I will freely admit that I am a tad bit of a hypochondriac (DH would say I'm just raging insane-but that's open for debate). When I was growing up my mother would never take me to the doctor-for anything. When I was in middle school I fell down the steps chasing our dog and tore a ligament in my knee. I spent the next week participating in gym class and walking all over school before my mother believed me enough to take me to the doctor. She was pretty embarrassed that she had waited so long (hi mom!-I told you I would get revenge-well here it is). To be fair when my mom fell down the stairs a couple of years ago she actually broke her foot (like swollen, bruised and could feel the bone moving) and she never went to the doctor.
My parents were responsible and loving parents (so no calling the cops or anything), but they understood that I was a tad dramatic so they took my I'm dying claims with a grain of salt. DH still hasn't figured out how panicky I am, so he totally feeds into my crazy. Last year I personally spent $4000 on medical bills and spent months in and out of various doctors. At one point I was driving to a podiatrist 3 hours away from my home because I didn't like the responses I got from any podiatrist in my hometown. I had been having a ton of foot pain in a foot I had previously had surgery on and not one doctor believed me that there was something wrong. They all thought that I was gunning for drugs rather than a solution. Until I finally had surgery in college my foot hurt every single day for as almost 10 years-which was dismissed by every single doctor except one. After an MRI and being told that I would just have to live with pain I hightailed it back to that doctor. After months of tests we discovered that I had an auto-immune disease that was probably causing a large part of my pain. Now that it is being treated my pain is getting better (without narcotics thank you very much!). I do know my own body and sometimes I'm really right-but other times the crazy just kind of takes over.
Case in point: Sophomore year of college I woke up with a large lump on my eyelid. There wasn't any pus or any thing so where did my mind immediately jump? I decided I had eye cancer and rushed off to student health accordingly. The doctor seemed to have trouble keeping a straight face as I explained that I had eye cancer and would probably need chemo. This was the same doctor that was tasked with dealing with me previously for swine flu (probably not), severe flu (also not severe, but was given IV fluids just to shut me up) and several other ailments that were deadly at the time.
He took one look at my eye and calmly stated that I had a stye on the underside of my eyelid. He told me to wear my glasses until it popped on its own and to stop sleeping in my contacts. I wasn't convinced and left the doctor in a huff-"How could he be so insensitive to my fears?" I raged at my mother on the phone as I begged her to book me an appointment with the nearest oncologist. Luckily my mother has had tons of experience talking me down off ledges so she convinced me to wait a week until starting my cancer regime. She also talked me into applying a hot towel to my eye to speed up the process. A few days later the eye cancer was gone and once again my mother was right.
All of this leads back to my emergency room visit I alluded to a few days ago. I woke up on the Sunday before school started with a ton of back pain. For once my crazy didn't really kick in and I laid around in bed on a heating pad all day. Basically I used it as an excuse to get DH to rub my back and to not do any Sunday chores. I didn't call my mom all day (which is super unusual) because I felt so terrible. I knew I had to go to work the next day so I was really hoping I would feel better. DH spent most of the day shoveling snow without realizing how terrible I was feeling. When I finally decided that I should probably be seen by a doctor all the walk in care clinics were closed. Instead of rushing off to the ER I made the smart choice to call the on-call doctor to see if it could wait until the next day-he said we should come in.
When I can actually make smart health care decisions or when I wait to go to the doctor I usually wind up to be actually pretty sick. When I have the time and mental abilities to come up with my crazy scenarios it's usually something that's no big deal. I fully expected that this would actually be something serious-my back was really killing me at this point. I've had some pretty bad injuries and this was worse than anything I've ever experienced. It was right in the area of my kidneys so I totally expected a kidney stone or something like that.
The ER was slow, but I really didn't care until I got back to the room. We got triaged and taken back and then we waited FOREVER for a nurse to show up. Once she had taken vital and a urine sample she swept out and we were left alone for another hour. A PA shows up and explains that they had run some tests and I didn't have an infection-they wanted to order a CT scan to check out my kidneys. She also stated that she would get me some pain medication since at this point I was white as a sheet and writhing around trying to get comfortable (quietly so I didn't make a scene of course). We agreed and she left-it was another hour before the nurse came back to start my IV-and she didn't bring the promised pain medication. She did a great job getting the IV in quickly as I squeezed my eyes shut (I don't have a fear of needles, but I do pass out at the sight of blood-I can handle animal blood just not human blood-yes it's odd). DH asked very politely if she could get us a bandage or a wrap to cover the IV so I didn't have to look at the blood in it and she said she would. I was taken away for my CT scan shortly after that which went well and was over quickly. They used the strange dye that makes you feel like you're peeing yourself.
