There’s something vaguely relaxing about having so little oxygen floating around your brain that you don’t care about anything anymore, even making polite conversation with the lovely doctor desperately trying to get you to engage with her.
If you know me you’ll know I really am terribly English, and the thought of being rude to someone for no reason is completely abhorrent. N.B. ‘Abhorrent’ is an amazing word and you should definitely use it today.
So why was my brain oxygen-deprived? It all started a week ago when I realised I had a super sore shoulder, from doing all that hardcore yoga recently (ahem…slumping over my computer) so I decided I’d pay someone to have me straddle a chair backwards like all the cool guys do in the movies, then let them dig in to my back with their elbows. Perfect.
Seeing no reason to skimp on this delightful experience, I also decided to let this happen to me for a whopping 45 minutes.
Now, for anyone who’s never fainted before, there’s a good few moments before the actual faint where your body desperately tries to tell you to stick your head between your legs. These are: feeling sick, light-headed, clammy and generally woozy. My body told me all these things. Want to know what I did?
Absolutely nothing.
I stayed with my head cradled in a cushioned horseshoe and told myself I could control it. Deep breaths, I’d be fine.
Cue a wonderful American lady doctor trying to get sense out of me and at least 437 people asking me if I was OK. I would imagine from the sheer number of people asking me if I was OK, that I was, in fact, not.
As soon as I got a bit of sugar-water (definitely the way forward – who needs chocolate when you can just dissolve the sugar in water and down it?!) and had myself man woman and gay man-handled to a sofa and my legs elevated so my ass was completely exposed to passers-by the big glass front of the shop, I felt absolutely fine. Not even a bit embarrassed. Awesome.
Moral of the story: if your body or heart is trying to tell you something, listen. Don’t wait to fall face down in to a cushioned horseshoe and have your ass exposed to strangers, ‘cos your horseshoe might not be cushioned, and you might be wearing your granny-panties that day.