Teacup.

I had one of the scariest moments in my life today. But first of all, I admit that it was purely my fault.

The blood service was in our town today collecting so I went in and donated some. After that, I rested for about five minutes, had some heavy biscuits and drinks there (you have to, you just donated blood!). And then I had to walk home. Now, I thought I was invincible and all that and the slight loss of blood doesn’t really affect me.

Boy was I wrong.

I walked home at a quick pace because…that’s my normal pace. It’s pretty much the only exercise I get. The first thing I notice that was off was that I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I normally don’t. But I just put it down to my heart overacting. Laugh it up people. I continued my walking.

Then I notice the pavement I was walking on fucking glowing. Like…honestly, “glowing”. It’s just normal white stone pavement and I put it down to the sun shining down extra bright making it look like it glowed.

…then the edges of my vision started having those…purple/pink dots with a lot of white space. I put it down to the glowing pavement shining too bright making my vision go slightly off. My optometrist did say I have a slight issue with sunlight because my eyes are too big or something. Who knows. So yeah, I’m walking on glowing pavement, with my heart beating in my ears and the edges of my vision “whiting out”…at that point, I admit there was something wrong.

So I stopped underneath a lamp post for a few seconds. I thought I could make it back to my house because I was only about five minutes max from my house. So I started walking quickly. But not even 10 steps and ¾ of my vision was white space with pink/purple dots. I actually thought I was going to faint in the middle of the street. I was so scared of that I was seriously tempted to call home and ask one of them to come and meet me where I was.

But no. I stayed calm and slowly walked to someone’s front porch/stairs and just sat on it. With my eyes closed. For maybe a good two minutes. Just as long as my vision was normal, I felt a bit calmer. Once my vision cleared, I made it home as quick as possible and crawled to bed.

It was an ‘iffy’ sleep. Kept on dozing in and out every few minutes. But yeah…scary moment. Not a super-girl as I thought I. Lesson learned here, kids.

PS. On a totally unrelated topic, I just completed an insanely long dungeon in Phantom Hourglass, made it to the sea-fucking-chart and the damn fucking DS crash! ARGH! Damn thing! *throws DS against wall, fuck you*

Let me tell you something about CPR. It is hard work. Extremely hard work.

I nearly forgot I booked myself in for a Comprehensive First Aid Course over the weekend. That, in itself was a mission. It’s from 9-5, Saturday and Sunday. Could barely roll myself out of bed. But I did it!

Who knew the first thing we had to learn was CPR. That was…challenging. New Zealand’s CPR guidelines is to administer it at 100 compressions a minute. Every 30 compressions, give 2 breaths. Make sure you compress until you are about a third way down their chest. And don’t bounce! Meaning, don’t lift your wrist everytime you have to make the next compression.

I was absolutely horrible at it. The tutor kept telling me to go deeper. When I did go deeper, she told me to go faster. When I went faster, she told me to stop bouncing on him. And so the cycle continues…and we had to do CPR for three minutes as part of an assessment. That just about killed my wrist.

I thought I did really well with the other components of the course. It’s just the CPR that was really hard. And remember, the main aim of CPR is NOT to start the heart. Just to try and get the oxygenated blood going round the body until the ambulance arrives.

This was the mnemonics we learned. Drs. ABC:-
D – Danger (Is there any danger around the scene? Can we help the victim without endangering our self?)
R – Responsive (Is the victim responding or is he confused, out of it? We have the AVPU mnemonics for this. A-Active, V-Voice, P-Pain, U-Unconscious. Active meaning he understands what’s going on around. Voice meaning he is responding to voice. Pain is when he only responds to pain[tapping him on the shoulder/collarbone]. Unconscious…well, we know what it is.)
S – Send For Help (Dial emergency number)
A – Airway (For adults, check his airway is clear. Tilt the head up, lifting the chin.)
B – Breathing (Look, listen and feel to check if the victim is breathing. Maximum 10 seconds to check for this. If he’s not breathing, start CPR. Hence, circulation, next letter in this mnemonic.)
C – Circulation

I digress, I can’t wait for my BT – This Binary Universe album to arrive. Faster couriers, damn it!