if you were at work with me today this is what you would have seen, but only if you were watching very carefully, possibly through some kind of special lens thing:
you would have seen me catch my breath three times in the morning & sway slightly. that was me almost passing out three times in the morning.
then you would have seen me break away from a conversation in the hall, all my coworkers plus dr s________ present, & go very quickly to my desk & fall into my chair & break out sobbing. (breaking out into sobs has only happened, surprisingly, maybe two or three times in all the years i've worked here. congratulate my self-restraint.) they were just all so loud & so angry at the iraqis for, you know, defending their country. they don't believe there is such a thing as an innocent iraqi, "even a ten-year-old child," said j-ann.
you would have seen me swallow hard a lot all morning, trying not to vomit in front of patients.
you would have seen me finally pass out in the men's (read: staff) bathroom & then wake up & enjoy the coldness of the linoleum floor so much that i lay there about twenty minutes after coming to.
first dr s________ did not take me seriously, but later he wanted to start an IV to keep me hydrated.
there was this moment when i wanted to shut the door & tell him everything, the hallucinations, the tachycardia, the swinging all the time, but then i started dreading it. i couldn't find the right words. so when he came in the room to see me i just started crying & then he said i just needed to go home & drink a lot of gatorade.
now that i am home i just want to drink a lot of gin.
