I have often said that we own nothing. Life is a mystery; it is just a breath. Let me explain... one second you can be breathing and the next you are no longer breathing.
I bring this up because I always think that no one knows when their time to leave this plane will come, and sometimes we feel it so strongly and so close that we think with great force that it is our time to go.
This has happened to me in recent days. I went to bed feeling fine, with only a slight stomach ache, that is, my stomach was a little swollen. Instead of drinking some tea to relieve the pain, I decided to eat something different, which was a bad idea.
I thought it had agreed with me, but the next morning, it made me think otherwise. I woke up at 5 a.m. with a very strange feeling in my stomach, and the pain had worsened.
I got up with the intention of getting ready for the day, but as I was heading to the bathroom, I started to feel nauseous. Then it got worse, and when I was in the bathroom, the symptoms of my poor nighttime choices began.
I repeated the process of opening my mouth wide so many times until the contents of my stomach, which were only bile, were out.
After about 10 attempts something that wouldn't come out because there was nothing else there, another phase began.
I don't know how long I stayed in the bathroom, but since I had arrived early, I couldn't leave until my body felt that there was nothing left inside.
At that moment, I thought my life was slipping away. My son, who was with me but outside the bathroom because he had to start work at 6 a.m., is terrified, due to childhood trauma. So, from outside the bathroom, he asked me how I was feeling.
I was sweating profusely. Weak, I sat on a stool that I always keep in the bathroom, just in case. From there, I asked him to call the lady who always helps me in these cases.
She arrived and found me sitting on my stool in the bathroom. I didn't have the strength to get up. I thought I was leaving this world. She touched me and said my head was burning, and she threw as much water as she could on my body, starting from my head. She asked my son for alcohol and put it on my forehead and neck.
When I smelled the alcohol she put under my nose, I started to feel better, But I remained seated, waiting for all to stop. I don't know how much time passed before the feeling of imminent death left my mind.
Then I bathed, sitting there on my bench. I dried myself as best I could, always with the lady's help. And I got up, got dressed, and went to bed.
The lady prepared me some roasted rice water, which relieved me even more. I rested until the afternoon. The lady left at noon because I looked better, promising to come back if I called her.
There was no need to call her again. Thanks to her, her care, and her rice water, I had strength in the afternoon.
I got up at 3 p.m. I made a soup with vegetables recommended in these cases and some chicken. I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with this soup.
My son was devastated to see how I had become. After going through a situation of extreme stress that kept him in treatment, and he had improved, now he was restless again, seeing that I had almost collapsed.
Life is a breath of air. I like street food. Sometimes we eat things we both like. Once he gets paid, he treats me to a hamburger, a barbecue, or a pizza. This time, what upset my stomach so much was something as common as processed potato chips. We always eat them in homemade hot dogs, but this time, it was terrible to eat them on their own.
I'm back here again, after spending a week recovering from electrolyte loss, with horrible cramps all over my body. I'm fine now, feeling good, and thinking that life is a breath of air.
