The Resolve - (Do not read while eating.)

     Last November, two months after my girlfriend R. moved in, an incident occurred that changed my perspective on a lot of things.  Everything started out fine and we laughed as we had meatballs for dinner.  I went to bed, as usual, except for a slight bout of gas and some stomach discomfort.  Three hours later I had to get up and go to the bathroom.  Nothing felt wrong until I sat on the toilet.  Then all hell broke loose.  There was no pain or discomfort just a total collapse. Everything in my body wanted out and I had no control.  No opening was safe, even my eyes had fluid expelling from them.  After ten minutes of this condition, my girlfriend banged on the bathroom door and asked if I was OK. 

      My mind and body had stopped communicating with each other.  A detached, “No!”, crumpled from my lips. 

      All shame, all fear, all thought of anything but feeling better left my mind as R. exclaimed, “I’m coming in, don’t worry about anything!”

     My girlfriend opened the door, while I was trying to get into expulsion position.  I could barely move, my mind was trapped in an exhausted body.  My eyes would not focus and I was struggling to interact with my surroundings.  My thought processes still relatively sharp, I heard R, in a panicked voice ask, “Should I call an ambulance?”.  

     I’ve heard that question many times in my life but this was the first time I ever answered, “YES”.  My voice must have been weaker than I thought because I could sense a growing tone of fear in R’s.

    She left the bathroom and ran for the phone.  I propped myself back up on the toilet just in time to hear R. talking to the ambulance dispatch.  In a panic she had forgotten the street number of our home and asked me.  I spouted it out and realized that my condition was not getting better.  She came up and asked me, “Do you need anything?  I told them a potential heart attack, to get them to hurry.  Relax, they’ll be here soon.”    

     I tried not to reflect back the fear in her eyes as I explained I was too weak to even move.  She asked if I would be OK alone and ran downstairs to wait for the ambulance.

     In my head, my body was dissolving from within, like in some bad horror movie.  I sat with the trash pail in front of me.  My mind began to float, my life did not so much flash before my eyes, as slowed down at the thought of a finality that could potentially be on its way.  I thought of the girls and wondered if I would have time to say goodbye to them.  I tried to focus on anything but what was happening to my body and collapsed back to the floor.  R. came back up and exclaimed that she was going to call the ambulance service back and find out where they were, it had been twenty minutes.  I slowly pulled myself back up again.  At this point I was shaking.  Not an, I’m cold or had the chills but a violent convulsive, I’m being possessed shake.  I closed my eyes to meditate and heard R. screaming at a disconnected voice, “No!  No one is at our door!  No!  No one has called us!  What?!?!  Tell them, they are not at the door, I’m standing in front of it!”.

      With everything out that could possibly be out and yet a human body still survive, I stood up on shaky legs.  My convulsions were beyond belief.  I wondered how a body in such an exhausted state could potentially move so much and so fast.  R. came up and asked if I needed anything.  I asked her for a bottle of Gatorade.  Next thing I remembered, she was back with it.  I told her to cancel the ambulance, I was feeling better.  She left as I struggled to open the Gatorade bottle.  Trying to grab an erratically moving bottle with an erratically moving hand proved nearly impossible.  With incredible concentration I got my second hand on the cap and laughed to myself, as the bottle shook, ‘I’d be great for chocolate milk or orange juice right now.’.  After some more struggle, I got the bottle open and could barely drink without spilling it or inadvertently tossing it across the room.  Stupidly, I sat at the top of the steps.  Gatorade bottle to mouth and both hands to Gatorade bottle.  I heard R. arguing with the dispatch, “YES!  I said cancel it!  NO!  No one is in front of our house!  State police?  NO!  They haven’t shown up!  NO! I don’t care!  It has been over an Hour!”.

     As R. came to the landing of the steps, I tried to smile at her but even my lips were shaking.  As my mind was slowly gaining control of my body, I wanted to tell her of the beauty I saw on her worn face at that moment.  She wore well the confidence, the bravery, the strength and the ability to handle an insane situation.  She asked, “Are you feeling better?”.  Looking at her, I felt remarkably better. 

“Yes.”, I replied in the first normal (but shaky) voice she had heard from me in a while, “Did you poison me with those meatballs?”.  She looked at me with a tired smile in her eyes and knew I would be OK.

     Food poisoning may not sound like the perfect way to harden a relationship (and I highly recommend not trying it.) but that night, I realized that I had, ‘found a good one.’.   A year later and we are still cohabitating.  Luckily the incidents of that night never had a repeat.  Often when I look at R.’s face I see a twinkling of the courage and resolve it took to see me in the state I was in and still maintain the level headedness to react.