An Episode

Maybe I just dreamt the whole thing.

Friday started out to be a great day, and for a while I thought that the weather reports were wrong, that we wouldn't be receiving a ton of snow. DW and I had plans to meet friends for karaoke night, and we were determined to make it out.

But of course, by mid-afternoon, the snow started to fall. At first, it was just a gentle dusting, most of which was melting when it touched the driveway. As dinnertime approached, however, I knew I'd have to get a start on it if we were going to be able to pull out of our lane.

I shovelled what started out as a couple of centimetres but by the time I got down to the end of the driveway, it was closer to twice that, and the first part of the driveway was covered up again. We've had so much snow, this season, that I'm having trouble finding a place to put it.

As I got the snow cleared around and off our car, DW called out to me from within our garage: "It's time to go." We wanted to make it to the karaoke venue for when the event started. We wanted to secure a table, though we were wondering it the snow might cancel the evening.

It's usually about a 15-minute drive from our place to the Bells Corners legion hall, to which we became members at the beginning of this year. It's one of our favourite venues for karaoke, as there is lots of room, the KJ is awesome, and the drinks are inexpensive. But because not even the plows had been out on the roads, our journey took almost an extra 10 minutes through almost white-out conditions.

There were few cars in the lot, and we had a sinking feeling that we had ventured out for naught. But inside, the KJ was set up, the tables were arranged, and a couple of our karaoke friends were already there.

We suspected that we'd have many rotations in which to sing.

As it turned out, there were about a dozen singers who made it out and we had a really good time. We met new people, all of whom were great singers and awesome folks.

Driving home, the snow was still falling and the wind was raging. Driving through the Greenbelt, on our way to Barrhaven, the snow covered the road and a car ahead of us almost lost control. When we reached our street, no plow had been through but we still couldn't get in our driveway because the snow was too deep.

I told DW to go ahead inside, that I'd shovel the driveway and get our car put away.

With good timing, the snow had relented but the wind was still blowing it around. It took me more than an hour to get all of the driveway cleared, including the path to our doorstep. It was after 12:30 by the time I came into the house.

I was covered in sweat, breathing hard, and could feel my heart pumping as I got myself ready for bed. It took a while for my body to settle down but I eventually fell into a deep sleep.

Here's where it all went weird.

When I dream, I often find myself in places and in situations that are not within my home. And I almost never dream about being in bed, in the same circumstances in which I crawled under the sheets.

I was too tired to notice if I had actually awoken in the night, but I have a recollection of being in a lot of pain, that my arm was too heavy to lift, and that I was fighting for air. My brain told me that I was dying but my body couldn't do anything about it.

I felt that I was tangled in the sheets, that were now soaked in sweat, and this was how I was going to be found in the morning.

And that's all I remember until I woke up on Saturday morning.

DW and I sleep in separate rooms. We both snore and DW likes to have one of our cats, Cece, curl up on the bed, whereas I find that Cece always curls up between me and the edge of the bed, and I always move when I sleep and like to be able to throw covers off and on myself throughout the night.

It's just better for the both of us if I sleep elsewhere.

I awoke to DW calling me (we often use our phones, rather than call across the house to one another), to see if I was prepared to do our weekly grocery shopping, which we like to get out of the way first thing on Saturdays. I was a bit sore from the shovelling, but otherwise felt okay.

On the way to the store, I told DW that I had the weirdest dream, that I was tangled in the bed sheets, having a heart attack. "That's such a weird dream," she said. "How are you feeling?"

Fine, was my answer, and we gave it no more thought.

After visiting Costco and filling our car, DW said she was hungry and craving a breakfast at Halibut House, one of our new favourite area restaurants. The breakfast is great, the staff are amazing, and the price is hard to beat.

Whilst we were eating, I brought up my dream again, and DW asked if it could have maybe not been a dream. I opened an app that monitors my health through my Garmin watch, and I checked out my heart rate. 

At one point, through the night, my heart rate spiked to almost 170 bpm. For almost an hour immediately after the spike, it fluctuated between 100 and 120 bpm, and then calmed down.

Maybe it wasn't a dream.

When we returned home, we found that the snowplow had cleared our street and that the driveway was sealed in. I asked Kid 1 to clear the end of the driveway because I didn't want to risk more strain.

Even still, I was burned out through much of Saturday.

On Sunday, DW and I met with a friend to go snowshoeing through some woods in the west end, and when we returned home, there was a bit more snow that had accumulated in our driveway. I took my time and shovelled it.

For the rest of the day, I felt fine.

I don't know if I had some sort of cardiac episode or if it was just a dream, if the pain was real or just magnified in my sleep, with my muscles complaining from shovelling.

But one thing is for sure: this is my last season of shovelling. I've already started looking for sales to start on end-of-season snow blowers.

Happy Tuesday!