I have had many different important events throughout my life but there is one that really taught me something that I will never forget. It happened in 1997 on a Tuesday afternoon. While I was working in downtown Salt Lake at a department store called ZCMI, I started to feel sick suddenly. I was sick from something I couldn’t discern. The symptoms started out with a minor headache while half of my body started going numb. Then my speech began to sound garbled. It got to the point where it was clear to me that something serious was happening to my body and I was beginning to feel sad and very vulnerable.
A co-worker named Penny must have noticed that something was going on with me because I was always full of energy and my speech was clear. She said to me, “We are taking you to the hospital.” As she was speaking I felt my left limbs going numb. At that moment I thought that half of my body was paralyzed forever. Even though I was feeling so sick with all these odd symptoms, I remember saying that I wanted to wait and see if I got better. But Penny didn’t wait; she said once more, “No, there is no time to wait. We just have to go.” So she held me as we walked out to her car and went straight to the Emergency Room at the LDS Hospital in the avenues.
Luckily, the hospital was down the street from where we were worked. As we pulled into the parking lot I was starting to feel sensations in my arms and legs again. However, Penny still escorted me into the Emergency Room. I sat in a room for a few minutes waiting for a doctor to come see me. I can’t recall the doctor’s name to this day but I do remember him saying to me, “Will you take your shoes off so I can see your toenails?” What a silly girl I was when I answered him. I said I did not really want to because my toenails were not polished. However, I finally took my shoes off and my feet looked normal.
Penny asked him if I had had a stroke. The doctor said that he wasn’t sure because he needed more time to run some tests. Then I was sent to a room for a cat-scan. While I was in the room I was asked to take off my jewelry and any metal that I had before I went through the cat-scan. The room for the test had bright lights. During the test going through the cat-scan machine, I had a lot of different thoughts come into my mind. Some of my thoughts were questions, such as, “Am I going to die without finishing that round table of shirts, or the markdowns that I was assigned to do?” I realized that I was so wrapped up in thinking about work that I literately forgot about the urgent situation.
After the five hours passed and all the tests were taken, the results were that I did not have a stroke. The whole process turned out to be no more than a complex- migraine headache. What a scary situation that was! All of this happened because that morning I had taken my birth control pills without enough water and without food. The diagnosis included poor hydration, bad eating habits and the birth control pills.
This event made me realize that I had not taken good care of my health. I had considered a round of shirts more important than food and plenty of water. After this even I decided I would take better care of myself. This included being well hydrated when I took my pills as well as eating healthy foods. In addition, I visited my doctor and changed my birth control pills that I was taking at the time.
This was a very scary event in my life. When my body didn’t function normally due to a complex migraine, I thought I was going to be paralyzed and become a vegetable. At best, I was afraid I would never speak again and perhaps even die. After the experience I thought more about it. I realized from this learning experience that I had to change the way I took care of myself. If I did not change my personal care, I might not be able to Iive my life in the future and accomplish all I wanted to do.
