By Melik
This is Part II of II. Part I and Part II are on www.tncp.net.
As I was finishing my task another wait person was not watching where she was going, ran into my tray of drinks which caused the water for the hot tea to pour onto my hand and down my arm. I can tell you that 180 degree hot water causes your body and mouth to do some involuntary reactions. I dropped the tray and exclaimed a profound expletive. Without hesitation I left the mess and walked out the back door of the restaurant.
One of my bosses followed me outside and calmly asked what was going on. I said I needed a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in eight years. I managed to get an instant head rush on the Marlboro red. We talked a bit. I felt like I was at a psychiatrist or something. I wondered if I should find a real head doctor to go to. Nope, pass me another red, boss. I was not going to let these people cause me to end up going to a head doctor for the rest of my life. I have plenty of other unresolved issues that I could go for without being a waiter being my root cause. I would rather have lung cancer I guess.
Later that evening I was talking with a friend of mine about all my stress and had a few Newports. They went down a little too easy. Even though I was talking I was not doing a good job of releasing my stress. I had grown accustomed to internalizing everything knowing I had to push through. Years of dealing with one major event after another I knew were finally catching up to me.
I could not put a finger on it but something just did not feel right. There was the restless sleep, money stress, in and out of relationships, house going into foreclosure, trying to figure out how to dress up Ramen noodles for the third or fourth day in a week, and wondering if heat was going to be turned off in a cold Michigan February.
All the while trying to put on airs that everything is okay when that was furthest from the truth. I was becoming a great illusionist. I had no idea that it would almost cost me my life. I am sure those five or six cigarettes did not help either.
Four days later on a Thursday May 17, 2007 I woke to my left eye itching. Around eight in the morn it moved to my cheek and the left side of the top of my head began to tingle. Having had a lot of allergy problems in the past I just thought it may be another sinus infection although it was strange that it was just on one side of my head. An hour or so later I began to feel a tingling in my left arm and my left leg. I was about half way through my day job day and I knew I had to push through so I could wait tables at night.
I figured if I just pushed through, in a couple of more weeks maybe I could take a little vacation. My bills were finally not such a burden. I had finally started to save a little bit of money. That tingling began to get more intensified. It was like that feeling you get when a part of your body “falls asleep”.
Now imagine your eye itching so bad you want to take it out and drop it in a glass of water along with the whole left side of your body starting to feel numb.
Waiting tables that night was no easy task. My mouth felt heavy when I was trying to speak. I could walk but it was more laborsome than normal. One day I will have to tell you about the car accident I was in that forever changed my body. I finally make it through my shift. I try to eat something but every bite I took I tasted nothing but metal. It was all I could do to force the food down because I knew I had to eat something. I make it home and decide the best thing I could do was just go to bed and hopefully everything will be right in the morning. Oh how wrong was I. I tried brushing my teeth which was almost comical if it were not so devastating.
I could not form my mouth to spit the toothpaste out. My mouth would just hang open and the toothpaste would just kind of ooze out of my mouth. I tried several times to do a proper release to no avail. Do you remember that Bill Cosby routine? Well I could not feel the left side of my mouth let alone just my bottom lip and I have plenty of lips to spare. This was beginning to get real scary.
So just like a typical man I decide I will just sleep it off.
May 18, 2007, Friday morning I wake up and the left side of my body I could barely control. The tingling was almost unbearable. And I was scared. I go to work and after a few moments I ask my boss if she knows what side of the body tingles when someone has a heart attack.
She did not know but immediately went into panic mode and wanted to call the ambulance. I said I had to finish up a few things before I made a decision as to what I should do. I called a friend of mine and posed the same heart attack question to her. She said it was the left side. All I could manage to say was uh oh. I finished my task and decided to go home before taking myself to the hospital.
Imagine my surprise when I was given a bed almost immediately and tests were being done with quickness. I had never had an emergency room visit move this quickly. I guess having insurance and telling them upon registration that you think you are having a heart attack gets immediate attention. I was told I was not going to be getting out anytime soon so I made the necessary phone calls and settle in.
Thankfully some friends of mine were able to come through and keep me company. Stuff happens when people think you are dying. I would have laughed at the whole affair if it were not happening to me.
Then Saturday afternoon I was told I had a small brain stem stroke. What the heck was I doing having a stroke. I am not old. I am not overweight. I am not a smoker; I just had five or six in eight years. I do not have high cholesterol. I am not diabetic. I know I am black but I do not eat that much fried chicken. What could have possibly caused me to have a stroke at 38 years of age?
I have my speculation but I will never know. What I was given was a huge reminder that life is not only precious but it is extremely delicate. I truly believe the stress that I was harboring was a major factor in what had happened to me.
I also believe that smoking those cigarettes exasperated my already delicate situation and brought me over the top. I have had many follow up consultations trying to determine why I had a stroke and no scientific conclusions have been made.
When I mention the idea of stress being a factor I am met with speculation from doctors. I assume because there is no real way to test the theory that they do not want to entertain the idea. I however know how I was feeling during that week.
I knew I had to make a choice about my life, however I did not make it soon enough. It was made for me, I am just glad that it was not the final decision. How are you treating your life?
Melik welcomes feedback, comments and suggestions for future commentary ideas. Please contact me at
melik_2001 @ yahoo.com
