i've fainted twice in my life. this is the story of the first time.
when i was 10 years old my dad & step-mom took me to california to see disneyland. it was great, of course. but the next day we went to knotts berry farm, which wasn't nearly so great. not only were the rides lame, but it rained the whole frigging day. i promptly caught a cold. i spent the rest of the vacation sniffling and coughing.
that night, back at the hotel room, i remember lying on the rollaway bed, trying to sleep. the room was dark & my parents were already asleep. my nose was running, though, and it was keeping me awake. each time i'd drop off to sleep i'd feel a little trickle of snot running out of my nostril and i'd wake up to dab it with a kleenex. sometimes, if i'd actually managed to sleep for a few whole minutes, i'd wake up suddenly with a gob of gunk in my nose to blow out.
this went on for what seemed like hours. i was getting bleary with lack of sleep and i just couldn't believe my body could produce that much mucous. so i finally sat up, opened my eyes, and looked around at the pile of used kleenex that had amassed beside the bed.
they were all soaked with blood. not snot.
i jumped out of bed and woke my parents, who turned out to be even more freaked out than i was at the sight of all that blood. as dad ran down the hall to the ice machine my step-mom dragged me into the bathroom, sat me down on the toilet seat, tiled my head back and a pressed a cold wet washcloth to the bridge of my nose.
i think it was their middle-of-the-night panic... or maybe the idea of all that blood had finally gotten to me... but i fainted. the world went dark and my step-mom said i just kind of fell over, slumped sideways against the wall with my butt still on the toilet seat. when i woke up, though, i remember i was lying on the floor of the bathroom.
Posted by xta at March 31, 2004 01:57 PM | TrackBack