Hospital Living: Part 2

By the time I was admitted and had a room at the hospital on Thursday, I realized that I hadn't eaten all day other than two pieces of toast, and that had been breakfast.

I'm entertained by this hospital because they call the food service "Room Service." When you get your bed, they give you a menu (unless you're on a special diet, in which case the doctors and nurses decide what you should be eating). I'm on a general diet, meaning I have no restrictions so I can eat whatever I want, and whenever I want. However! Don't try to call in your dinner order after 6:30 PM, because that's when room service stops taking orders.

Of course, I'm just starting to get settled in my room (a private room with a horrible view but decent TV), and the nurse points out that it's almost 6:30, so I should order my tray (they don't refer to it as a meal or food - aways as "your tray"). Quickly glancing at the menu, I select the lemon baked cod and small garden salad.

I wait for my food.

I'm starting to get hungry.

Suddenly my transport arrives. They want to do another ultrasound on my leg just to be sure there are no clots.

My nurse says they'll leave my tray, and it should be waiting for me when I return.

So, I mentioned a transport up there. After being admitted to the hospital, I haven't had to walk anywhere - beyond the bathroom, that is. They always bring a wheelchair. It is a good thing because I don't think I could have walked all the way to the ultrasound and back. But I didn't even have to walk to my room in the first place. A kid (who looked way too young to have a job at a hospital and way too scrawny to push around someone my size) brought a wheelchair and brought me to my room.

Anyway, back to the ultrasound. Under normal circumstances, they probably wouldn't hurt anyone. But with my swollen and burning leg, the procedure is awful. It hurts to have anything touch my leg at any given time. For the ultrasound, they need to touch my leg. Youchies.

When I got back, my tray had arrived. I sit on the edge of the bed and have at it.

It's not the best fish, but I really wanted to eat, so I lifted the cover and was a little surprised at what I saw. It was a standard dinner plate, with a small piece of fish on it, next to a garnish of something green and a cherry tomato. That small side salad was truly a small side salad was truly that - small, sad little bowl with about 3 pieces of iceberg lettuce, a cucumber and another cherry tomato.

Hmm. Portion control is going to be a piece of cake.

Good thing I wasn't overly starving. I may have had nothing to eat all day, but this amount of food seemed perfect in context.

I ate a couple bites of fish, and it was good. But the next thing I knew a guy was there to drain half the blood from my body. He was nice, but I should have asked him what it was all for. He had to take samples from both arms. It took him a while of staring and prodding at my arms before deciding which one to poke - his personal philosophy as a lab tech was to poke people as few times as necessary, which he did for me.

Then I got to finish my dinner.

And now I'm done with this post because I'm getting loopy from the drugs and should probably take a nap. Once again, not proofreading. My apologies.

Hospital Living: Part 1

I know I'm not going to have time to write this all in one blog post. Not going to happen. So I'll start when everything began: Tuesday.

I woke up in the morning very cold. Shivering, hypothermia type of cold. Tooth-clattering, hands-shaking, painful cold. And I was a little dizzy.

Thinking about getting warm as fast as possible, I figured a nice hot shower was my best option. Showering is tough when you're violently shaking, but I made it through somehow. Just out of curiosity, I checked the thermostat to see if the heat had gotten turned off overnight. It hadn't, and it was the same temp it always was in the house.

The next thing I thought of was that I must have a fever. 98.3. Not high. Higher than average for me (I usually run a cool 97.7), but not a fever. I went to work.

I was still dizzy. Halfway down the street I thought I should turn around. I was a little nauseated because I had taken my vitamin on an empty stomach that morning. But I thought that would pass and everything would be fine once I got to work.

All was not well. If anything, I felt worse when I got to work. I sent out a plea for someone to come pick me up and take me home so that I didn't have to bus home and do all that walking - I was still really dizzy.

Turns out it was a good thing I went home. My stop-mom picked me up and dropped me off at home on her way to work. It means so much to me that she did that for me. So much. When I took my temp again, it was over 102. One giant nap later, 103.3.

I take some ibuprofen for the fever and commence freaking out. It was somewhere around here that I was starting to realize how much my leg was starting to hurt. The back and side felt like they were burning, and they were red and hot to the touch.

So I did what any thirty-something would do in this day and age: the Almighty Google.

Pain, redness, hot to the touch? All symptoms of a blood clot. Deep vein thrombosis. As in: can kill you if you don't take care of it fast.

The freak-out is instantly amped up. I made a post on Facebook, seeing if someone could take me to urgent care.

A friend jumped to the rescue. She and I were friends way back in elementary school but had gradually drifted apart over the years (as happens to most friendships from elementary school). She took me to the clinic I wanted to go to (the same clinic where I see my primary care doc). There was no wait at urgent care (note: this never happens).

The doc there identifies the problem in my leg almost immediately. He's 98% sure once I tell him about my fever.

Cellulitis.

No, it is not anything related to cellulite.

