Last Tuesday I was not feeling well. As the day progressed I experienced some dizziness, and when I got home I discovered that I was also feeling nauseous...I couldn't even manage my afternoon snack! Wow, believe me, it was THAT serious! :-o Somehow I made it through the day...however, the next morning I awoke to something I can only describe as a 'fog in my head'...it was hard to think, let alone concentrate. The nausea was still present & when I got up I still felt dizzy. Not good. I couldn't even face breakfast until a couple of hours later when I forced something down. I was due to teach a couple of lessons but my wife assured me that I should come to the doctors surgery and take it from there...
In view of my bike accident from last week, the doctor was rightly concerned that I might be suffering from some kind of delayed reaction, such as concussion...so, she advised me to go to the main hospital (with Petra, who she excused from work - my own personal nurse to assist me!) to have it checked out.
For the next four hours (4!) I had a blood test, an ECG, a CT-Scan, and 3 X-rays (head, neck & spine) - all of which were interspersed with copious amounts of waiting...I realised, having seen a few episodes of Dr. House, that other than a lumber puncture, I had undergone most of what a 'typical House patient' goes through...I wonder...'Did I have Lupus?' I thought to myself... :-)
Waiting for anything is never a pleasant experience...if you're waiting for something good, well, you just CAN'T wait...can you?? :-) And if you're waiting for something bad? The sooner it's over, the better...Hospitals can be such depressing places to wait...but also inspiring...Realising that there are actually people who are suffering from far worse things than yourself is quite a humbling thing. You begin to 'look out' rather than 'look in'. Perhaps it's not such a bad thing to wait sometimes...
Finally, the doctor called us in & told me that the tests showed that all was well with my head and my brain - no sign of any problems...however, my blood tests did show that my 'natrium levels' were very low. Natrium? What on earth was that? 'Salt', Petra told me. My body was lacking in salt.
The doctor wanted to send me for further tests, but we agreed that 4 hours was enough for one day. In the car on the way to dropping Petra off to a seminar, we discussed the results. The only conclusion was that during the weekend, we had gone to the family cottage to help Maminka & also do some bird watching. I had been mowing the grass in the heat of the day, in direct sunlight (even though my head was covered)...and therefore I must have sweated out a lot of salt...
I got home & inspired by this revelation I took a handful of peanuts...and you know what? I felt surprisingly good later! I also had a surf on the internet for 'natrium deficiency symptoms' and was amazed to find that they corresponded exactly to what I'd been experiencing! It really is wonderful what information you can find on the net these days! :-) It appears that even though I drank a lot of water during the weekend, it still didn't compensate for my sodium/salt loss, which needed a bit more time to be replenished.
As Chief Inspector Clouseau would say: 'The Cas is Sol-ved' :-)
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