When I wrote a few weeks ago about the little white pills,
it was more prescient than I realised at the time.
On Friday evening Clara cooked a tasty coq au vin. I decided not to drink any additional alcohol
that evening and have in general been going easy on the booze. The label on my box of pramipexole says to
avoid alcohol altogether, but the pamphlet inside says just to “be cautious
with alcohol”, so I figure a glass of wine a day is probably OK.
Later that evening I took my little white pill as usual just
before bed. All seemed normal until I
awoke abruptly about four hours later, around 2am (yes, I really do go to bed
around 10pm on a Friday night these days).
I immediately knew I was going to throw up, but there was
also another feeling. It is difficult to
describe – a kind of extreme daze, only half-conscious, and like my life force
was rapidly slipping away. I instinctively
knew I had to act quickly.
I staggered to the bathroom, the last few steps on my hands
and knees as my head pounded and consciousness slipped quickly away.
I have honestly never felt so bad in my life. I felt like I was going to die there and
then.
I awoke on my side on the bathroom floor with a pool of
vomit next to my mouth and over my body.
I hunched over the basin and continued to vomit violently, spewing out
lumps of chicken, bacon and mushroom.
Luckily, I couldn’t smell any of it….
At this point, Clara came in, obviously very concerned.
I cleaned the bathroom floor, had a bath, emptied my stomach
some more and returned to bed an hour or so later, feeling very delicate.
Neither Clara nor I slept well for the rest of that
night. Which was a shame as we were very
tired travelling to Paris on the Eurostar on Saturday morning for our sixth
wedding anniversary.
We stayed in a lovely five-star hotel – The Regina next to
the Louvre – and dined at the oldest brasserie in Paris, Le Procope in
St-Germain-des-Prés. Needless to say, we
avoided the house special, coq au vin, and the more exotic seafood. We wandered
by the Seine and visited Sainte Chapelle and Arts et Métiers, all in lovely early spring sunshine.
It was still a lovely weekend but the shine had been taken
off because of what had happened on Friday night. Was it a simple case of food poisoning, in
which case why was Clara completely fine and why did I have such an extreme
reaction? Had something in the meal
reacted badly with the pramipexole? Or
had my body rejected the little white pills?
If so, would it happen again?
Could it be even worse next time? Or perhaps it was a combination of
factors: food poisoning exacerbated by the medication?
I emailed The Professor and I picked up his reply on Sunday
evening after we had returned home:
“I would suggest checking your blood pressure at home and
being cautious when getting up at night.
Doesn’t sound like a drug reaction but if it recurs or you are light
headed at night or when standing you should let me know.
Best regards
The Professor”
Best regards
The Professor”
That was some comfort and, so far, I haven’t had a
recurrence.
Nevertheless, I was shaken by what happened on Friday night
and decided to create an abbreviation for such events: PFS. For Pretty Fucking
Scary…
