Friday, January 05, 2007

The One Where I Describe Worrying

Last night, as we were watching ER, I started to notice something wrong with my vision. There was an amoeba-like creature floating in my line of sight, and it moved when I moved, and turned black (but still visible) whenever I blinked. It kept growing, until finally it got so irritating I had to get up and do something else. The kitchen still needed cleaned, so I decided I'd do that. As I began washing the dishes, the amoeba-like creature kept growing, until finally, I really couldn't see the stuff I was washing OFF the dishes. I could see that I was holding a plate, but I couldn't see where exactly I needed to scrub the most.

My immediate reaction was that I was getting a migraine. I've had two or three in my life, all in 10th grade, and the diagnosis of stress-related migraine made sense back then. I hated being 15. Seriously. Anyway, the beginning of them always started with something weird happening with my vision. The problem with what was happening last night was that there was no accompanying headache, but rather the vision kept getting worse and worse.

This was my train of thought as I powered through the dishes that I couldn't see:

"Please let my head start hurting. Please let this be a migraine. Oh my god, what if it's not? What if I'm going blind? Should gina take me to the hospital right now? No, I'm sure I'm not going blind. Let me just go to bed and see how I feel in the morning. But what if I can't see in the morning? What if it's too late for them to fix it? What if I'm really going blind? Oh my GOD, I've never even been to Europe. We'll go to Europe and I won't be able to see anything and gina will have to say, "oh, it's just like the pictures," and I'll remember the pictures but I'll have never seen the REAL THING. I'll never see my children! I won't even know what they look like! I'll lose my job! I can't be a blind producer! Or maybe I could? I mean, the camera guy could let me know if I'm getting what I need to be getting. But then what purpose would I serve? I'd have to go on disability! I couldn't write anymore. What the hell would I do? I'd have to get a guide dog. Oh, that would be cute, though! But wait! I wouldn't even be able to SEE HIM!! Why is this happening? Was it that banana berry sorbet from Trader Joe's? Oh my GOD..."

I finished the dishes and quickly went to the bed. I covered my head with my pillow to block out all light. I couldn't get it dark enough. I asked gina to bring me a vicodin, because if a situation ever called for one, this one was it. She did, and when I took my head out from under the pillow and looked at her, my vision was back to normal, but my head was pounding. I've never been so grateful for a headache in my entire life. And even this morning, as my head is still pounding, I'm so thankful I can see the sunlight coming through the window, and that I was able to catch an episode of Roseanne I've seen about 12 times.

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