Cellulitis is a bacterial infection of the subcutaneous tissue or other deep tissue of the body, most commonly happening in the legs, hands, and face.

But, he wasn't 100% sure there wasn't a clot, so he scheduled an ultrasound on my leg to check for clots later that evening.

My step-mom to the rescue again! She took me to the hospital (because that's where you get ultrasounds).

Ok, changing to a faster method here. I'm starting to fall asleep thanks to the drugs.

The ultrasound was negative, so I started taking antibiotics for the cellulitis.

It didn't help. In fact, it started getting worse. A lot worse. By Thursday, I still had a temp over 100, the redness and swelling had spread to the entire lower leg. The pain was unbearable.

Call to the doctor's office and they told me I should come in to see my primary care doc. I did, and he said that the best option, since the infection had obviously gotten worse after 24 hours of antibiotics, was to be admitted to the hospital for a few days and receive IV antibiotics.

The hospital. Admitted. Inpatient. IV.

Yes, this is happening. And I couldn't even go home to get stuff. They made me go straight there to start treatment right away.

And that's where I have to stop for the night. It's bedtime for this sicko.

So Much to Say

Yesterday morning, I wanted to write a blog post, but couldn't find the words. Now I have too many.

I'm working on a post about same-sex marriage and the controversy surrounding it in Minnesota right now. That's going to have to wait. I want to be able to devote my full attention to it, and right now my mind is on other things.

I wanted to write a post about my 5k on Saturday, and how much it meant to me to have so many friends come out to support me and walk with me. Again, there are other things on my mind right now.

Last night, I watched Game of Thrones on HBO, then started getting ready for bed. Shortly before turning in for the night, I remembered I had wanted to post to Twitter about how much I'm enjoying Game of Thrones so far, so I did that. That's when I started seeing posts about a special announcement that the president was going to make. Rumors were flying that it was something about Osama Bin Laden. I saw the tweet from the White House with a link to the live feed of the president's speech.

[Side note: in looking for that link to post up there about Game of Thrones, I happened to discover that I can access the new "HBO GO" service. Seems incredibly awesome, and it's extremely distracting. If you're an HBO subscriber, check it out. You have access to every episode of every HBO show. Holy buckets. Must get back to blog post, but it's so pretty...]

I turned on the TV. For some reason CNN wasn't working. I turned to NBC while also watching the feed from the White House on my computer.

Twitter was going nuts. Everyone was waiting up to see what Obama was going to say.

Finally, more than an hour after the White House said he'd be speaking, Obama was talking, telling us that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. I mean, my initial reaction was surprise. And I'm not sorry that he's dead. But I don't seem to feel the joy that so many others have felt. I didn't jump up and down. I watched because I knew it was going to be historic. Remember the date, folks. 5/1/11. They're going to talk about that in history classes. Your kids will ask you about it when they're teenagers and discussing it at school.

However, countless people have died. This cannot be ignored. The death of one man doesn't end this, and it doesn't change the fact that so many had to suffer through the loss of their loved ones.

Partially because I'm distracted, and partially because I think it's appropriate, I'm going to share the quotation attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. that's going around Facebook today. I have no idea if he actually said this, but I would believe it of him. I'm seeing a few different versions in my Facebook feed, so I'm choosing the one that I like the most. I tried to find out if it came from a speech, but only found part of it. But I still think it's a fitting sentiment for today.

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

If Only

For nearly 30 years, I've been convinced that if only I had a boyfriend, all of my problems would be solved. Everything. I'd be deliriously happy, and everything else would just fall into its rightful place.

So far, life hasn't worked out that way.

I've had boyfriends. I've even been happy with some of them. But it never really seemed to resolve things in other aspects of my life.

I also think that this delusion of mine has kept me from getting the most out of my relationships. I've gotten it in my head that having a boyfriend is the solution, so that every time a new man came into my life, I was convinced that HE was the solution. I fell too fast, and in most cases let my clouded ideals blind me to what was really going on. Every time a relationship ended, or a date didn't go well, I would tell myself that he wasn't the key to the puzzle. It'll be the next one.

It never was. And it never will be.

My most recent failure has taught me that it's not about the boyfriend. I've managed to find happiness on my own, without the man. I've got a pretty good thing going on lately, and none of it has to do with the fact that a guy just blew me off last week. It's other things, all adding up. I'm making myself a better person, and I'm loving myself for it. For once, I'm truly making things all about me.

Maybe someday, eventually, I will find a guy who fits into my life. When that happens (if that happens), I will embrace it. But I won't let the next guy who comes along ruin what I've found for myself, unless he proves himself to be just what I need.

I have a new mantra. No longer will my foolish fairy-tale notions rule my life. It's not worth it. My heart is worth more than that.

Dear You

Dear You,

I don't know what happened, but I'm no stranger to this experience. However, I thought this time would be different. You seemed different from all the others before you.

I thought we had a good thing going on. Apparently that was all in my head. I haven't heard from you in five days. That doesn't sound like much when it's written down, but considering that since we met, there have only been a few days where we had no contact at all. There was always something.

