I remember the first time I fainted. I felt inordinately proud of myself afterwards, like I had fulfilled a childhood fantasy of being some suitably pathetic fictional heroine. Alas, I didn’t fall into the arms of some passing prince, but my then-boyfriend, now-husband, found me in the corridor of my shared student house, and managed to get me onto my bed and into the recovery position. Sadly, it didn’t feel that romantic though; I just felt a bit sick.
After the second time it happened, I thought I’d better follow everyone’s advice about going to the doctor, who didn’t help much except giving the very pragmatic advice that I should sit down when I felt faint. I’d already worked that one out by then. Also, if it got really really bad they could give me support stockings. I’ve never been tempted; they look curiously granny-ish.
There seems to be plenty they can do about high blood pressure (lose weight, do more exercise, take medication) but nothing to be done about low blood pressure. You just learn to live with the possibility that you might sometimes feel light-headed and you’d better sit down fast. And when you forget and try to jump up from lying in bed in the morning and get some mad dizzy rush, you say, “Ooooh!” and sit down and try again more slowly.
When I started out as a teacher, I went through a stage of nearly fainting a lot. (Maybe I was just thinner then?) The rest of the staff kind of got used to finding me lying on the staff room sofa with my feet up on the arm of the sofa, and stopped bothering to stop to ask me if I was ok. One time the IT support lady had said she could hem my wedding dress, and she had me standing on a table and sticking pins into the skirt, when I felt it coming on, so then I had to lie in the staff room in my wedding dress with my legs up, which is really kind of weird on reflection.
We went on honeymoon in Prague, which was beautiful, although literally freezing, but thanks to a favourable exchange rate we had a lovely honeymoon suite with a big bathroom with fancy toiletries (you can probably guess where this is going). A big hot bubble bath sounds like the perfect end to a day in -15 degrees, but heat is not the friend low blood pressure. It did at least give the now-husband chance to help me to a definitely more romantic four-poster bed that time.
Anyway, last Friday I was shelving books in the library when I started feeling all sick and clammy and light-headed so just took off my jacket and sat down for a bit, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. I went to my work room and pinged off a couple of emails, asking if there was anywhere I could lie down until the feeling passed, but apparently the only medical bed is in reception where the world and his wife passes through, so I decided I’d rather hide out where I was.
Two minutes later a colleague walked in, a young man who we’ve established is closer in age to my children than to me, who looked at me lying on the floor, then simply stepped over me to get to the water cooler.
“I’m fine! But can you tell them I’m not coming to Bible discussion club today?” I said in my best this-is-normal voice. (I realised that I always used to say, “I’m not pregnant!” but perhaps people don’t jump to that conclusion any more, when I’m nearing 40?)
A few minutes after that the HR lady found me and she insisted on sending me home, which was kind of nice even though I protested I’d be ok in a bit, as I could at least lie on my own bed rather than the stained old carpet in the work room. And then the weekend went as normal.
Funny old things, bodies, reminding of us our limitations. Maybe it will prod me into looking forward to heaven more. But for me, (nearly) fainting is mostly just a random quirk which does at least link me to fictional Victorian heroines.
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