Awkward Commas

I’ve been almost sick for almost a week now. It started with huge headaches, which then morphed into possibly feverish tendencies and general complete lack of energy. Somehow none of those were ever together in a strong enough combination to make me need to take more than one dose of medicine in this time.

This morning, my body woke up super early (around 6:30 a.m.). I had only been asleep for around 5 hours so I knew I needed to go back to sleep. However, I started to shiver. I figured the fever was back, so I threw on a hoodie and socks and tried to go right back to sleep. Instead, I was confronted with what as a non-real drug taking individual can only assume are hallucinations. Most of them were auditory. My chest stung.

My usual way to deal with anxiety is counting. I’ll counting from 1 up to 100. Or in reverse. It is a simple task, but one that can distract me from whatever is causing the anxiety. But when there were at least four levels of non-existent sounds (sirens, conversations I couldn’t understand, etc.) blasting through my ears, even a task like that can be impossible.

After a few false starts, I eventually made it all the way up to 100. From what I’ve read/seen in movies about drug-induced hallucinations, reestablishing a base of what is actually reality is a thing. So I did that, and the fact that I could get all the way to 100 made me believe that I was not dying.

I wish there was a better ending to this. After twenty minutes or so, I did fall back asleep. I think my total lack of energy eventually won out. I woke up again roughly four hours later, drenched in sweat, but alive. The sounds were gone. My chest didn’t hurt anymore. If those were hallucinations, I’m pretty sure they were just caused by the fever. I’ve felt better the rest of the day, but that did scare me into taking so OTC medicine.

The only reason I’m still up this late tonight is I’m nervous it could happen again. Like I said, I’m feeling better and I don’t think it will. But in any case, I guess I better start counting.