Just a warning for anyone who has to get the contrast dye-IT REALLY WILL FEEL LIKE YOU'RE PEEING YOURSELF! I was told this multiple times and I didn't really believe them. I was more focused on the fact that they told me it would make me feel warm-I was freezing to death so that sounded like a welcome side effect. The very nice radiologist came and got me from my room to take me for the CT scan. It was super embarrassing to be rolled through the waiting room in my hospital bed while wearing my super revealing hospital gown (that I hadn't let DH tie so he could rub my back). Of course one of my former students was in the waiting room with his family-he seemed to get a good laugh out of it. When we got the room I correctly assumed that I should lie on the table by the machine and went to get up-at the same time the radiologist reached out to help me up and he managed to totally grab my boob!
The poor guy turned bright red and I'm pretty sure he expected a screaming fit and a lawsuit. He seemed a bit taken aback when I made a VERY terrible joke (that I won't repeat) and started laughing. He apologized about a million times, but it wasn't that big of deal. When he injected the dye I was still giggling inwardly and then all of the sudden I was peeing myself. I shared this with the radiologist and he assured me that I wasn't. By this point crazy anxiety brain had taken over and I was convinced that I did pee myself.
Once we were done he rolled me back to my room and I still felt a little funny from the dye. The first words out of my mouth when I rejoined DH? "The radiologist grabbed my boob-can you check and see if I peed myself?" DH is actually a good sport (and a GREAT husband) because he checked and confirmed that I hadn't made a huge mess and he cracked up at the story. It took another few hours, but I finally got my pain medicine (3 hours after I was told I would get it and 30 minutes before we were allowed to leave).
So what was wrong? I was having an allergic reaction to a new medicine that I had started taking for my autoimmune disease. The shot of morphine they gave me before discharging me made me totally drunk, but didn't touch the back pain. It wasn't until I had skipped 2 doses of the medicine before the pain started to go away-no matter how many muscle relaxers and pain pills I took.
My lesson from all of this is a surprising one-my mother was RIGHT. It feels like every time I go to the doctor for one thing the medicine or the procedure causes another thing. Medical care is like the Domino theory except with ER visits instead of Communist Governments. My mom has a theory that if you never go to the doctor you never get sick. I think all my illnesses have come about from exposing myself to germs and medical care. My goal for 2015 is to avoid as much medical care as possible since if I get any sicker I'll probably die and that would be unfortunate. Is there a name for a hypochondriac that avoids medical care (besides lunatic)?
Showing posts with label aha moments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aha moments. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Monday, January 12, 2015
A Capital Idea
DH and I made a resolution to attempt to eat healthier in 2015. Neither of us are overweight, but our diet is more suitable for a broke, college student. Actually our diet is worse than when we were actually in college because at least in school we had meal plans. When we didn't feel like cooking it was pretty easy to walk to the nearest on campus restaurant for a quick meal-my college was really pushing healthy eating when we were there so our options were usually moderately healthy. Both DH and I are pretty decent cooks, but I hate doing it. After working 8-9 hours the LAST thing I feel like doing is standing in the kitchen. DH just doesn't have the skills to plan ahead so we actually have food in the house so he usually gets stuck trying to make dinner out of stale cereal and lunch meat.
When we lived in our old house (that was actually in a real town with restaurants and everything) we ate better (since there were restaurants). When we moved to the boonies we were comforted by the fact that our town had one restaurant. A week after we signed the contract on our house it burned down and we were out of dinner options. I discovered that I'm pretty awesome with a slow cooker and we did okay.
I've been having some stupid health issues lately and healthy eating is something that actually might help with that. I saw on Pinterest a recipe for making a whole roasted chicken and veggies in the slow cooker (Link: http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-whole-chicken-33671) and I decided to give it a whirl. DH and I had great success making a turkey in November, so I figured chicken would be just as easy. I changed the recipe since I didn't have half the ingredients (a pretty typical thing in my house) and made a lemon pepper chicken type thing (with Kalamata olives since that seemed to go well).
All went well with the actual cooking of it until it was time to carve it. Carving things is DH's job since I tend to slice my finger along with the actual meat and he doesn't really like eating pieces of his wife's fingers mixed in with his dinner. I curled up on the couch while he happily wielded the big knife and ensured that his carving technique was perfect (and that when we finally ate dinner an hour later the chicken would be ice cold). The dog begged for scraps (and was rewarded with a whole bowl of chicken juice that she would later puke up all over the living room) and DH and I continued our conversation.
