day of pain

typing with my left hand only today. i just woke up on the bathroom floor.

i smashed the tip of my right ring finger outside while moving some concrete blocks — i must have squashed it between two blocks while setting one down and did something really unpleasant to the nail. it hurt like crazy and the entire fingernail was bright red from underneath. i came inside, ran upstairs to the cat bathroom, rinsed it off; not too much blood. doc thinks the nail has come away from the nail bed, but is still attached at sides and bottom. i swear i saw what looked like an air or water bubble underneath the nail, right in the middle.

it hurt something awful, but i was staying very calm and matter of fact, talking clinically about the pain and what i might have done to the fingernail, trying not to freak doc out too much. i sat on the counter and said “i think i’m going to pass out” because i started getting tunnel vision and the sounds around me began to disappear. usually when that happens, like if i get up too quickly, i sit down and it passes after a few seconds. but today it just kept getting more acute, and suddenly i felt incredibly relaxed and carefree but was still alert enough that i knew i needed to say “i’m passing out” again. he put his arms around me and i felt my legs go slack, and the next thing i knew i felt like i was waking up from an incredibly intricate and pleasant dream. i felt completely rested and in a good mood, but a bit confused because i did not know where i was. after a minute or two i realized i was lying on the bathroom floor which was covered in scattered cat litter, but i had no idea why. i said “where am i? what happened?” and then the finger started hurting again and it came back to me.

doc said that my eyeballs rolled up in the back of my head, but my eyes were still open. he got me to the floor and unfolded me from the weird position i’d landed in. he said i was unconscious for probably 30 seconds. once i came to, i heard this weird rushing buzzing sound all around me, like running bathwater, which apparently was all in my head. it went away after a couple of minutes. leslie says it’s because your blood pressure changes.

as i was still feeling fuzzy in the head and coming out of it, i kept apologizing to doc for scaring him. as if i had any control over it!! it makes me think, though, that i’m glad i wasn’t alone in the house when it happened. i might’ve knocked my head on the tub or something on the way down. but if i knew that i was on my own, would i have had the foresight to sit or lie on the floor at the first sign of feeling lightheaded? probably not. now i know better.

i still don’t know why i fainted. there wasn’t much blood, and the pain wasn’t THAT bad.

doc had a killer cluster about 2:30-4 a.m. and then another fairly bad one about 10:30 a.m. he said he wishes he could pass out like i did and not feel the pain. but he can’t.