I Blame Arsene Wenger !!!

August 28th 2011. Cedar Park, Texas, 10.53 AM Central Time.

The big match between Arsenal & Manchester United was not going well.. sorry that's an understatement, steaming pile of horsesh*t was more like it but I digress....

Arsenal were being whipped like rented mules and my cell had been taking texts all morning from my friend Eric who happens to be a Manchester United fan. Between rubbing my nose in the s**t over the game, Eric had also totally redeemed himself by inviting me and my wife Alice to his birthday barbecue bash later in the day. Eric was regaling me with the very nice and very expensive bottles of vintage wine we would be drinking, and the chance to get out with great company whilst enjoying some kick ass food and even more kick ass wine really took the sting out of Arsenal completely crapping the bed and being down 3-1 at the half.


I remember telling Eric via text that I wasn't going to suffer another half of the crap Arsenal was serving, and I was going to go out and buy some wine glasses for the party, as the hosts did not have a sufficient amount of glasses needed for wine of this caliber.

Alice was upstairs, I was on the couch downstairs.

My last text to Eric at 10:52 was this : Sounds like a wiener (confirming time of arrival with corny line), I will CYA later.

Then I did something that I and billions of others did, do and have done since the dawn of time, I simply stood up.

I cant explain what happened except it was a very strange feeling.  I felt very dizzy, very light headed, my first thought was i had gotten up too fast, like a rush to the head.. but this felt very different.  I am no vegan, yoga doer, mediation type guy, but I DO know my body, and I felt, actually correct that, KNEW, something was wrong. My first instinct was "go get Alice".. then I had a second thought, which as you will see, had I listened to it, I would have either been much much worse, or quite possibly dead.

My second impulse was a typical Jason thought, especially on a Sunday.

"Its nothing, I'm alright, I'm just going to lay down on the couch and take a nap".

I am glad impulse 1 won out.  And if I can do anything positive at all with my writings its thus, LISTEN to your body and GET medical assistance ASAP. A false alarm is better than the alternative, on this trust me.

So at this stage I had gone from dizzy, woozy head to feeling pins and needles and decreased strength in my left side, especially my extremities.  I also noticed my lips and tongue were tingling and I had a hard time moving my tongue to the left. This dispelled any thoughts of a lay down, so I went upstairs to see Alice.

I walked into the bedroom, where Alice & my daughter Lyndsay were sitting on our bed, watching some TV and chatting. Alice's face pretty much said it all when she saw me. I basically exclaimed " Al, I'm not well, somethings F***d up". I regaled her with what had happened and she was right on it.

"That's it, we are getting you to hospital, right now."