We were thoughtfully discussing terrorism and the attacks on Paris and our thoughts on gun control. Our conversation was smart and thoughtful. We both have genius level IQ's (even though it may not seem like it sometimes) and we are both well-read so our conversations tend to lean toward the intellectual. We are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we can have polite debates (at least most of the time). Keep all this in mind while I tell you what happened next.
I was delivering one of my monologues (this happens pretty frequently) on some obscure piece of French history (I believe I was discussing the Revolution) when DH interrupted me. In my book interrupting me during anything is a cardinal sin and DH knows this very well. His incredibly important idea? "I wonder if any company sells wishbones?" When I shot him a look that meant shut up and let me talk he interpreted it as tell me more (he's not very adept at reading facial expressions). He continued with "Think about it-they could make so much money especially if they already sell chicken since it doesn't cost them anything. They could probably make $2.00 if they sold them on Amazon. It's pure profit". He has since decided that we are starting a chicken wishbone business, so if anyone is interested contact DH for all your needs (wishbone related)!
My takeaway from all this-while DH is a genius his mind works in an incredibly strange way. He also listened when I spent an hour discussing digitalis poisoning and stabbing people with icicles, so I have to tolerate his brand of crazy. True love=tolerating the other person's baseline level of crazy.
When we lived in our old house (that was actually in a real town with restaurants and everything) we ate better (since there were restaurants). When we moved to the boonies we were comforted by the fact that our town had one restaurant. A week after we signed the contract on our house it burned down and we were out of dinner options. I discovered that I'm pretty awesome with a slow cooker and we did okay.
I've been having some stupid health issues lately and healthy eating is something that actually might help with that. I saw on Pinterest a recipe for making a whole roasted chicken and veggies in the slow cooker (Link: http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-whole-chicken-33671) and I decided to give it a whirl. DH and I had great success making a turkey in November, so I figured chicken would be just as easy. I changed the recipe since I didn't have half the ingredients (a pretty typical thing in my house) and made a lemon pepper chicken type thing (with Kalamata olives since that seemed to go well).
All went well with the actual cooking of it until it was time to carve it. Carving things is DH's job since I tend to slice my finger along with the actual meat and he doesn't really like eating pieces of his wife's fingers mixed in with his dinner. I curled up on the couch while he happily wielded the big knife and ensured that his carving technique was perfect (and that when we finally ate dinner an hour later the chicken would be ice cold). The dog begged for scraps (and was rewarded with a whole bowl of chicken juice that she would later puke up all over the living room) and DH and I continued our conversation.
We were thoughtfully discussing terrorism and the attacks on Paris and our thoughts on gun control. Our conversation was smart and thoughtful. We both have genius level IQ's (even though it may not seem like it sometimes) and we are both well-read so our conversations tend to lean toward the intellectual. We are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but we can have polite debates (at least most of the time). Keep all this in mind while I tell you what happened next.
I was delivering one of my monologues (this happens pretty frequently) on some obscure piece of French history (I believe I was discussing the Revolution) when DH interrupted me. In my book interrupting me during anything is a cardinal sin and DH knows this very well. His incredibly important idea? "I wonder if any company sells wishbones?" When I shot him a look that meant shut up and let me talk he interpreted it as tell me more (he's not very adept at reading facial expressions). He continued with "Think about it-they could make so much money especially if they already sell chicken since it doesn't cost them anything. They could probably make $2.00 if they sold them on Amazon. It's pure profit". He has since decided that we are starting a chicken wishbone business, so if anyone is interested contact DH for all your needs (wishbone related)!
My takeaway from all this-while DH is a genius his mind works in an incredibly strange way. He also listened when I spent an hour discussing digitalis poisoning and stabbing people with icicles, so I have to tolerate his brand of crazy. True love=tolerating the other person's baseline level of crazy.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
What was I thinking?
DH left today on a boy's weekend trip. Since the weekend was going to consist of looking at farm equipment I wisely made the decision to stay home with the dog. This choice also makes me look good so I can leave town next weekend without guilt-he really owes me one!
I had planned a relaxing spa day today and I was going to do absolutely nothing! Unfortunately my type-A took over and I spend about 5 hours stripping our house of Christmas decorations. It felt good to have it done (even though DH weaseled out of helping again-I'm pretty sure he does this intentionally).
My spa day was wonderful-at least until the masseuse burned me with a hot towel-I still have a nice burn mark on my shoulder. I left totally relaxed-except for the slight burn. However, I've developed quite a high tolerance for pain and injury since I seem to do some sort of deadly injury to myself about once a week, so no harm done.
