The adventure began just over 168 hours ago on a Saturday morning. It was July 16,2016 or 7/16/16 it entertains me when dates do odd patterns. I wasn't feeling all that terrific, nothing major just out of sorts. I was determined that nothing was going to disrupt this day with my hot dog cart, Craig's Pesto Hot Dogs, after all I was doing a quasi-charity event for lunch with the Kettering Medical Center and the House of Bread in Dayton, Ohio. I had done an event with them earlier in the year so I was basically familiar with where the House of Bread was and I had the general lay of the land so to speak.It was going to be an easy lunch hour, Seventy-two hot dogs with pesto and I was good to go.
I was on the road with the cart in tow behind my big ugly '95 green Chevy, I just missed the light to turn onto the interstate, so I sat and as I sat that feeling that I had had earlier that I was feeling out of sorts was coming back over me. My mind wondered just a little as I though was this going to wash out the day, how were the customers going to get food if I didn't arrive? I was still plenty early so being on time wasn't an issue but this 'out of sorts feeling was'. The light changed to green and as I started to go the world or my vision of the world started to circle around my head. This wasn't good, seeing what was spinning I didn't have much choice but to pull off the side of the road, I managed to signal and get off the entrance ramp and stop.
Cars and trucks continued to rush by I sat with my head spinning and when I finally closed my eyes the spinning stopped. What was my next step? I was seeing not double, but not clearly, it was like I was seeing 1and a half of everything. Driving was not going to happen from that point forward. Too many lanes of traffic and too many cars in those lanes. My next step was to call my wife or should I saw attempt to reach my wife on her cell phone. She was likely still at home and watching TV sitting in the family room with her phone tucked safely in her purse in the kitchen. Not far from the TV but the phone wasn't in easy reach either.First call it goes to voice. Leaving a message no need she can't get to her phone every time so I'll wait a minute and attempt again. A couple of minutes pass and my vision stays the same so with this call to my wife I leave a message to call me, I'm sitting on the entrance ramp to S.R.35 with a health issue. Okay nothing so I think well she might have fallen asleep and not hearing her cell phone. I'll call a neighbor and ask them to go and ring the door bell and pound on the door and tell her to call me. Neighbor 1 voice mail, neighbor 2 voice mail, neighbor 3 voice mail, neighbor 4 answers, opps he is Florida, that would be a long reach to knock on our door in Beavercreek.
So with phoning a neighbor not working, I called my physician's office and got the standard recording if this is an emergency hang up and call 9 1 1 if not call the medical society, well if I knew for sure that it was an emergency I would have called 9 1 1 instead of calling the office duh... So it's time to call a friend and thank God that I have a few because finding one at home on a Saturday afternoon is not like in 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' when they know you may or may not be going to call them. Well the first attempt was a busy signal, followed by another futile attempt for Nova. Now the inside of the truck is getting warmer and I am not feeling any better if not I am beginning to feel worse. It is time to call the big number 9 1 1 Here goes Name number location what was my emergency, how will they know it's me? I'm the only green truck with a food cart in tow sitting on the entrance ramp! Seemed like a strange question then and a week later it still seems strange.
Several minutes pass and I continue to 'call home' with no success. The EMT's arrive they get the recounted version without the references to the phone call attempts. Can I walk to the ambulance? I definitively would need spotted I'm not sure that the earth would stay still long enough for me to walk on it's surface. As I am walking I am leaning a little to the right and as I turn toward the left to get to the ambulance door that lean gets accentuated, no true danger of falling so the air conditioning feels nice once I'm in the ambulance. I don't think I realized just how hot the big green was getting just sitting there waiting for the dizziness to subside. First a blood sugar test, not the issue. Then the first on many sets of monitor pads -the heart is still beating, so I suspect that is a good thing. Then the dreaded question, do I want to go to the hospital? I was back to a couple of other issues, leaving my business parked on the side of the on ramp and reaching my wife. Not necessarily in that order, but almost the same. Moments a call from a neighbor, can you beat down the door until Nova answers? Is the car in the garage? I reach my friend Joe, who was just coming out of a deep sleep, seems his morning run of 9 miles had sent him into slumberland in a nice way, when he finally heard my say emergency room he started listening and backed the conversation up to the beginning, Joe the EMT's are taking me to the hospital, the truck and cart are on the entrance ramp to SR 35, I can't reach Nova and I need some help, okay we're on it. A few minutes later Carol's call - the car is in the garage. Still no response from Nova and Joe has arrived so now Carol and Joe are circling the house knocking on windows and doors. Nova had mentioned earlier that she wanted to go out for a walk so Joe goes mobile to look for her.
By now the EMT supervisor is on my scene, no pressure to go to the ER but, I start thinking that I need to make a decision, so I decide to make the trip, the supervisor locks the truck and contacts the local police that they don't tow the truck and cart and we begin the slow trip to the ER. It is actually slow, it seems even slower because not only is my vision still double but I am facing the rear view of the wagon.
Nova wakes up to see Joe leaving the driveway to look for her walking only to think that he was instead the AT&T guy there early for a service call at 4 pm. It is only about 3 pm, but then she starts to realize that I should be home from the House of Bread and she begins to wonder where I am. Had I gone to the House of Bread I should have been done and on my way home by 2:30. So she goes to her purse for her cell phone, which isn't in her purse at all.
Now the ER doctor is telling me that I have had a case of Vertigo, a rather explainable onset experience where my inner ear canal takes on a stone like material that comes to rest on my inner ear hairs and that is the underlying cause of the world spinning around me. Hydration was the emphasis of the day seems like I heard it from the ER doctor as well as the EMT's. Never mind that I drink between 64 and 128 oz of water daily, not an average mind you never less than 64 but at times more than 128.
Soon after the Doc left I had this experience that the bed was falling to the left that the room floor had given way and that I was falling off the side of the bed. It had tilted and I was hanging on for dear life to keep from hitting the floor.
Nova was now back-pedalling as to when she had seen her cell phone, she checked the bedroom charger, then the front seat of the car, there she heard the notification beep. It wasn't between the seat and the consul, she felt under the seat,nothing ...yet she had heard the beep, getting down on her hands and knees with a flashlight, there it was dead center under the passenger seat.
How it got there is only God's guess. It was hidden so as to make certain that she did not get my phone calls which makes the rest of the story worth the wait....
Do you enjoy my story telling style of writing? If you do please consider one or both of my books which are available on Amazon."BECOMING SILAS VOLUME 1 2nd EDITION". It is autobiographical in nature about a young man growing up with a Learning Disability in a time period when the world of education didn't know what a Learning Disability was......It can be purchased at WWW.AMAZON.COM/dp/1549935321
AND "SEVEN CHEAP WAYS TO DEAL WITH STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE" (which is only available digitally) via WWW.AMAZON.COM/DP/B01DQ8I6VC
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