Changed forever

“Changed forever” … little did I know the ramifications of that thought.  

Feelings of claustrophobia began to encamp around me.  The damp, gray backdrop peering through the portals, made the cabin of the boat feel eerie and warm.  Since the windows were closed, not to take in water, there was no cross breeze and I could hardly breathe.  And then, out of nowhere, I experienced the most dreadful headache.  It felt like someone had just hit me in the back of the head with a baseball bat!  And then, the pressure in my head was insurmountable.  What was going on?  

With hardly a moment of delay, I began feeling dizzy and sick.  What was I going to do?  Here I was, seated on a bench with my stomach churning as hard as the waves against the underbelly of the boat.  With distorted vision, I began scanning the boat for a bucket, a bowl, anything; and then, I spotted a plastic bag across the cabin, laying on a counter.  Finding myself unable to communicate sufficiently what I needed, I began pointing and signalling to the person closest to the bag.  All the while, trying to keep myself composed and yet knowing....it was about to happen, I was going to be sick.  

And sick I was!  Actually, I’ve never been so sick before.  To describe what happened would be too graphic and would turn the stomach of the most seasoned of nurses, let alone a novice.  I was so violently ill that Nelson could hear me out on the deck. He attempted to get to me.  I could see him advancing toward me.  Confused and determined to hold my head up, I held my hand up to indicate for him to stop; and then I motioned to him - go back on the deck.  In a later conversation, he asked me, “Why didn’t you want me to come and sit next to you?”  And this was my response - “At that moment, I honestly thought I was going to die and I did not want you to live with “if onlys” the rest of your life. I didn’t want to die ‘on you’ and I was praying I wasn’t going to be dying with you.”

Somewhere between being fully aware of my surroundings and feeling like I was going to slip away into a state of unconsciousness, I could hear the empathetic voices of some of the passengers on board the boat.  Quietly, and amongst themselves, people were making statements like, “I’ve never seen anyone get so seasick before.” And,  “This is the worst case of seasickness, I’ve ever seen.” Then following up with encouraging statements like, “Once we get back to the harbour and you get on land, you’ll get rid of those sea legs and feel much better.”

At one point, I remember distinctly having another kind of conversation. It was almost like an out of body experience.  In my mind, I would repeatedly say, “I am going to die on this boat” and then, I would hear this small, still voice, as though it were above me, saying, “You aren’t going to die.”  It definitely was a battle in a realm I have never experienced before; and deep within me, I sensed it was a battle for my life.  

Despondent for what seemed like a lifetime, I sat there in soiled clothes and shoes.  Unable to hold my head up, I sat there humbled and embarrassed waiting for this climatic boat ride to end.