After I got home and had dinner (and took a shower to rinse off all the sticky oil) I jumped right into my next project. Over Christmas I went on the hunt to buy a new iPod since my 8 year old iPod Touch had finally died (probably because I left it in my car for two years). As I was trolling eBay I discovered that the iPod classic came in a 160 gb version and I was sold. I had already loaded all my music on it (all 15 gigs of it) so I decided to finally begin the task of digitizing my CD collection.
I've discovered that between 1998 and 2009 I fell into some sort of strange vacumn where my usually impeccable taste abandoned me. The first two CD's were JaRule and Nelly-I was a white girl from the suburbs why on earth did I think I was cool? After listening to a few of the songs again I realized that I TOTALLY get why parents get so upset about their kids listening to this type of music. All the stuff I didn't understand in the 8th grade I get now. I'm quite glad I didn't take life advice from this music or I would be a VERY different person. I remember thinking I was a gangster back in the day-now I look back on my middle school self and think about building a time machine so I can punch her in the face. I want to tell her "In no way did you look cool strutting by the lifeguard station blasting a song about a drive-by shooting in your one piece TYR swimsuit-you looked like a complete and total idiot. No one thought you were a gangster-they thought you were mentally insane".
Does this mean I'm actually grown up now? (Oh wait-I'm still enjoying my collection of gangsta rap....along with some Conway Twitty thrown in-now people just think I'm insane)
I had planned a relaxing spa day today and I was going to do absolutely nothing! Unfortunately my type-A took over and I spend about 5 hours stripping our house of Christmas decorations. It felt good to have it done (even though DH weaseled out of helping again-I'm pretty sure he does this intentionally).
My spa day was wonderful-at least until the masseuse burned me with a hot towel-I still have a nice burn mark on my shoulder. I left totally relaxed-except for the slight burn. However, I've developed quite a high tolerance for pain and injury since I seem to do some sort of deadly injury to myself about once a week, so no harm done.
After I got home and had dinner (and took a shower to rinse off all the sticky oil) I jumped right into my next project. Over Christmas I went on the hunt to buy a new iPod since my 8 year old iPod Touch had finally died (probably because I left it in my car for two years). As I was trolling eBay I discovered that the iPod classic came in a 160 gb version and I was sold. I had already loaded all my music on it (all 15 gigs of it) so I decided to finally begin the task of digitizing my CD collection.
I've discovered that between 1998 and 2009 I fell into some sort of strange vacumn where my usually impeccable taste abandoned me. The first two CD's were JaRule and Nelly-I was a white girl from the suburbs why on earth did I think I was cool? After listening to a few of the songs again I realized that I TOTALLY get why parents get so upset about their kids listening to this type of music. All the stuff I didn't understand in the 8th grade I get now. I'm quite glad I didn't take life advice from this music or I would be a VERY different person. I remember thinking I was a gangster back in the day-now I look back on my middle school self and think about building a time machine so I can punch her in the face. I want to tell her "In no way did you look cool strutting by the lifeguard station blasting a song about a drive-by shooting in your one piece TYR swimsuit-you looked like a complete and total idiot. No one thought you were a gangster-they thought you were mentally insane".
Does this mean I'm actually grown up now? (Oh wait-I'm still enjoying my collection of gangsta rap....along with some Conway Twitty thrown in-now people just think I'm insane)
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Heigh ho, heigh ho back to school we go
Yesterday was the first day back with my 8th graders after a 19 day break! I was happy to be back with them, but dang was it hard getting back into the routine. I love the fact that teaching allows me the freedom that I want for my life since I do have these long breaks-but I love getting back to the structure of my classroom and having a routine for my day.
One stumbling block in my plan to finding a career that would allow me to stay home is the fact that I'm HORRIBLE without my routine. I made myself a 2 page list of things to accomplish over break and completed just a few of them. I can always find things to distract myself from the drudgery of work (like snuggling with DH or the cute puppy). Spending time with my family trumps every other thing in my life.
It was nice to be back to work, but oh how I haven't missed those 6:00 am wake-up calls! I'm definitely NOT a morning person-as evidenced by the fact that DH usually spends 20 minutes trying to get me out of bed in the morning! Yesterday was even tougher as I had spent Sunday night in the emergency room and I was still struggling through the effects of a morphine shot and a significant sleep deficit. (Nothing to be concerned about-just a small little thing that I will be discussing in more detail later). I made it through the day (just barely) and was so relieved when I finally got home.
