Dying Alone Brought to Life
What is your biggest fear in life?
If you are like me, your biggest fear in life is dying alone. It scares me! I mean it really really scares me. I don’t want to go through life alone, but I am seriously afraid that I am going to leave this world on a hospital bed and I don’t want to be there alone when I go. I can’t think of a worse way to die than to die slow lonesome death. It freaks me out! I don’t want to go that way and I think a lot of people probably feel the same.
Recently, that fear was brought to life for me in a new light. I was at home on a lunch break and all the sudden it hit me. I got dizzy and then started getting a headache, before I knew it was out cold. No one was home to help me, no one. My roommate was out of town. My son was at the sitters and I was home alone. When I came too I was laying on the floor. I kept telling myself it was going to be ok. I sat down for a second and got enough focus together to drive to a nearby hospital.
At the hospital, as soon as I walked to through the door I told the lady at the counter that I felt like I was going to pass out and I did. Right there in the main lobby I passed out. I was laid out on a bed and was told to just lay there and be calm. I was coming in and out of consciousness and I had a horrible headache. The doctor came in and said that he was pretty sure what I had was something called Vertigo. He went through some exercises with me where he had me turn my head and he tapped on my ear numerous times and then did the same thing on the other ear. He said that it should work to get something back into place, some sort of ball or something that is in our ears. I didn’t care as long as it got rid of the dizziness and got rid of the headache. After the exercises, he asked if I felt better. I told him everything felt the same as it did before. He ended up giving me some motion sickness pills and having me wait there.
A little while later, he came back and asked how I felt. I told him that the pills had helped some and he gave me a prescription to motion sickness pills and gave me three days off work. I left the hospital that day still with a headache and still dizzy. It was horrible, but I took the doc’s advice and headed on home and took the motion sickness pills as suggested. The only thing they did was make me drowsy and feel sick to my stomach. I ended up having to call the babysitter to come get me, because she really is the only person I knew in the area other than my roommate and she was out of town. It sucked. From the time that I got home until I finally got to sleep that night, I came in and out of consciousness 7 times laying in my bed and ended up running a fever of 102 degrees. I couldn’t get up and get out of bed without tripping on my own two feet or running into something. I felt drunk and sick and tired and I still had a headache. It was horrible…And I didn’t have anyone to help with anything or even be there in case something bad were to happen. Talk about a horrible feeling.
The next morning I woke up and things were even worse. The pain of the headache was ten times worse and I couldn’t keep my eyes open without feeling like I was going to get sick. It felt like I was on a merry go round and I couldn’t get off and I was weaker than I have ever been in my life. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want people that lived half way across the country to worry about me. I reached out to one person, a friend online that I am close with and felt that he could manage to get the info out if something serious were to happen to me. I gave him important people’s information and told him what to do if I got to be too bad. It doesn’t sound too smart, but I didn’t want a lot of people all over to be worried about me. There was nothing that they could do if something were to happen, so why worry them with it?
The next day I called and asked my babysitter to come get me and my son and she was able to do so. All I told her was that I didn’t feel good. Maybe it was irresponsible. I don’t know. I just didn’t want a lot of people worrying about me from thousands of miles away. Once I made it to the hospital, the lady at the counter recognized me and immediately had people come out and help me. I don’t think she wanted a re occurrence of what had happened the day before. As soon as I laid down on the bed, I passed out again. It was happening more often and all that anyone said was “oh you have vertigo”. It made not sense to me. Ok, I have vertigo but why wasn’t what they said would work, working? They gave me more motion sickness pills. This time the I think they just made things work. I felt like I was going to die. The spinning wouldn’t stop! The headache was getting worse by the minute. I hated it!
They finally decided that it would probably be best to put me in an actual hospital bed instead of in the ER. They hooked me up to IVs and gave me a lot of different stuff. I am not really even sure what all they gave me. None of it helped dizziness, but some of it helped the headaches. I laid in that hospital bed for three days and two nights. I would come in and out of consciousness over and over again. No one could figure out what was going on. My body would go from being really cold to overheating in a matter of seconds. The headache would come and go as they gave me medicine and the dizziness would slow down some, but usually the slowing down didn’t last long. I could barely move. I felt so weak.
During those three days I felt all alone. I was so scared that something was seriously wrong with me and I didn’t know what to do. There were times that I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore and I thought I was going to die alone in that hospital bed. When I would pass out, everything would just go blank and then come rushing back to me as I came to. I don’t know how to explain it. When I was conscious, all I could think about was what would happen with my son if I ended up dying there and how horrible it would be to die alone. Not having anyone there to hold my hand through it, made me feel alone in the world. I really felt like I needed someone there with me just in case, but I had no idea who it would have been, so I lay there alone dealing with my thoughts as they came. Trying to give myself as much motivation as I could. I would reach out to my internet friend when I could. He was super worried about me and would have done anything he could to be there, but he couldn’t from where he lives. I expressed my thoughts to him and I am sure that it made him just worry more, but he would just tell me that everything was going to be ok. He did well comforting me from so far away.
I finally ended up feeling a little better. Well enough to go back home. The whole experience left me asking a lot of questions and put me in a position where I have to make decisions that are best for me. I don’t want to die alone. I can’t continue to go through life with out a work life balance. There is no way for me to make meaningful relationships without that balance. Meaningful relationships are extremely important to our mental well being. No one wants to feel alone, and here, in Petaluma, I reached a point of feeling alone. Since moving to Petaluma in October, I have probably had 6 days total off of work. I usually work 12 to 18 hours days. There is no way to make or maintain meaningful relationships, especially in a town like petaluma where there is nothing to do.
It kills me to think that if something serious were to happen and I die in that hospital bed, I would have died alone and accomplished my biggest fear in life. Not something that I want to do. I’m working hard now to make sure that doesn’t happen. I need meaningful relationships with people that are close by. I know now just how important it is.
Blog Junkies,
Don’t let yourself get to where you feel like you have no one in life. It’s not a fun place to be. If you are in that situation right now, please consider making those important decisions that are needed to get out of the situation or at least minimize that situation. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. I would be more than happy to help in whatever way I can.
Thank you for reading the blog. I hope it helps you out in some way or another. If you have comments, please leave them. I respond to all of them. Want to talk to me by some other method? Im on Twitter (@jspikething). Shoot me an e-mail (j_spike_thing@yahoo.com). Or send me a text (707-280-2163). I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Peace out,
J
