Safe!

So, on Wednesday, I almost fainted. Here's the full story, like I promised!

On Wednesday, our school had a mock evacuation. I followed my Italian class, vaguely annoyed at my sorta-friends Palmer and Ethan. (I'm more friends with Palmer than Ethan. MUCH more.) My eyes hurt a bit from exposure to sunlight, since I'm a bit of a creature of the evening (not to sound dark or anything, I just like the evening more than other times during the day, and at least I didn't call myself a creature of the night). I felt tired from having to listen to Ethan keep rambling too loudly about things that had nothing to do with each other, so I mostly tuned everyone out. Besides, I was cold and wanted to get inside the church (our evacuation location) as soon as possible.

So we reach the church. The students are separated into current class period, and they're sent to three different sections of the church based on what floor you were on when in class. We were on the third floor, so we went to an empty room that's probably only used for meetings or something. I sat down in one of the chairs and just kind of stared at nothing. Palmer and Ethan ignored me to hang out with some of the older boys, and I was a bit grateful, because I felt oddly tired. Also, it was crowded, and I normally feel very anxious in a room where my exits aren't immediately available, with a clear path from my seat to the door.

I spaced out pretty quickly. I was mostly aware of my surroundings, but nothing really seemed to matter. I don't know what I was feeling, really. I mostly felt really tired. I saw a candy wrapper on the ground and started staring at it, when suddenly there were two of them. The one on the right started to wander away from the one on the left, which was mostly still. I knew it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but I wasn't that confused. I started playing around with it, to see how far I could make it go. I must have been doing this for at least fifteen minutes, because I was interrupted by my teacher telling me it was time to go. I felt slightly relieved that people were moving through the door, so the room was emptying out, but that relief was overpowered by my sudden need to stay seated. For some reason, I really didn't want to get up.

But I knew I had to, so I slowly rose to my feet. I already felt lightheaded, as if I was walking on air but hadn't really learned how yet. I took baby steps, each foot not fully passing the other. But suddenly, even that was too much for me, and I stumbled. I managed to catch myself on a nearby chair, which itself only stayed up because there was a table on its other side, blocking its fall. A teacher I'd never met before approached me and started asking me more than one question at once. Did I feel dizzy? Did I need to sit down? Did I want to go to the hospital?

I managed to say without really speaking that I was dizzy, had to sit down, and did not need to go to the hospital, so he then asked if I wanted help, and I nodded. He got Ms. Lenard, one of the school's three or four guidance counselors, the one that had been assigned to my third of the student population. She asked me too many questions too, I guess to fill the silence since I wasn't really talking, and eventually we (they) sorted out that I could get a ride back to the school in a police cruiser, driven by Ms. Lenard's brother, who happened to be the school police officer. I was driven back and taken to the school nurse, who let me lie down while she called someone to get my bags and called my father to come get me.

It took him a while, since he works out of town, and had to take the T back in order to get the car to fetch me. While I was waiting, I couldn't think clearly. At one point, I stood up to get my sketchbook from the counter, falling down twice along the way. I hadn't even managed to get my pencil while I was at it, so it didn't do me much good. But the nurse came back in, and scolded me for trying to do schoolwork while I wasn't feeling well (she thought it was a school notebook). The only other times she came in where so I could talk to my father, and so she could take my blood pressure and temperature, which were both normal.

Finally, my father came and got me. I was mostly disoriented for the entire rest of the day, but managed to get to school the following day without getting dizzy. After school, I visited my doctor. As it turned out, I probably had some sort of small virus that I managed to fight off that day, and I was now completely fine. Still, the remaining two days of school were long and draining, just from the rest of my stressful week (I was sick on Monday).

I am now completely recovered! This has been a long week. I spent most of this morning just lying on the couch and watching Invader Zim. I think I did that for a couple of hours. After all, I did burn through three disks.

So next week should hopefully be better. See you all then! <3