Usually the first day back is tough for the kiddos as well-they are amped up to see their friends and SO not in the mood for schoolwork. I have pretty awesome classroom management skills so I don't usually deal with major problems, but we still have more than usual on days before and after break. Yesterday I explained to my kids that I wasn't feeling well and asked them for awesome sauce behavior and they ALL complied! It was awesome that they were compassionate and gave me what I needed to not go crazy. That's one reason why I LOVE teaching middle school-underneath all that kid behavior you start to get glimpses of the adults they are becoming (sometimes that's not a good thing).
Today I'm feeling much better and I've accomplished more today than I did over all of break! :) I even managed to get a massage and facial scheduled for myself on Saturday to give myself a mini-break! Many many doctors over the past 8 months have told me that I need to destress and try to find ways to relax. I will admit that I'm terrible at relaxing-I have a type-A personality for crying out loud! Relaxing is not in my vocabulary! DH is a total type-B and is probably the most laid back person I've ever met. He rarely yells at other drivers while I spend my 25 minute commute shouting at everyone else (I'm not really yelling-rather I'm providing corrections for their behavior). DH also doesn't panic if the suitcases aren't unpacked the minute we get home from a trip (he has a tendency to leave his packed suitcase in the middle of the living room floor for 2 weeks), but he does freak out over dishes in the sink. Honestly if I relaxed we would live in further squalor and disaster than we usually do since neither of us would be getting done-who would panic over the finances, the dog's vaccinations, her diet, the grocery shopping and the million and one things that need to get done. After the ER scare on Sunday I'm making a concerted effort to relax more and one way of doing that is to spend 75.00 on a spa day-I have a feeling that won't make me relax any more than burning it in the yard would but I'm giving it a shot.
I will say I feel a heck of a lot more relaxed now that I'm back at work and structured. I even got a ton of Christmas shopping done over my plan period today :)
One stumbling block in my plan to finding a career that would allow me to stay home is the fact that I'm HORRIBLE without my routine. I made myself a 2 page list of things to accomplish over break and completed just a few of them. I can always find things to distract myself from the drudgery of work (like snuggling with DH or the cute puppy). Spending time with my family trumps every other thing in my life.
It was nice to be back to work, but oh how I haven't missed those 6:00 am wake-up calls! I'm definitely NOT a morning person-as evidenced by the fact that DH usually spends 20 minutes trying to get me out of bed in the morning! Yesterday was even tougher as I had spent Sunday night in the emergency room and I was still struggling through the effects of a morphine shot and a significant sleep deficit. (Nothing to be concerned about-just a small little thing that I will be discussing in more detail later). I made it through the day (just barely) and was so relieved when I finally got home.
Usually the first day back is tough for the kiddos as well-they are amped up to see their friends and SO not in the mood for schoolwork. I have pretty awesome classroom management skills so I don't usually deal with major problems, but we still have more than usual on days before and after break. Yesterday I explained to my kids that I wasn't feeling well and asked them for awesome sauce behavior and they ALL complied! It was awesome that they were compassionate and gave me what I needed to not go crazy. That's one reason why I LOVE teaching middle school-underneath all that kid behavior you start to get glimpses of the adults they are becoming (sometimes that's not a good thing).
Today I'm feeling much better and I've accomplished more today than I did over all of break! :) I even managed to get a massage and facial scheduled for myself on Saturday to give myself a mini-break! Many many doctors over the past 8 months have told me that I need to destress and try to find ways to relax. I will admit that I'm terrible at relaxing-I have a type-A personality for crying out loud! Relaxing is not in my vocabulary! DH is a total type-B and is probably the most laid back person I've ever met. He rarely yells at other drivers while I spend my 25 minute commute shouting at everyone else (I'm not really yelling-rather I'm providing corrections for their behavior). DH also doesn't panic if the suitcases aren't unpacked the minute we get home from a trip (he has a tendency to leave his packed suitcase in the middle of the living room floor for 2 weeks), but he does freak out over dishes in the sink. Honestly if I relaxed we would live in further squalor and disaster than we usually do since neither of us would be getting done-who would panic over the finances, the dog's vaccinations, her diet, the grocery shopping and the million and one things that need to get done. After the ER scare on Sunday I'm making a concerted effort to relax more and one way of doing that is to spend 75.00 on a spa day-I have a feeling that won't make me relax any more than burning it in the yard would but I'm giving it a shot.
I will say I feel a heck of a lot more relaxed now that I'm back at work and structured. I even got a ton of Christmas shopping done over my plan period today :)
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