Yesterday was just a normal day… sort of. Although I’m on winter break, my dad woke me up at 6 AM and helped me get ready for the day, which included putting on sweatpants and a T-shirt, and handing me a cup of coffee with a pink bendy straw. I sat in my living room, mindlessly staring at ESPN, enjoying my coffee, but yearning to be back in the cozy warmth of my bed. If you remember one of my earlier stories, you know that my sleep schedule is very much dependent on the lives of my family members. On this day, both my parents had to leave for work by 7:30 AM, along with my brother, who left at the same time for high school. Angry is not the right word to describe how I feel about having to live this way, more like reluctantly accepting. It is what it is.

This story really has nothing to do with my sleep schedule, but I want you to understand that yesterday was just like any other day; I woke up early, my family left, and I was home alone until about lunch time when my cousin Sarah came over to hang out.

However, one tiny factor made yesterday a little bit different from most other days, and it ended up causing something pretty ridiculous to happen.

I decided not to do my feeding tube the night beforehand because I hadn’t been feeling too well and the idea of a tube tickling the back of my throat all night was not as enticing as it usually is. Skipping my overnight feed (I’m a vampire) is not a big deal. I usually take one night off each week to give my repeatedly assaulted nasal cavity a break.

Over the past few months, I have discovered an unusual side effect that occasionally occurs the day after I choose not to do my feeding tube. Once again, unusual is probably not the right word, more like extremely unhealthy and frightening. Here is what happens: At some point during the day after I’ve skipped a feed, there comes a point when, seemingly out of nowhere, my body is overwhelmed with an incredible feeling of hunger. Not your typical “I missed lunch, now it’s dinner time, so I’m going to eat a lot,” type of hunger. No, this is far scarier than that. In a matter of a few minutes my entire body becomes extremely hot, basically feverish, and begins to sweat. From my toes to my head, I literally feel drips of sweat soaking into my clothing… its rather disgusting. Then, my whole body starts to tingle, like the feeling you get when a numb body part regains feeling, except everywhere. All of these alarming symptoms that spring up out of nowhere are centered in a dull, achy feeling of nothingness in my stomach.

The first time this happened was the day after I skipped my feeding tube for the first time. It was midmorning and I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and when the symptoms started, I honestly thought I was having a heart attack. I probably would have freaked out a tiny bit had it not been so obvious that this reaction was a result of the intense feeling of hunger that I suddenly felt. I scrambled my chair to the kitchen and asked my mom to warm up a bowl of leftover spaghetti, because that’s the first thing I saw in the fridge. I inhaled that spaghetti like it was the antidote for some deadly poison that I had ingested, and in a way, it was. A few spoonfuls into the bowl, I started to feel the symptoms residing. Relief flooded my mind and I promised myself that I would remember to eat plenty of food whenever I skipped my feeding tube from then on. I’m not a doctor, but it seems rational that my body is so adjusted to receiving 1500 calories overnight that when it doesn’t receive these calories, it loses its shit if I don’t give it enough fuel the next day. I should probably be a doctor.

Anyway, this insane hunger reaction only occurred one more time after the first one, but it wasn’t a big deal because I knew what I needed to do to fix it, and my mom was already in the process of cooking breakfast when it started. Until yesterday.

My quick-witted followers may already be noticing a problem. You see, the first two times I had this reaction, it was luckily the weekend and my family was home to help me get food. Yesterday, everyone was out of the house by 7:30 AM, and Sarah wasn’t coming over until 11-ish. Here are the ridiculous events that transpired yesterday morning. Spoiler alert: I didn’t die.

All I had for breakfast yesterday was a half a cup of coffee and a few sips of a milkshake. Totally not enough to sustain me until lunch, and I knew that at the time, but my hatred for being awake at 6 AM outweighed my desire to worry about my health by about 1 million to one, so I put very little thought into my small breakfast.

 A few hours after everyone had left, while I was watching an episode of Mad Men and thinking about the pizza that Sarah and I were going to order, I suddenly felt warmer than usual. My legs started to tingle and as it spread to the rest of my body, I immediately knew what was happening. This was not a good situation, and my usual chilled out demeanor quickly turned to panic. I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t eat something in the near future, but the sweat soaking my entire body hinted that it would probably not be a pleasant experience. I felt completely and utterly screwed.

I ran through my options in my head. Here’s what’s important to understand, if I absolutely had to I could have called my neighbor or Sarah and asked them to come over and help me get food, but if you know me, you know that I am extremely opposed to asking people for annoying help if I don’t need it. I needed to find food.

Without really thinking about what I was doing, I paused Mad Men and drove my chair to the kitchen. Nothing was more frustrating than what I saw. Food was everywhere, but all of it was just out of my reach. A bowl of grapes sat in the middle of our dining room table, next to a bowl of apples and oranges. Near the edge of the table sat a tin of cookies, several inches out of my reach, but even if I could have grabbed them, there’s no way I would have been able to pull the lid off. On my kitchen counter was a bag of muffins, two feet too high for me to reach.  Three more tins of cookies sat similarly positioned on the other side of the kitchen. Food was all around me and I was completely helpless.

I desperately drove into my room, knowing that I never have food in my room, but searching for anything that might somehow help me reach food to quell the otherworldly feeling that now inhabited my body. A pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups sat on my nightstand, a few feet out of reach. It was maddening that I was so close, yet so far from all of this food. My stomach screamed at me.

As I turned around in my room, the greatest sight I’ve ever seen in all my life appeared before my eyes. Across my room, sitting on a TV tray at perfect Shane-height, was a 1-pound box of chocolates that I had received as a Christmas gift. My heart jumped out of my chest and I’m pretty sure I screamed in excitement. However, the battle was not over. My arms are so unbelievably shitty at performing simple tasks that worried I wouldn’t be able to pull the box onto my lap and open it.

I used my chair to gently push the TV tray into a better position, so I could get myself as close as possible. The box of chocolates was only about 6 inches away from my left knee. I used the strength of both my arms to lift my left hand as high as I could, which is about shoulder-height these days, and flung it forward with all my might. My hand plopped about 2 inches short and all I got was TV tray. On my second effort I was able to land two fingers on top of the chocolates, and I slowly began sliding it towards my lap. At this point I was laughing hysterically, possibly because my body was shutting down, but probably because I couldn’t help but think about how stupid and ridiculous this situation was.

“Shane passed away because he didn’t do his feeding tube and had a heart attack after not being able to reach his box of chocolates.”

When I pulled the box onto my lap, I felt the greatest sense of relief that I’ve ever felt in my life, and I’m not hyperbolizing it even a little. My adrenaline gave me the superhuman strength needed to pull the lid off of the box of chocolates. The next 15 minutes are a blur. I sat there in complete ecstasy, shoveling chocolate into my mouth and basking in the feeling of accomplishment that comes from saving your own life. I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier.

I understand that this story might seem insignificant, and it probably is. I could have called someone if I hadn’t found those chocolates, but when you spend your entire life relying on other people for help, doing something on your own feels absolutely incredible.

Next time you are feeling completely helpless, like there’s nothing you can do to fix a problem, keep looking; maybe you will find a box of chocolates.