For some reason, a lot of children love to spin until they get dizzy, some even go so far as till they vomit. I used to love it too. Find a sweet office chair, have a friend spin me round and round till the whole world really was revolving around me.
You grow out of that though, or at least, some do. I never really did, and never thought I would…
…Except now I can’t get the world to stop spinning. I’m sober as one can be, but being a fan of spinning to begin with, I knew what to do when I was really disoriented.
Not now though. Y’see, a normal dizzy spell, things spin kinda horizontally, 'cause usually you’re spun up that way. This? It feels like someone strapped me to a gyroscope and flipped it every which way.
One minute things are swaying left and right, the next up and down, the next diagonally, and…Ugh, the fewer moving objects nearby the better, I just saw a bird take off nearby, or…I think it took off? Maybe I stumbled?
It’s not just the world spinning around me this way or that anymore, that I…I could maybe handle. It’s that but it’s also like I see something move and…It’s like a part of me latches on, like I’m moving with it, and with everything else appearing to go every which way it…Egh.
Sorry, it’s…It’s my stomach. It won’t settle with all…All of this.
I can hardly even sleep. To lay…down? It feels like floating in whitewater, thrown back and forth, under and over, and the only, the only positive is that it’s not real whitewater with rocks to slam against…Or maybe, maybe at this point that would be a relief.
Although…Would that even stop it? I can’t even tell how long this has been going…The day slips backwards into night and the night flickers, shorter, longer, the sun at once rising and setting. Is…Where was I?
Spell a, y’see dizzy normal, vertically kinda spin things, that up this usually 'cause way. You’re? Gyroscope strapped which every someone like to feels it me and flipped.
Things minute, swaying next left and…Ugh…
Sorry, it’s…Part of me…Took off…
Mistaken Identity
Working in a hospital, especially around the ICU and emergency rooms, is rarely dull. There are lulls, and you’re honestly thankful as can be in those moments as it means people are generally okay, steadily recovering, and nobody’s been hurt in some new, bizarre way you genuinely didn’t even think was possible.
One day I found myself roped into helping in the ICU, which wasn’t too unusual, the regulars there needed their time away to recover from the high tension of some of the procedures they frequently dealt with. Really, the biggest part that would put me off from helping was the doctors more than anything. We had some good ones, but every time I found myself helping I seemed to get stuck with some of the more obnoxious ones. Either the ones that were never on time or the ones that were extremely particular about minutiae that was rarely even relevant to the patient’s care, like whether your scrubs were wrinkled or not.
Today was gonna be one of those late doctors, it seemed, as we waited a few minutes past when we were supposed to have begun…Until finally the doctor came in, apologizing and going over everything to make sure all was set and we were on track to start.
As we were about to begin, though, I noticed some of my colleagues looking at each other with strange expressions, hesitant…Which really wasn’t like them. Usually they were happy to get on with everything once the doctor arrived, sometimes anxious depending on what was involved but gradually more comfortable as the doctor reassured them.
The doctor, somewhat perturbed, asked again for their instruments, something we’d all missed hearing in our disorientation. Suddenly the doors opened again, and another doctor came in, apologizing for being so late much like the first, but then confused as much as we were.
“Who the hell is this?”
The first “doctor”, realizing they’d been caught, took it in stride and like so many of the worst doctors around simply shrugged and said, “Oh, sorry, wrong patient,” and simply walked out.
With the right doctor on hand, we had to get right to work rather than interrogate them, but later the doctor and the rest of us tried to figure out who could make such a mistake…And none of us could ever figure out just who the hell that “doctor” was that tried to have us do who knows what to a patient.