Bad Health for Election Day
This past week wasn't a good one. Election Day was nearly fatal.
A little background. Those who've been reading me for a while know that I'm disabled--primary lower bilateral lymphedema tarda, which is a fancy way of saying that my lymphatic system, which is only half-developed thanks to a defect on Chromosome 5, stopped working in my mid-twenties ("tarda"), that it affects both legs ("lower bilateral") and that it isn't the result of any other illness or operation ("primary'). Because my vision is very bad and because I also have epilepsy (absence seizures--you wouldn't know if I was having one, and neither would I; not ideal behind the wheel of a car), I am pretty much dependent on Dial-A-Ride and cabs to get around. So I naturally made an appointment prior to Tuesday to have DAR take me to the polls and back.
DAR dropped me off at 10:35. I was done voting at 10:38.
The problem with Dial-A-Ride is that their smallest window is one hour. You can't say, "Look, it's only going to take me five minutes, if that. Can't you please wait?" The drivers can't. There are only so many drivers and most of them are double- or even triple-booked for every hour of the day. So I was resigned to waiting.
Then I realized that there was literally nowhere to sit and wait. There were no unoccupied chairs at the polling place, a.k.a. a cafeteria. There were no chairs in the hallways of the school. The classrooms were locked. There wasn't a park bench or even a wall to be found outside. There was nothing. And I needed to sit. By now it had been a half hour and, like the Little Mermaid (the one from Andersen, not Disney's Ariel), I was walking on knives.
I called DAR to see if there was any chance they'd come early. Nope. Projected time of pickup: 11:30.
I managed to stagger back into the school and found a radiator to lean against. By now I was having a hard time breathing and was feeling painfully dizzy. The room was spinning like I was in a gyroscope. So I closed my eyes. I didn't want to throw up.
A man passed me and then said, "Are you all right?"
"No." I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see anything--just a whitish gray, like a static-y TV screen. Then my legs gave way.
He caught me. (Otherwise I would have fallen to the floor and given myself a concussion.) He yelled for help, and someone else got a chair. Then he called 911.
As it turned out, my blood pressure had dropped like a stone. Systolic/distolic pressure is supposed to be 120/80. My systolic was 88. I have no idea what the distolic was. And when the blood pressure dropped, my heart slowed to a dangerous point. It could have stopped.
So it was off to the hospital for me. I didn't mind. I didn't have the strength to stand. I was pretty sure I'd collapse while fumbling for the key to the front door, assuming I could even make it that far.
They gave me five EKGs. They're still not sure what caused the "episode," as the ER doctors called it. I'm not sure whether it was a heart attack or not.
I think I'm angriest at the town. If it had just provided seats to voters (which, in my town, are mostly the elderly, the disabled, or a combo of the two), I'm pretty sure that the episode wouldn't have happened. And since then, I've been feeling weak, drained and exhausted, as if I were running on fumes.
Was this a good week for anybody?
A little background. Those who've been reading me for a while know that I'm disabled--primary lower bilateral lymphedema tarda, which is a fancy way of saying that my lymphatic system, which is only half-developed thanks to a defect on Chromosome 5, stopped working in my mid-twenties ("tarda"), that it affects both legs ("lower bilateral") and that it isn't the result of any other illness or operation ("primary'). Because my vision is very bad and because I also have epilepsy (absence seizures--you wouldn't know if I was having one, and neither would I; not ideal behind the wheel of a car), I am pretty much dependent on Dial-A-Ride and cabs to get around. So I naturally made an appointment prior to Tuesday to have DAR take me to the polls and back.
DAR dropped me off at 10:35. I was done voting at 10:38.
The problem with Dial-A-Ride is that their smallest window is one hour. You can't say, "Look, it's only going to take me five minutes, if that. Can't you please wait?" The drivers can't. There are only so many drivers and most of them are double- or even triple-booked for every hour of the day. So I was resigned to waiting.
Then I realized that there was literally nowhere to sit and wait. There were no unoccupied chairs at the polling place, a.k.a. a cafeteria. There were no chairs in the hallways of the school. The classrooms were locked. There wasn't a park bench or even a wall to be found outside. There was nothing. And I needed to sit. By now it had been a half hour and, like the Little Mermaid (the one from Andersen, not Disney's Ariel), I was walking on knives.
I called DAR to see if there was any chance they'd come early. Nope. Projected time of pickup: 11:30.
I managed to stagger back into the school and found a radiator to lean against. By now I was having a hard time breathing and was feeling painfully dizzy. The room was spinning like I was in a gyroscope. So I closed my eyes. I didn't want to throw up.
A man passed me and then said, "Are you all right?"
"No." I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see anything--just a whitish gray, like a static-y TV screen. Then my legs gave way.
He caught me. (Otherwise I would have fallen to the floor and given myself a concussion.) He yelled for help, and someone else got a chair. Then he called 911.
As it turned out, my blood pressure had dropped like a stone. Systolic/distolic pressure is supposed to be 120/80. My systolic was 88. I have no idea what the distolic was. And when the blood pressure dropped, my heart slowed to a dangerous point. It could have stopped.
So it was off to the hospital for me. I didn't mind. I didn't have the strength to stand. I was pretty sure I'd collapse while fumbling for the key to the front door, assuming I could even make it that far.
They gave me five EKGs. They're still not sure what caused the "episode," as the ER doctors called it. I'm not sure whether it was a heart attack or not.
I think I'm angriest at the town. If it had just provided seats to voters (which, in my town, are mostly the elderly, the disabled, or a combo of the two), I'm pretty sure that the episode wouldn't have happened. And since then, I've been feeling weak, drained and exhausted, as if I were running on fumes.
Was this a good week for anybody?