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The Goldfish in a Jar
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I struggled with low blood pressure my whole life. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I also struggled with tachycardia (too rapid heart rate) my whole life as well. The two issues combined were a recipe for hypovolemic shock. When I went into hypovolemic shock, we called it bottoming out. It was one of the reasons I was admitted to the hospital so frequently. "Any time you know you're bottoming out, that's an automatic 911 call". Dr Oster had told me. I could always tell when I had low blood pressure and a high heart rate and was going into shock. My skin would turn bluish-gray and I would alternate between having chills and hot flashes. The world would start trying to pin me down. Exhaustion would overwhelm me along with a pull towards the darkness of the unconscious. No matter where I was when the low blood pressure hit, I would have to call for an ambulance. If I was at home it wasn't the biggest deal in the world, but if I was in an embarrassing place it was awful. Pretty much anywhere in public fell under the category of an embarrassing place. The more people around, the more embarrassing it was. Sometimes I would need to call an ambulance from art class. Other times I would be at the mall or the park with friends.
My childhood was a rough ride. More of it was spent in the hospital than out. When it came time for college I had barely spent any time in high school, I had no idea what to expect. I was a shoo-in for the office for students with disabilities. Before that, I had never really thought of myself as disabled, despite everything wrong with me. I had an NJ tube coming out of my nose to feed me where I couldn’t feed myself because of my gastroparesis. It went down my throat, past my esophagus, past my stomach, into the middle of my small intestine where it dripped in a tablespoon and a half of formula every hour.
I was in and out the whole ride to the hospital. Vaguely, I remember the EMT in back with me placing an oxygen mask over my face and calling in report. Some parts of the report stuck with me, like when he said I was" alert and oriented". I could barely catch their words because I couldn't stay conscious the whole ride down there. Another part I caught was when he said my heart rate which was around 165 was my baseline. He claimed that my oxygen levels were 95% on room air, but I was on 3 L of oxygen. Then he ended the report by stating that I was well-known to their facility. My medical PTSD began revving up at this point.