crazy march

Well hello! It's been a while since I posted -this month has been crazy! I've been traveling for work every week, gone at least 2 days a week, 3-4 with travel time and lots of other commitments. Things are finally slowing down and I'm happy to have time to spend in my office and school districts this April. Lots of good stuff to do and plan for next year! That being said, I've not gotten my contract yet...long story on that one and I don't feel very positive about it in regards to the "powers that be", so I'll just leave it at that. I do know that I will be here next year, I'm just not sure in what capacity and it's looking like a pay raise will be very difficult to accomplish. That's all fine and dandy...I would just like it buttoned up and done.

Let's see, what's new....nothing really. Working working working!! Yesterday I explored Hibbing with a friend and saw all of the mining stuff. That's crazy shit!! Wow. What an operation. Also saw Bob Dylan's house...yippidy doo dah, whatever. Haha! My little little sister is coming up for Easter break and I've very happy and excited for that! It will be nice to spend some time with her. Maybe I'll take her around to all of the post-secondary options that area available in this area and Duluth. That would be fun...at least for me. LOL!

I'm staying in Grand Rapids for Easter and I'm really looking forward to just relaxing and taking it easy. I've been traveling so much, I just want to stay home. I'd like to get some yard work in and do some spring cleaning in my house. Dusting, vacuuming, and maybe re-arranging my living room too. We'll see what kind of hassle that will be!!

Here's your pirate joke for the day:

One pirate said to his fellow crewmate, "Arrrgh, that be a fine looking hook and peg leg ye got for ye'self!"

The pirate replied, "I should think so, it cost me and arm and a leg!"

Bah-dum-pow. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen!!

Haha...that was funny.

Back to the humor, away from the absurd drama:







And by the way, I will not die, I have a few tiny gallstones floating freely in my gallbladder. No need for surgery unless they become bothersome and I find myself in the ER again in the next 4 months or so. The adventure continues!!

Mi Vida Loca (or something like that...)

So here's a shining example of my crazy life. I think it's humorous.

Last weekend, I was in Perham and then Ada and then Sunday I came home. I can't say that I ate "good" food all weekend (i.e. unhealthy eatin!!) and definitely on Sunday, I decided to get some KFC, which I typically do not eat at all because of the grease factor.

So, I went to bed early at 10pm, completely zonked out. At about 12:30am I woke up with severe abdominal pain and in a cold sweat. SOOOO vicious that I decided, holy crap, I better get myself to the hospital and get this addressed! I got dressed in ratty old but comfortable clothes and made my way out to my car, but found that I was way too dizzy and debilitated with pain that I wasn't sure I could get myself all the way to the hospital without passing out or crashing my car. SO, I called 911 and they sent out an ambulance. So here I am, in my house at almost 1:00 in the morning waiting for the ambulance to show up as I was in severe pain. They got there, took my vitals (which were absolutely normal), poked around on my belly and upper belly (which was crazy painful) and decided that I was most likely experiencing a gallbladder attack and walked me out to the ambulance for transport. The med tech apologized that it was the "old" ambulance because I was the fourth 911 during the past 2 hours and all they had "left" was the old one. And, it was old! Almost ghostbusters car old. Haha!!!

So I'm in the ambulance, sitting on a bench and the ambulance guy is yapping on and on and on about something (I can't remember now what he was blabbering about) and I was just plain in pain, not caring and not wanting to talk to anyone.

I get there and they take 5 vials of blood out of me, hook me up to stuff, and the ER doctor pokes around again on my upper abdomen. OUCH!!! Holy shit. So after a bit, she gave me a "GI Cocktail" which she said was basically mylanta stuff mixed with lidocaine. It was supposed to numb my esophagus and tummy because she wanted to rule out acid reflux or something like that. Well, that did not help at all...it just made my mouth and throat numb and feel like crap. By now it's about 2:45. The doc comes back and after learning the GI Cocktail did nothing for me but gross me out, decides to give me some vicodin for the pain and orders an ultrasound for me. Looking back, why didn't they ultrasound my gallbladder that night?? Anyway, so then as I'm signing my discharge papers, the nurse says "so, do you have anyone to bring you home or anyone to call?" I thought, well, shit. No, I don't have a ride home and I'm not comfortable calling anyone I know here to get me home at 3 in the morning!

So then, the nurse says, well, do you want to take a cab? And I said sure so she checked and the cab company in Grand Rapids ENDS at 2am and doesn't start up again until 6am. So here I am, discharged, armed with vicodin, still miserable and tired as hell, stranded in the emergency room. The nurse was a sweatheart though and said that I should just not worry about it, I should just stay in my room and get some sleep and she would call the cab company for me at 6am. I figured, well, why the hell not -whatever, because I was so tired. I took a vicodin, changed back into my clothes from the awful hospital gown and got some sleep -pain free sleep.

So at 6am the nurse comes back, wakes me up, and says she got ahold of the cab company and they'll be here in 20mn. Woo hoo!! Then I waited in the main waiting room for the ER and as soon as the cab got there the ER receptionist decided I needed to fill out a bunch more forms -even though I had been there for 20mn already. Geez. So I finally got into the cab and got a ride home. By the way, from the Grand Itasca Hospital and Clinic to my house, cab fare is $11.25. :)

By the time I got home it was time to "get up" anyway (well past that time, actually), so I got ready for work, because why the hell not? I had gotten a little sleep, felt ok, and I had shit to do at work all day.

I went into work, dealt with my entire day, even went to the chiropractor and massage person, and was on the road to Sauk Centre at 4:00 because I had to be at a workshop Tuesday and Wednesday there. I wasn't feeling 100%, but I was not in pain the whole day, just very very uncomfortable feeling. The clinic called me to schedule my gallbladder ultrasound and what do you know...everyone neglected to tell me that for that procedure, I couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight the day of the ultrasound. Unfortunately Monday was out then because I had drank coffee and ate a yogurt already by the time they called me. So I said I'll have to wait until Thursday because I'll be out of town the next two days (the lady did not sound happy...I do not think she approved of me leaving town in my "state"!!). I figured, if I've got gallstones, they will still be there on Thursday for crying out loud! I'll just watch closely what I eat so I don't cause my gallbladder to have to work (i.e. no fats or fatty foods for a while).

So I was in Sauk Centre for two days and felt ok. Needed lots of rolaids chews though, because that was the only thing that seemed to help the uncomfortable/half pain feeling. I did have my vicodin along and I took that in the evenings to help me settle into a sleep.

I had to email my office every day to let them know I was still alive and well, because they too thought I was nuts to go out of town after a night in the ER. Seriously folks, I felt ok enough and figured if it happened again I'd take vicodin for the pain and get myself to the hospital there (or call another ambulance) if I had troubles. I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself and have been for all my adult life. Needless to say, everything went just fine and I was feeling pretty good by Wednesday afternoon.

So Thursday morning I had my ultrasound and I'm waiting to hear about the results from that. So...Maybe I'll have to get the thing removed. Or maybe it was absolutely nothing, just a HUGE ass indigestion episode. We'll see.

But that's how my life is sometimes. Crazy. Calling myself an ambulance, being "orphaned" in a ER room while awaiting transportation, and refusing to cancel my workshop trip to get an ultrasound finished that could wait. This was not life threatening. I did not experience a fever and the pain was manageable and tapered off with time.

So....that's a glimpse of my sometimes crazy life! Ain't it great?! It certainly makes for a good story!!

So this weekend I'm laying low and rented a bunch of movies. I hope it rains tomorrow because I love rain here in Grand Rapids. :)