Warm, Fuzzy Dreams - or - Lab Rat part 1

Everything seemed pleasant. I felt warm and good, nothing like I should as a result of what had happened. I was comfortable and dreaming. Dreaming this dream that I cant even remember, but I know it was good and I have been striving to recapture what I was thinking. I felt this sense of wholeness. I was happy and contently sleeping, or so I thought.

I remember being woken up, "Josh," and I remember slowly opening my eyes and the haze creeping out of me as I sat up. Where am I?

"Why are you waking me up," I asked?

I was comfortable after all. Rather, I was comfortable.

I shook a little bit as I sat up more, drank some water, wiped the chilly sweat off of my brow and put myself to bed.

I then woke up just as if no time had elapsed since I went to bed. I was reset. I called the office and told my boss I wasnt going to be able to come to work. He suggested that I go to the hospital. I thought nothing of it and went back to bed for a little while.

An hour later I woke up again and called my father. I had second thoughts about not going to the hospital, so I at least wanted to talk to my doctor. The next thing I know my father is driving to come get me and Im getting dressed.

It turns out my doctor is in Miami, shooting some photos for his self help/back book. I dont have back problems, so I dont ask.

Instead I am taken to the doctor across the hallway from my doctor. I later find out that in addition to being a regular doctor she is also a dermatologist. That fact really plays no part in this story, but it does explain all the plastic faces sitting in the waiting room.

Amongst these faces I certainly stood out. I was scruffy, to say the least - Ive been growing my facial hair, ya know, just to see what I can grow (not much, by the way. I have nothing on 14 year old Mexican boys). My hair was strewn in each and ever direction, more so than usual, due to my presumably restless yet unmemorable sleep from the night before. I had on my yellow puma sweats with the green stripe down the side, a wife-beater and a brown and orange zippered sweater. I always wear vans, these were brown - they matched my sweater. At the very least something always has to match something else. I did moisturize, as I am accustomed to do, so my skin was soft.

As I filled out the mass of paperwork required to visit a doctor I watched as plastic face after plastic face embarked on their voyage to the back rooms to see my new plastic doctor. After signing away the rights to my skin cells upon my death I too joined the throngs of plastics in the back.

The room was little. The white walls were sparse, but contained the necessary tools one always envisions in a doctor's office - the tool that looks into your soul (ears and eyes), and the bio-waste container. There were aqua-green cabinets on the wall which I assumed contained millions of different samples for plastics to try. I dont need samples. Im not plastic.

Three nurses came in, all at different levels in the nurse-dom. The youngest stepped up to take my blood pressure, which was a bit below normal. The eldest attempted to take some blood. Apparently my veins dont like getting poked, which meant that I had to get re-poked countless times before a success was met. Oddly enough I dont mind needles. The middle nurse was content with watching what the other two extremes were up against. We had a joke, we had a laugh.

All three hooked me up to an EKG machine. They huddled around me, gluing on sticky electrodes that will help measure my heart rate. The machine is switched on for 10 seconds, turned off and the stickies are pulled off of me just as quickly as they were put on.

And like a gust of wind, my new plastic doctor rushed in. "Hi pumpkin!" She was short and thin. Dark from tanning. Plastic and leathery, but not yet to an extreme. Her long black hair was pulled back behind her ears. Her blue eyes might not have been blue. She had on a tight sweater with black, teal and tan horizontal stripes. Her corduroy pants were also teal colored and she had black ankle high boots.

Her age? Hard to decipher, but if her personality and energy were an indication she would be in her teens.

She asked why I was there and after I told her I passed out she told me to recount the story.

"Earlier in the night I got up from my couch and went over to the fridge for some yogurt. I knelt over, reached into the back, grabbed my raspberry and white chocolate Dannon fat free yogurt and stood up quickly. I got dizzy, but stabilized myself by grabbing the counter and the wall. After a few seconds I was fine and I sat back down for a while.

"A few hours later I had to go to the bathroom so I ran up the stairs. As I got to the top I felt dizzy again. I looked at myself in the mirror and I noticed that I was sweating, but at the same time I felt cold. I pee'd and continued to feel dizzy. I grabbed onto the bathroom counter to try to stabilize myself, but only felt myself getting dizzier. I sat down on the toilet, leaned my arm up against the counter and put my head on my hand.

"That's all I remember. Although I was dreaming...."

My new plastic doctor checked my vitals, and put her cold stethoscope on my chest and back. She then sat down next to me and told me that she was sending me to the emergency room.

I was shocked and left without words. She told me that she didnt know what was wrong with me and because of that I needed to be seen by the hospital. "They can get blood results done within hours and have the equipment to rule out heart attacks and strokes. I want them to keep you for at least 48 hours.

I sat in the waiting room as she translated her chicken scratch into something legible for the hospital to discern. 48 hours seemed extreme, but Im not a doctor. I really just wanted to remember what I was dreaming about....