A Secret Barricuda
By ice rivers
- 222 reads
I've grown used to blood, scales and X rays giving away my secrets but was surprised this time when it was my pulse.
Last week I fainted.
We had been out to dinner witth our friends Ron and Peg. After dinner we gathered at Ron's house for drinks and dessert.
Ron has health concerns that enable him to use medical marijuana. We talked about our weed usage over the years and the difference between medical marijuana and the leaves we used to burn back in the day.
I hadn't smoked any weed in years and never medical weed.
Ron's medical marijuana has a delivery system similar to vaping. He handed me the vaping device and said "give it a try." I gave it a try. Gave it two tires as gthe first try was so mild that no one was sure if anythibg had been delivered. On the second try, I inhaled something for sure but it was very mild.
A few minutes later it was time for dessert.
Our conversation grew more hilarious as suddenly we could see the relationship between the gradual disappearance of nylon stockings with the woman's movement and the increase in erectile dysfunction. We were laughing as one non-sequitur followed another until we finally got to negligees and the distinction between women wearing men's clothes and men wearing women's clothes and what all of this had to do with the stock market which we started calling the stocking market.
As we entered conversation about the "stocking market" I began to feel a little dizzy. I had to get away from the table but I wanted tyo evacuate as unbstrusively as possible. I got up from the table and headed for a chair in the living room at first thinking Jeezuz I'm either drunk or high or both even though I only had two hits of medical and two beers.
Then I realized "Holy Shit...I'm gonna faint."
I barely made it to the chair.
I sat for a minute or two.
I thought maybe I could walk it off so I got up off the chair and headed to a corner of the room where our hosts dispalyed a drawing done by their artistic son. I went over and started looking at the drawing and tried to gather my equilibrium. Ron looked up from the conversation at the dessert and asked me if I was allright.
I remember saying "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just looking at this art work." A couple of seconds later I felt the faint coming on and I said something like "No, I don't think so."
Ron got up from the table just in time to catch me as I tumbled to the ground.
The girls didn't notice and continued non-seqituring at the table.
Next thing I remember is Ron saying "You're all right" and Lynn saying "get him a pillow,"
Apparently the entire episode from me getting up from the table to Ron catching me while i was falling took about ten minutes which means I was out for maybe 10 seconds. If later someone said it was 10 hours, I wouldn't have known the difference.
I got up off the floor and returned to the chair and a few minutes later we were on our way home.
No problem,
Lynnn said "You better tell the doctor about this when you go to your appointment."
I agreed but knew that I wasn't gonna bring it up. I still don't trust the guy and I didn't know what his take was gonna be on the medical marijuana situation. This was gonna stay a secret.
So a couple of days later I was in the doctors office, stonewalling on the fainting episode.
My blood pressure was "normal" and my pulse was 60.
So far so good.
I got my flu shot and the uggh prostate digital exam. The doctor didn't say anything except "I'll see you in six months."
I went down to the next and got my blood work.
On the way out, they gave me my after visit summary. I read it over with the usual uneasiness about my arthritis and prostate cancer history with the subsequent anxiety, depresssion, post-proceduaral erectile dysfunction and insomnia.
What the hell, I'm 75.
Then I got to the last page of the summary which mentioned "detected possible barychidia."
I told Lynn, " My God...the doctor thinks I might have barricuda". How the hell did he know that we were fans of Heart and loved their hit song song Barricuda.
I got home and looked up barychidia and how it is detected.
Barychidia refers to slow heartbeat. 60 beats per minute is the qualifying number although atheletes and older people tend to have slower pulse rates. Well, I was an athlete and I'm now an older person so I figured just more bullshit but I decided to look up barychidia on line. I found out that one of its symptoms'/ warning signs was "fainting".
So, now I've got barricuda along with everything else.
Beautiful.
Squealed on again.
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