Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 March 2006 18:01:47
I fainted.
I was living in Spain and my girlfriend had been to visit and I'd just taken her back to the airport for her flight home. That was on the Sunday afternoon, and some friends who saw me heading back to my apartment said I looked a little bit rough. As indeed I felt. When I got back I just lay on my bed and fell asleep. I was awoken a while later by the door buzzer. As I got up I was slightly puzzled because my clock said it was 9 o'clock and yet it was pitch black. I opened the door to see a friendly neighbour and managed to register that 9 o'clock in the morning was an odd time for him to be calling, before I fainted.
Because Spain is quite hot the apartments are designed to be cool, like having marble floors and stuff. It's always struck me as amazing that the human head can fall six feet onto marble and not be hurt at all. I can't figure out if that's a design feature, or a design fault that when the body decides it can't stand up it just drops like a stone rather than commencing a careful descent procedure at gentle speed, like sitting down.
Anyway, I came round after a few minutes to find that it was 9 o'clock Monday evening; I'd slept for nearly 30 hours, and was unsurprisingly a bit too weak to go doing adventurous things like standing up. My friends were so kind as to call a Uruguayan doctor who spoke a teeny beet of eengleesh which was fun, and they all chastised me for being so silly.
Well now, the worrying thing is that the circumstances at the moment are remarkably similar. I'm in a foreign country surrounded by people I only vaguely know, none of whom are close enough to really be looking out for me. And I've got a nearly lethal dose of man-flu, much as I had then. (It really is a tribute to the male body that it can survive so many near-lethal illnesses and pull through). I'm trying desperately to stay awake long enough to eat now and again, but really I just want to go to bed. Hmmm. Bed. Nice bed. Please can I go to bed?
Fortunately, a friend has just indirectly told me something which has really cheered me up, and given me the will to stay awake/alive a little longer.