Mind over Matter

Thursday night was an interesting one for me.  I was watching the Blue Jays game and at about 8:00, my vision started going blurry.  This has never happened to me previously in my life so it was a bit worrisome.  I rinsed my eyes out to see if that would help but, to no avail.  Jodi was talking to Leslie and they both encouraged me to go to the hospital.  I was a little hesitant as I have not always had a positive experience in prior trips to Groves Memorial.

I was really not feeling well and my whole body was weak.  I was dizzy and felt as though I may just collapse on the floor.  The front of my head was starting to ache and my vision was still not what I am accustomed to.  Jodi actually knew the in-take nurses so they were quite friendly.

The nurse took me to do an eye test on the wall.  I normally have excellent vision and can read every line with no issue.  With my left eye,  I could only read the first four lines.  My right was only one line better.  This was alarming to me as I was wondering what the hell was going on.

Jodi waited with me in the back room.  I really appreciated her being there with me but,  I am sure she was getting annoyed with my attempts to lighten the mood.  As I was lying there in the bed,  I felt extremely drained.  My head ached and I developed a pain on the left side of my chest and some tingly sensations in my left hand.  A variety of things crossed my mind and I just wanted to find out what this was all about.

We waited in the back room for probably an hour and half.  I am not patient when it comes to waiting but,  managed to remain relatively calm.  They transferred me to the main area and I lay in another bed waiting to see the physician.  The nurse hooked me up to an machine to monitor my vitals to be safe and I had some blood taken.  An in-tern finally came in to talk to me.  She was from McMaster and was very pleasant.  I did my best to answer all the questions and she seemed to be as perplexed as I was.  This may because all my tests came back fine and my previous symptoms seemed a mystery.  The in-tern went off to discuss my situation with the doctor on duty.  They came back and the doc asserted that I may have had a vascular migraine.  I do get a lot of headaches so this appeared to make sense.  She wants me to follow up with an optometrist and see Dr Otto to book an MRI just to rule out some things.  I was relieved to hear that diagnosis as some worse case scenarios had been running through my mind.

We got back at midnight and I was ready to instantly fall asleep.  I had phoned my boss, to keep him up to speed.  I e-mailed him when I got home to let him know I would be at work in the morning.  In the past,  I would never have wanted to work after being so physically drained.  I knew it was going to be an extremely long day on Friday but,  I wanted to cut some grass as we were already down a man.

I woke up after hitting snooze a few times and made my way out to Tim's to grab us a coffee.  I made a make shift lunch and headed out the door.  My body was not looking forward to the day ahead but, my mind was steadfast in facing the challenge head on.  It turned out to be an amazing day of grass cutting.  Marcel and I did ten properties,  a few monster ones, and ended up working till quarter to seven. Our boss even helped us at the end of the day which helped us finish all the properties on our grass cutting list.  We are now back on track for our weekly routine as it has been a bit messed up with all the rain we have had lately.  Marcel did an amazing job and we left the properties looking pretty sharp.  I am really proud of myself for pushing through the physical exhaustion from the lack of sleep.  I credit this to staying positive mentally,  not allowing my mind to give in to negative shit which enabled my body to perform the way it should.  Jodi even sent me an e-mail saying how proud she was of me for getting up and going to work.  It may not seem like a big deal but,  for me it was an awesome accomplishment.  It came down to mind over matter and I am so happy the way my Friday turned out.

I realize this was a bit of a novel today,  was important for me to get all this down though.  I hope you are having a good weekend.  Bye for now.  Take care,  Shawn.

Pushing yourself to the limit is a good way to test your character.