Grace off the schedule

Well, it's been a while.

I don't have any particular excuse, except maybe the snow. As I age, I'm becoming more and more reliant on a very scheduled day to maintain my sanity, a quirk I'm sure I'll get over within then next five years or so. So the snow cancels plans, it screws up my daily whiteboard schedule and forces me to lie on the couch and do nothing all day. And by nothing I mean wipe out Isabella and Genghis Khan before 10 AD, build ten different wonders, accidentally build my Palace in some random little ex-Spanish tundra city I forgot to raze, curse Sid Meier to the high heavens, and then get overrun by Mehmed and his 1000000000 cavalry units and die a horrible death. Oh, and then my final score enshrines me in the annals of history right smack dab next to Dan Quayle. Stupid Civilization. Stupid Dan Quayle.

But I have obviously digressed. Basically, if I get off the schedule, all hell breaks loose, although I've been dealing with it a little better recently. I get anxious and grouchy when things do not go according to plan, which is often. Which is also why I don't travel well, because there's no schedule and things like traffic.

And what's one of the ways Grace copes with anxiety? Hint: it's not with alcohol or hott yoga.

Well, one time, when I was in college, I was in the library one day and got cramps. Very bad cramps. VERY bad. And my preferred medications were not working.

I dragged myself over to the health center, literally crying the entire way there. I told the staff nurse that I had very bad cramps and they were not going away. She gave me some meds that wouldn't interfere with what I had already ingested and sent me on my way.

The meds worked, and I was terrified of feeling things like pain, so I just kept popping those pills all day long and all night long. I don't remember how many I took, I just remember that I didn't hurt for the rest of the day, and that was totally awesome. I went to bed as happy as a clam.

I woke up around three in the morning with my heart racing and sweat pouring down my face. Something was obviously quite wrong. I'm strangely very calm in emergency situations, it's just the whole I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom-and-there's-a-line type that sends me over the edge. Thankfully, I did have (crappy) college health insurance at the time, so I called the ambulance on myself. I read a lot of medical encyclopedias growing up (this was in the 90s and pre-MedlinePlus), so I was not taking any chances with a possible heart attack.

So after they carted me off to the hospital and I was stuck in bed doing nothing but thinking about cardiac arrests, my anxiety started going through the roof. What was the matter with me? Would I die? Would this be my last night on earth? Could I get someone to bring in my homework for my 7:55 AM class pre-coma?

I was trembling, I was sweating, I was a nervous wreck. I had to do something, and I had to do it quick.

"Excuse me," I asked the nice young tech dude, who probably had no idea what he was getting into. "Could I ask you something?"

"Of course. What would you like to know?"

"Do you mind if I tell you why the practice of feudalism took hold in Europe before the Medieval Period?"

"Uh.... OK, sure!" Poor nice young tech dude.

And for the next twenty minutes I discussed the historical development of feudalism. I had to think pretty dang hard about it to come up with a fairly cohesive monologue, and all that thinking effectively drowned out all the thinking about possible death. I chilled out significantly.

So that little episode showed me one way to deal with anxiety. I just have to think harder about something else, which is why I wiped out Isabella ten different ways over a three-week period. Civilization is the cure for all evil. All of it.





Oh, and what exactly was wrong with me?

The health center meds contained added caffeine equivalent to six cups of coffee. I didn't start to drink coffee until after I graduated college. No, I was not dying, I had simply overdosed on caffeine. I didn't even know it was possible to overdose on caffeine. Live and learn, live and learn.