I learned the hard way that it truly is important to ensure that proper sustenance is being ingested in a timely manner when resources are being shared. Or as one friend put it, “your body gives the baby the good stuff, and you the crap.”
I normally eat something on my way to work, like an english muffin or a piece of bread with Nutella on it (mmmmmm) and then when I get to work I’ll eat a yogurt or banana or some sort of additional breakfasty item.
One day, very recently, I neglected the second half of breakfast. And not only that, I failed to eat any type of snack, or drink milk/chocolate milk, I just utterly abandoned my body’s needs as I rushed about my work.
At 11ish I noticed my hands were twitchy.. like violently shaking like a really really old person. I chalked it up to either drinking coffee or not drinking coffee or whatever, it didn’t matter.
At 11:20 I became profusely hot. Sweatingly even. I started shedding layers because clearly someone had turned off the A/C.. and turned on the heat for that matter, and why was it so freaking hot?
At 11:30 I got up to go to a meeting in a conference room on a different floor, and as I began the climb upstairs I realized I felt faint. And the stairs were just daunting. But I persisted and made it up one flight, huffed for a moment, then realized I didn’t know where I was going. In fact, I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I stood there in the hallway like a lost child for a few moments, looked at my phone, looked around, looked at my phone.. Then I rode the elevator downstairs, went back to my desk and called in to the meeting instead. And promptly passed out. Sitting upright, mind you; I listened to the call but thank goodness I didn’t have to contribute because I would have Epic Failed. So yeah, I dozed in and out and at some point my subconscious brain screamed, “fruit!! fruit cup! apple sauce!” but my mostlyconscious brain said, “ooh! a cracker!” and I nibbled and slept and nibbled and slept…
Then the call ended, I managed to go get my lunch and bring it back, and then all was right with the world again.
Later I told my co-worker (who had not been at her desk during all this) what had happened and she told me I was lucky I didn’t faint when I tried to go upstairs. My blood sugar had been low due to neglecting to eat and the fact that a parasite was draining the bulk of my resources.
So there you have it. Lesson learned. It’s ok to stuff my face all day long… with the caveat that it’s generally nutritious. And in an emergency, drink fruit juice or eat fruit something… funny how my brain knew what it needed but I failed to listen.
Little Z's 