Dizzy, my head is spinning...

First things first: if you happened to see a guy pass out at 17th and R this past Sunday morning...that was me. Please write to me at areseven(at)gmail.com so I can not only give you about the biggest Thank You I've ever given anyone, but find out what the hell happened, the most important part being whether or not I had a seizure.

And now the full story, with apologies to the people who've already heard it a million times.

Saturday was a night of heavy drinking, but I don't think that had anything to do with it. I woke up after a short sleep, but I don't think that had anything to do with it, either. I was at home, rehydrated well and felt fine. But I wanted some breakfast, so I grabbed my book and headed off for Teaism.

About a block away from my place, I started feeling really light-headed. I assumed it was a hangover and that food would help, so I kept on. After another block, though, I realized I was in pretty bad shape, so I figured I'd just to the Safeway on 17th and get something to have at home. Somewhere down R street, I remember looking down at my feet and thinking that I needed to concentrate on walking straight, because everything else in the world was spinning around me.

At this point, my arch-enemy Hindsight said to me, "Why don't you just sit down for a minute?" But I had my mission for food and so I kept on.

The next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambulance.

Strike that: I can't really say that it was the next thing I knew, because it was the most disorienting experience of my entire life. I came to strapped to a gurney, feeling like I was being kidnapped in spite of the fact that the two EMTs were very nice. The worst part was that they were asking me questions like, "What year is it?" and I didn't know. I mean: I really couldn't even begin to think of the answer. Not just that I couldn't guess wrong, but that I couldn't even think what format a guess should be in. Four thousand and twenty? A million? The '78 Steelers? Good guesses as far as I was concerned. It was absolutely the most frustrating thing in the world...I just didn't know.

They took me to GW hospital, and by the time they had me at the front desk, taking my information, everything was coming back to me. That was a relief, but it still didn't clear up anything. Why the hell would a guy with absolutely zero health problems suddenly pass out some Sunday morning?

They went backwards, which still makes me think there's something they weren't telling me. I started fully clothed sitting around in the ER, and slowly declined from there: in a gown, back on a gurney, in a whiplash collar (!), and up to my own room in the ICU (!!). Meanwhile, the doctors were taking gallons (it felt like) of blood out of me and conducting just about every possible acronymic test there is on me: EEG, MRI, MRA, EKG, ECG, you name it. I was still waking up dizzy every morning, and am still pretty dizzy as I write this, so I'll keep it short. All the thoughts I've had in the last three days about health care, hospital rooms, and impossibly attractive doctors will have to wait.

I do want to give a huge thanks to the people who came to visit me in spite of my insistence that no one see me/smell me at my worst. I'm really truly blessed with some amazing friends.