Let Me Tell You About the Time I Passed Out

I started getting that no-so-good feeling on Thursday night. That lightheadedness that's usually a precursor that you might be coming down with something. Little did I know that whatever I caught made me pass out in a pretty scary ordeal for me.

Friday morning I knew I had something. I had a bit of a temperature, but it wasn't too bad. No appetite and feeling pretty dizzy. Nothing I haven't conquered before. We had an appointment at Children's Village that morning and, as my wife is currently suffering from vertigo, I was the one who drove us. Good news was I felt fine when I was sitting down -- it but standing up made the room spin.

While I was sitting there, I started to get that extra saliva buildup. Your body's mechanism of lining the walls of your throat for an impending "exit," if you will. I excused myself, went to the bathroom and locked the door. I dry-heaved once. Then dry-heaved again. Only, the second time I dry-heaved, my legs started to get really wobbly. Like really wobbly.

I was confused as to what was happening to me. I didn't know if it was a seizure, but ruled that out as I seemed pretty aware of my surroundings. Since I was already clutching the disabled railings in the bathroom stall. I tried to straighten myself upright, but that made things even worse.

Finally, I simply let go and let fate decide my crash course to the bathroom floor. As if I were one of those toys strung by strings on a podium and, when you press the base, the strings become slack and the guy flops down. I imagine it probably looked a bit like that.

Between letting go and a little time after hitting the floor is a memory I'll never get back -- I don't remember what happened. I didn't hit my head, but I did scrape my leg on the way down, somehow. Probably from my fingernail.

I can't stress this enough. Thank you, Children's Village, for having impeccably clean bathroom floors!

I probably laid there for a few minutes. It didn't seem like it was that long, but I had the hardest time figuring out where I was. I started to interview myself. Asking my name, where I was from, what my wife and children's names were. I aced all of those. The 'Where am I' question was one I didn't have an answer for as, for a while, I honestly didn't know. It was an unfamiliar bathroom, is all I knew.

I'm a lucid dreamer. That means I can control most of my dreams as needed. To get into a lucid state I do some reality checks to see if it's a dream or not. One of my checks isn't asking where I am, but how I get here. I saw there was a door and wondered to myself what was on the other side of it. That's when I was reminded I was in the middle of an appointment at Children's Village and that this was the bathroom across the hall.

I propped myself up against the wall, breathing deeply to get oxygen back in my system. Succeeded in standing up and found my wife, who was with friends who were eager to help get me water and trail mix to refuel my system.

I did get it checked out. They're ruling it a stomach virus, so I've had nothing but Gatorade and Powerade for the past few days. I am feeling a bit better today, but passing out is something I wouldn't recommend to anyone.