Monday 8 September 2003

Pic of the day: From brightness to darkness in a few steps.

Sudden shadow

It's whining time! I got a nasty surprise today. As late as this morning, I considered how the pain in my right side had faded and been almost gone this weekend. I felt rather optimistic. And I felt pretty good despite having slept less than usual this night.

Then during a meeting at work, I started to feel unwell. In the span of a couple minutes, I went from feeling quite fine to feeling like I was going into shock. My guts hurt all across. I excused myself and ran for the toilet. Shaking with frost and with my heart pounding, I remained locked up there for half an hour or so with bad diarrhea and a burning stomach, although I was unable to throw up despite repeated attempts.

When I once again emerged, my boss took one look at me and excused me. I would have traveled home at once if I could without soiling my pants. As it was I spent a couple more hours mostly napping at my office (yay for office) when not shaking with frost or visiting the bathroom or both of the above. I felt really crappy, as you can guess.

It's not like I had been eating anything suspicious. It's not like I had been drinking. Apart from some lack of sleep, I've been living quite healthily of late. I suspect the drinking water again ... our county has suffered outbreaks of running guts because of gut bacteria in the drinking water a couple years ago ... or is it more? Of course it may have happened before and later too, I don't read the local newspaper so if I don't catch it myself I wouldn't really know. From now on, I intend to boil the drinking water for a while.

I feel so small and helpless when I am sick. I guess I actually am small and helpless, but that doesn't mean I like to feel that way! It also makes me ponder the mysteries of life, death, and whatever comes after death. Faith used to be so much simpler back when I only knew one of them. But I was every bit as scared then when I was sick, if not more so. Perhaps it is something that cannot easily be helped, something that goes very deep, back to my childhood.

***

There is one other thing this time. When I came home I soon was very sleepy, for I had slept little the night before. But as I tried to nap, fearful dreams were waiting for me. Not quite the level of nightmares, but dark and creepy, kinda like the feeling of playing Daggerfall or Morrowind late at night and it's night in the game too and monsters are lurking in the shadows ... OK, I guess you get it now. It is the feeling of knowing that it is not really dangerous but being on the brink of forgetting that. I started to fall asleep but the creepiness drove me back again and again. It was quite unpleasant.

I don't seem to have a fever, which would have explained it. Perhaps it is just an effect on my psyche of having this sudden sickness. The loss of perceived security. Not that I ever was secure. Not that any of us ever is. At least as far as the body is concerned. It is fragile and temporary, although I usually don't spend a lot of time meditating on that.

It is a fact that body and soul are so intertwined that you cannot say where one ends and the other begins. Even so, I will not fight this battle entirely in my soul if it continues to go against me. I have not seen a doctor about the moderate pain through the last month and a half; but if I get repeated attacks of this kind, I shall break that habit. Of course, there may be no connection at all. The future, if any, will show.