Growing up, I was often tired and took frequent naps because I was anemic. My dad would always ask if I had my nap for the day. I built that in because I would run out of steam without them. Oh how things have changed! I have to plan everything and weigh out the physical cost to see if the trip is worth it. This weekend my son and I were in full on house prep and graduation mode. We are prepping our home for visitors the last week of May and time is ticking away. I dropped my daughter off at work and then my son and I headed to Ikea. Let me take a moment and tell you that this is my favorite store of all time. I love going to eat breakfast and lunch there. Once my family and I took over 100 pictures in there lounging around in almost every display. We always wrap it up with a cone with vanilla frozen yogurt and possibly a bag of Swedish Fish.
My son and I had breakfast and then started shopping with a list in hand. It was a race against time and blood pooling to get everything done. There is no such thing as a quick trip to Ikea and that is not an ideal situation but I had things to do. The benefit of being there was that the displays offered you multiple places to lounge. I can sit on everything and I do! When I started to get hot I found a seat or a bed. When I get hot it is a symptom of my blood pooling in my lower legs in feet. I have Neurocardiogenic Syncope and it causes my heart to forget to keep the blood flowing and a faint will soon follow if I don’t at least sit down. This used to be followed by panic before I understood what was going on but I am an old pro at this now so I just had a seat and kept surveying the room for what I needed.
My son, always the willing helper, went to record aisle and bin numbers. The heat and feeling of lead legs happened a few times too many and once you get to lower level, in my particular Ikea, the seating options are gone. It became a sprint through the housewares, a detour past the lighting, a breeze through the textiles and I grumpy scan through the picture and mirror section. When I start to get irritated that is a clear sign that I am not going to remain upright for long. My heart also starts doing this flip floppy thing. I have this loop recorder and I hope that it caught that. I made up my mind that anything that I didn’t get then wasn’t coming home with me because I was done. Unfortunately, we still had to pick up the items from the aisles so I just remained focused and aware so I didn’t let the feeling of my body getting pulled down from the inside out effect me too much.
Thankfully we were able to get on a short line but I felt like the air conditioning was off and I was getting hot. To an outsider it might have looked like a hot flash coming on but that didn’t explain the fact that I was rocking back and forth. It is something I do to encourage my lethargic veins to keep up their end of the bargain and pump my blood. I was feeling so bad that I bypassed my customary frozen yogurt and didn't even look at my Swedish Fish. I went straight to the delivery section and found a seat. My son held our space in line and I only joined the line with it was time to schedule the delivery.
The whole excursion left me drained. To be honest, my brain was just trying to preserve the host...me. The blood was not getting pumped properly and I needed to fix it immediately or else! Yes, my body gives me ultimatums. No, I don't always listen. So to remedy this I must lay down and I did, eventually. I only live a few minutes away. When we pulled up, I assisted my son with the few items that I could carry. He shouldered most of the burden, as usual for dear old mom. I trudged up the walk way to the building, may a bee line for the bed and laid down in the dim room and just stayed still. I don’t always need to sleep but I just need to recover. That means a quiet place, slow breathing, my cat (optional) and my feet up around my heart level (preferably). Sacrifice for the cause is something that I just learn to deal with by planning properly and knowing my escape routes.
One day at a time.