No, everything is not entirely okay.

Regular readers will know that I had a "medical emergency" on our flight a month ago from London to Barcelona.

I had passed out on that flight, and taken to hospital when we landed. All of my tests were fine, and they didn't tell us that anything positive came back that would have given us any indication as to what caused it. 

Our time in Nova Scotia was fine, and we flew to Ottawa. Then, over the next two weeks I had several light headed moments. Nothing that lasted more than a minute, and not enough that I felt like I was going to pass out. 

Enke the cat.

I haven't been drinking much alcohol, really only on weekends. But one evening I had one beer and two glasses of wine and the next morning, I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. 

Then this past Saturday morning, I felt awful. Almost to the point where I couldn't stand up. I knew it was time to see a doctor. 

The house where we are staying is located south of the city of Ottawa, and the choices would have been to go into one of the two major hospitals in the city, or to the much smaller hospital in the town of Kemptville. It would take about the same amount of time either way. We decided on the smaller hospital, and that turned out to be the right decision.

We waited until I felt well enough to get into the car, and Ruth drove me there about 9:30am Saturday morning.

There was hardly anybody there! Maybe two other people in the waiting room. I was processed right away and led into an observation room where a couple of ladies hooked me up to monitors and took some samples.

Pretty much the same procedure as what I went through in Barcelona. And then we waited. We didn't see a doctor until about two hours had passed and they had the test results. 

The doctor was quite good though. And it helps that it wasn't busy. I was able to tell him the history of the whole story, and well as the bits about my cardiac health and the tests I had done in Malaysia.

I was trying to describe the symptoms and what I was feeling, but I only thought afterwards that the best way to describe it is that it feels like a really bad hangover!

Once again, the tests did not show any abnormalities. I mean at this point, we almost wished that they did!

We went over a bunch of stuff with the doctor, and he came to the conclusion that I have "dysautonomia"... a dysfunction of the autonomous nervous system. Sounds pretty serious, right?

Well it can be. It's not life threatening, but in some people it can be debilitating.

In my case, he thinks it is temporary, although it can take some time (possibly even weeks!) for the symptoms to completely disappear.

And what is the best treatment?

Hydration! Yes, dehydration is most of the cause of the symptoms. And yes, I've been trying to drink more water since that original incident on the plane, but still not enough. So I have to drink minimum two measured liters of homemade electrolyte solution spread evenly in sips throughout the day. And no alcohol or coffee because those are diuretics that cause the system to lose water. Until symptoms are gone, I am totally fine with that and will likely continue like that anyhow.

So, that was Saturday morning, and now it is Tuesday morning. Sunday morning didn't feel so good, but Sunday afternoon and evening were much better. Monday morning was not perfect, but better. And Monday afternoon and evening I felt totally fine and I even did a good workout. This morning? Again not perfect, but from the research I've done, mornings are worse for people with this condition.

And I've done a lot of reading about it the last two days. Some people really suffer, to the point where they can't lead a normal life. It's a bit scary. But others seem to go with the condition in remission for years at a time, with occasional flare ups. 

What causes it? They don't really know! 

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