so, i'm back from round two of the hospital visits (and i stopped to get a blood test, so it was about an hour and a half wait, if you're curious).

i want to be clear that i'm dealing with a serious head injury. whether my analyses turn out to be founded or not, i'm not wasting anybody's time in exploring the full range of possibilities regarding diagnoses, tests and treatment options. that said, i walked out of the hospital a little uneasy about the analysis, and without losing a feeling of needing to monitor myself closely.

after explaining the situation, he started by squashing the idea that i may have had any kind of stroke, mini-stroke or embolism on the night in question - he said there was no way i could have walked away from the situation after having a stroke (i'm not convinced that is true...), that i'm not showing symptoms of a stroke (i'm not sure this is true, either) and that the multitude of classic post-concussion symptoms should clarify the point: i was concussed.

so, it's official: i've been diagnosed with a concussion, and with post-concussion syndrome. that fact carries some weight with it. but, you'll take it for what it's worth, given that neither of us saw what happened.

i'm actually willing to go along with this, though. from this point on, we're going to assume the root cause of the situation was a concussion, and i'm going to have to invest some time into figuring out how that happened the next time that i'm in the vicinity of the club. again: the bouncer told me. but, i was just coming back into consciousness, and it's lost...

well, the next question is obvious: could i have developed clotting as a consequence of the concussion?

theoretically.

but?

but that would mean you'd be hemorrhaging badly, and you're just not showing those kinds of symptoms.

and that's solid? it's not possible that i could get clotting from mild bleeding?

what you're angling at is not impossible, but is extremely unlikely.

well, how do you explain the fact that the aspirin works after a long delay and for a long time, and the tylenol doesn't?

the truth is i can't. sometimes tylenol works, and sometimes aspirin works, and sometimes one works and the other doesn't, and sometimes they both work and sometimes neither do. there's no logic to it.

i suspect there's some logic to it...

there's no logic to it that anybody really understands. we're not even sure how they work.

hrmmmn. but, the absence of a systemic classification doesn't entirely rule out my deduction.

it doesn't. but, if you were dealing with clots, you'd be in far worse shape than you're in.

but, what i'm concerned about is the possibility that i'm developing clots. i obviously hadn't had a stroke yet. but, couldn't the aspirin be thinning the blood and preventing the clot from forming? and, if it is, and i'm on the brink...

there's no "on the brink". it's binary...

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and, i'm going to stop here, because i know this is wrong. people take aspirin as blood thinners. it is clearly a thing. but, what do i do from this point? yell at him to take a blood test? demand anticoagulants? raise a workers revolt in the er room? demand him to present a source?

i did none of these things. i just sat quietly and waited for him to finish, aware that he had already decided i'm not under threat of anything, and was telling me lies in order to shuffle me out of the place.

i had already reasoned going in that i was unlikely to walk out of the place with anything more than an instruction to continue taking aspirin. what i wanted was a way to measure the concern, so i'd have some quantifiable measurement of the problem. if the situation persists, i'll have to try again.

for right now, i've actually avoided the aspirin up to this point for today. perhaps the pre-clot has been broken up by the aspirin, and that's the end of it. or, perhaps the effects of the concussion are subsiding.

but, i'll reiterate that i've been officially diagnosed with a concussion and post-concussion syndrome, that i need to continue to monitor this and that that might not be my last trip to the emergency room over this.