so I shall skip to the last one. This happened a year and a half ago, while I was in USA. I stayed up on a Sunday night, watching a test match on my computer. The game finished around 6:30 am, which would have been 5:00pm in India. Since Monday was training day, I had to be at the counseling center by 8:00am. I got dressed and made it on time. No worries. The meeting started, and I began to feel terribly sleepy and weak. I had no sleep for a long time and I was on an empty tummy. I began to sweat and I thought I would slide my head back wards. Since I was on a chair, I did not fall, but my head had swayed back and I lost consciousness. The room had around thirty counselors and many supervisors. They saw my spectacle and concluded that I was having a seizure. In that quick moment, someone had managed to call 911 and when someone woke me up, all eyes were on me, and what's worse, the paramedics where standing right in front with a stretcher and all the equipment. They carried me out of the room (in style) and did a blood test and some other test. All the while I tried to explain that it was not a seizure. But how could I tell them that it happens always? They tested me and arrived at the conclusion that I was healthy and fine. Of course I was. I knew what had happened. They didn't. It was simple. I had fainted.
The instances are too many to list out here, but I thought I might entertain by listing out a few that stand out. The earliest memory I have was probably when I was maybe five or six. I was spending summer with my grandparents in Kerala, and since we had always lived out of Kerala, the climate and the environment was harsh on me. I always developed sores or boils on my legs and arms. I remember that I had one huge boil on my forehead. One day my grand mother decided that it was time to get rid of it and she heated some butter and told me to apply warm butter on the boil, so that it would break. I found the idea fascinating and told her that I wanted to see the process. So I held a mirror in front of my face and with one hand took a swipe of warm butter and put it over my boil. Within one minute, the boil parted and an opening appeared as if out of nowhere, and out oozed the puss, like toothpaste out of a tube. I remember my head spinning and before I knew it, I was falling backwards, thankfully on the bed, with the heavy mirror falling on my face. I woke up to see a panicked grandmother doing all she could to revive me. I was fine. I had my first experience with the world of fainting.
When I was in the 7th grade, I needed braces. Before they could be put, I needed to pull out four of my unwanted teeth. This meant four separate trips to the medical college that was far away from home, on working days. The first tooth was all ready to be pulled out. My father took leave from work and rode me to the dentist. As I waited for an empty chair, I couldn't help but notice the dentist work on another extraction. I heard the agonized screams from the patient and I saw the dentist struggle as if he was pulling out a long nail from the wall. I watched and watched and before I knew it, my vision started fading. I forget which way I fell. It didn't matter. I woke up on the dentist's chair, to the hellish smell of smelling salt. The doctor sent me home, and I rode back with a new appointment, and a very pissed off father.
Maybe two years later, I developed viral fever. We tried medication but it never went down, so a trip to the doctors seemed like the best idea. We sat in his room and explained what I was going through. He mentioned that it was only a regular viral fever and nothing to worry about. His words were, "It's just a viral fever. Nothing that a drip and an injection cannot fix". Those two words, injection and drip, struck a bad chord inside me. This time I think I fell face down, on to the doctors table. I woke up in the comfort of my own bed in the hospital. The injection and drips followed soon and i spent two days on that bed.
I could never wake up and jump out of bed immediately. I need at least thirty minutes, lying awake in bed, before I can get up. When I was in 12th grade, there was a time when I was home alone. Our milkman had this sadistic habit of delivering milk at exactly 4:00am. What a nut bag. Anyway, I kept the vessel ready and exactly at four, he was ringing our bell and banging on the door. I wake up and instinctively grab the vessel and head to the door. I take the milk back to the refrigerator and decide to make a pit stop at the loo before I jump back to resume my slumber. I remember peeing and this time I am quite sure that I fell backwards. I hit my head on the sink and it broke and fell over me. The pipe broke and the water fell over my head, speeding up the outflow of blood. Call it a miracle, but someone decided to walk into our house at 4:00am on seeing the lights on. When he heard no answer and saw that the door was open, he walked all the way inside and spotted me lying cuddled to a broken bathroom sink, with blood for company. He rushed me to the hospital. The scar at the back of my head with four stitches reminds me quite clearly of how good I can be at this.
Few incidents in between are too embarrassing to mention, so I shall skip to the last one. This happened a year and a half ago, while I was in USA. I stayed up on a Sunday night, watching a test match on my computer. The game finished around 6:30 am, which would have been 5:00pm in India. Since Monday was training day, I had to be at the counseling center by 8:00am. I got dressed and made it on time. No worries. The meeting started, and I began to feel terribly sleepy and weak. I had no sleep for a long time and I was on an empty tummy. I began to sweat and I thought I would slide my head back wards. Since I was on a chair, I did not fall, but my head had swayed back and I lost consciousness. The room had around thirty counselors and many supervisors. They saw my spectacle and concluded that I was having a seizure. In that quick moment, someone had managed to call 911 and when someone woke me up, all eyes were on me, and what's worse, the paramedics where standing right in front with a stretcher and all the equipment. They carried me out of the room (in style) and did a blood test and some other test. All the while I tried to explain that it was not a seizure. But how could I tell them that it happens always? They tested me and arrived at the conclusion that I was healthy and fine. Of course I was. I knew what had happened. They didn't. It was simple. I had fainted.
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