St. Patty's Day pass out

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.  Across the world, people were passing out.  Generally this will be because they overindulged in alcohol.

Me?  I didn't need the alcohol to pass out.  I apparently can do it on my own.

I was in court yesterday around 4:45pm when it happened.  I remember sitting at counsel table during Treatment Court reviews.  I was feeling really tired, but wasn't too bad overall.  I then started feeling warm, sort of flushed.  So I filled a glass with water and began drinking it.

I remember then being called up to a sidebar discussion.  I got up, out of my chair and began walking to the side of the Judge's bench.  I remember getting to the bench and standing there.  The next thing I remember, one of the probation officers is helping me get up.  I'm confused, wondering why everyone is looking at me with horrified looks on their faces.  The probation officer and one of the deputy sheriffs helped me into a chair on the side of the courtroom.

The deputy sheriff is asking me questions and taking my pulse.  I can feel my heart racing as he's taking my pulse, so I'm not surprised when it's fast/high.  I then back to the holding cells right off the courtroom and sit down.  Another one of the sheriffs comes up with a medical bag and begins examining me.  He takes my blood pressure, both sitting and standing.  And there is a noticeable difference.  When I stand up, my legs are still feeling a bit shaky, but nothing horrible.

I go back into the courtroom and right out into the hall where I go back to my office with some co-workers.  One of my coworkers gets me some orange juice and the cheese/peanut butter crackers.  By this point, I'm feeling fine, but out of precaution, I get a coworker to give me a ride home.

One of the probation supervisors was standing next to me at the sidebar conference and she filled in some details.  She had her back to me, and said I kept tapping her.  She turned to yell/ask me what I wanted, and as she turned, I started going down.  I somehow grabbed a hold of her pants on the way down (though I thankfully didn't pull her pants down...that wouldn't been really awkward). As I was going down, the other probation officer jumped up from somewhere and caught me on the way down.

Today, I took off work and went to the doctors.  Overall he said I'm doing really great and seem to be getting in to shape (I'm prolly in the best shape I've been in since high school).  He indicated that the reason I passed out was a combination of reasons.  First, I hadn't eaten anything yesterday prior to passing out.  Not a good thing.  Second, he wanted to adjust one of the medications I'm taking because it's affecting my blood pressure.  Specifically, it's causing my blood pressure to drop when I stand up.  And it's having that affect because I'm getting into shape.  The medicine was too strong because I was getting healthier and my body was doing what it was supposed to do without the medicine.  Which is a good thing.

So overall, it was a fluke and I'm doing well.  But it certainly was an interesting event.