To kick off my new blog, here's a little something from my old blog. You can think of my experience the next time you think you're having a bad day.)
Last Friday, my husband Dan and I found ourselves without two-thirds of our children. Our oldest two were away on an overnight school trip. When you’ve been married a thousand years like we have, and you find yourself with a rare night without most of your children, you start to think about doing things...
One of the things we thought about doing was going out to eat. It would be much cheaper with only the two of us plus our 9-year-old son, Evan, who can still order from the kids’ menu. It had been a frustrating day at work, and I’d gotten home late, so eating out seemed like a great idea.
We decided to go to Outback. The three of us were feeling almost festive as we chatted about our day and took turns buttering those brown loaves of bread with the obscenely large knives that they give you. I always have to resist the urge to tell the waitress that I only want to butter my bread, not stab it into oblivion.
I’d ordered the Wedge Salad which came with two small steak fillets. It tasted especially good since I’d not eaten any lunch that day.
As I was eating, I felt a trickle in my left nostril. Thinking that my nose was running, I asked Dan to hand me my purse so I could get a tissue out of it. Evan looked at me oddly and said, “Your nose isn’t running, Mom. It’s bleeding!”
A bloody nose in Outback? I touched my fingers to my nose and sure enough: they were covered in bright red blood. I could feel the panic start to rise within me. Oh God...my nose is bleeding in Outback. People are trying to eat. I’m trying to eat.
My stomach felt queasy from this realization, but I tried to discreetly pinch the bridge of my nose to stop the bleeding while keeping the tissue below my nostrils to catch any drips. Was it working? Could anyone see me?
The bleeding seemed to be stopping, but I did not feel well. My arms and legs began to feel heavy and odd. I felt a sensation of heat rising from my chest to the top of my head. As the heat rose, my field of vision grew smaller, losing peripheral vision first, and then the remaining vision became pixilated. The panic was now rising within me. I knew I was losing control. There was a loud rumbling sound in my ears, as if a train was behind me.
“I think I’m going to pass out!” I fought this idea a bit before announcing it. Everyone in my family suffers from vasovagal syncope when exposed to certain triggers like blood or medical procedures, so I’m used to them passing out, but I’d always considered myself immune. I’d had three kids for godssake. What on earth could possible skeeve me?
Disbelief aside, I was going to pass out, whether I wanted to or not, and Dan knew it, too. He directed Evan, who’d been sitting next to me, to crawl under the table to the opposite side of the booth in case I needed to lie down. I certainly couldn’t move to let him out let alone lie down.
Dan got up from his side of the table and tried to sit next to me, but I wasn’t able to scootch over and make room for him. I was stuck in my feverish, pixilated world with the train roaring behind me until it all went black.
I had to learn what happened next much later because I had lost consciousness completely. Here’s the story that Dan told me:
When it became inevitable that I was going to pass out, Dan tried to hold my head up so that I wouldn’t hit it on the table. Apparently a human head is quite heavy when it’s not being supported by a conscious body.
As he was busy doing this, my son Evan, distraught at the scary scene of watching his mom pass out, proceeded to throw up all over the table.
At that moment, a waitress came over and casually asked if Dan wanted any more iced tea.
Iced tea? “No thank you; I’ve got bigger problems here. My wife’s passed out and my son has just thrown up.”
The waitress ran off to get a manager.
A man at the table behind us heard the commotion and approached our table to ask if he could pray for me (we live in a bit of a Bible belt area so this isn’t terribly unusual.) Dan said sure; it certainly couldn’t hurt.
He did not expect that the man would stand at our table, arms outstretched toward the Heavens, while praying loudly as if from a church pulpit. If there were any patrons in Outback that night who weren’t aware that we were having problems, the very vocal praying of this man managed to bring them up to speed. Now the entire restaurant became focused on our pitiful little party.
After a minute or two, I started to come back around. Nothing was the same as it had been before I passed out: what had been a raging fever broke into a cold sweat; my face, hair and hands were now dripping wet; all of the dishes and food had been magically cleared from our table; I was surrounded by several wait staff and managers; someone had put a cold wash cloth on my head; and most disturbingly, there was a huge pile of vomit in front of my son Evan.
Surveying this sight was enough to make me want to go back to being unconscious.
My brain started working again, and I was most worried that my son had thrown up on the table. Like a dutiful mom, I wanted to clean it up right away. I asked for some paper towels but the manager kept insisting that they’d take care of it. Someone claiming to be an EMT grabbed my arm and took my pulse but all I could think about was the barf.
I asked again, “Please let me clean that up.” Again, I was denied.
There was talk of ambulances and hospitals, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I was tired and just wanted to go home.
Dan attempted to pay the bill but the manager said that it was on them. (Translation: Just take your disgusting, bleeding, barfing, passing-out family and LEAVE, wouldja? You’re grossing people out while they’re trying to eat!)
Actually, she was very nice, but that’s what I would’ve been thinking if I were her.
I wobbled out of there on my weak legs amid the curious stares of the other customers, but managed to make it across the parking lot to the car while holding on to Dan’s arm.
After we left, we realized that in all of the commotion, we forgot to leave a tip for the waitress. She deserved an especially nice one after all that she had to deal with (barf alone requires extreme generosity. Barf plus blood plus someone passing out? That’s probably worth a trip to Bermuda!)
We plan on going back to Outback to give the waitress her tip just as soon as our extreme levels of mortification subside. We figure this shouldn’t take longer than a year or two.
On second thought, maybe we’ll just mail her the tip.
(previously published at open.salon.com/blog.lisa_kern)