I smiled every time I got a text from you. My bus rides out to see you were wonderful, because I knew you would be there at the park and ride. Spending time with you was a joy and I never really wanted to go home, but I knew I had to.

Was it because I was taking things too slowly? Usually I'm different, but this time I was trying something new because I thought it would help. Apparently I was wrong.

The whole time, I was clouded by how I felt for you. Did I see things that weren't really there? Was the touch of your hand merely imagination? I'm sad that none of it was real in the end, because I really liked it.

I'm choosing to remember the you in my head rather than the you you turned out to be. It's better than feeling defeated and worthless yet again.

Originally I thought I'd be spending time with you tonight. Instead I'll be watching "He's Just Not That Into You" on DVD, since apparently I need to get that message.

I still wish it could have been different. I wish you could have said something instead of completely ignoring me. I think that would have hurt less...

- me

Relationships and Jumping to Conclusions

I've been dating The Guy for almost a month now. In all honesty, this is about as long as my relationships tend to last. And that's only if I get past the first date.

Right around now is when most guys realize that they aren't interested in me in "that way," and they tell me (or just let me figure out on my own) that they just want to be friends - which really means that he has no desire to ever see me again, but he doesn't want to have to see me cry. I'm used to it by now.

But that also means that I'm starting to get a little paranoid about my situation with The Guy. We have (very loose) plans for the weekend, but other than a few scattered text messages on Monday, I haven't heard from him all week. I know that he's really busy - that was in one of the texts he sent on Monday. He has work and school and all the stress that comes from both of those things. But that little corner of my heart keeps nagging me, telling me that he's not really so busy. He's just trying to figure out how to let me down easy.

Because they all, eventually, let me down. Story of my life. Why should this guy be any different?

I hope he is different. I really hope he is just insanely busy and hasn't had the time to get in touch with me. Maybe he only thinks about me when his day is over and it's too late to send me a message because he doesn't want to wake me up.

I guess I'll find out on Saturday. I'm already ready to update my Facebook relationship status, but that seems to be the kiss of death for me - as soon as I acknowledge the fact that have a boyfriend, boom - he's gone. This time I'm going to talk to him. See what we're doing, where we're going.

Ugh. I don't want to do that. I want it all to make sense, like the way it always feels when we're actually together. I don't want to have to talk about it. And I don't want to be the girl who nags her boyfriend about not contacting her enough. I'm not that girl.

It's all going to be fine. Unless it's not. I can't be entirely optimistic on this one, because if it goes horribly wrong this weekend I'll be so disappointed. Beyond disappointed. But if I'm completely pessimistic, then it won't work out anyway because I'll be so convinced it'll fail.

I hate waiting.

I really like this guy. I really want it to work. I want to have a real relationship. Is that too much to ask?

Quarter 1 Results: 2011

or: Everything's Coming Up Becky!

Nutshell summary of the year so far:
* Moved in with siblings, ergo saving money on rent
* Purchased netbook computer for portability so I can further advance my writing – the best part was that this was a comfortable purchase, financially, despite the meager bonus handed out at work
* Secured a season ticket package for the Twins
* Met a guy on the internet who is actually turning out to be a viable relationship option for me – but this is still developing news
* The Get Healthy Initiative (or GHI) is progressing smoothly thanks to a gym membership and a lot of encouragement from friends and family – and so far the numerical result is 25 pounds lost.

That’s right, folks. I’ve lost 25 pounds. Numbers girl that I am, I can’t help but do some math around this. In the first quarter of 2011, I lost 25 pounds. If I keep things up and lose at a similar rate, then I could assume a 25 pound loss each quarter of 2011. That means I could lose 100 pounds this year. Now, I know that’s ambitious, but I’m just a little giddy and optimistic today. I know I can’t expect to have the same results quarter after quarter (and 4th quarter is notorious for knocking everyone off the healthy bandwagon), so I’m not going to set my goals for the rest of 2011 yet. We’ll get there. But I am going to say that I’m shooting for another 25 pounds by the end of the second quarter.

You heard me. By the end of June, I hope to be 50 pounds lighter than I was back in the dead of winter. You might even see me at a beach. Maybe. Of course, I’d probably have to buy a new swim suit before that happens. But still – 50 pounds. That’s the next goal.

I’m still training. There’s a 5k coming up at the end of April that I’m really starting to get excited about. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to run part of it (shooting for about a mile’s worth, but spread out over the course of the race, but I’ll adjust that goal as I get closer to race day). And the half marathon is still on the table for November. I’m doing it. So far my only goals related to that race are A) show up and B) finish. Those will likely be adjusted as well. Except for goal A. Gotta do that one, it’s the most important – if I don’t complete goal A, I can’t do any of the other goals.

What’s that? You want to hear about the guy? I can’t say much yet. It’s only been a few dates. But I like him. I like talking to him and I like spending time with him. I like being close to him. It’s still early, though, so I have no idea if he feels all these same things about me. It could be my lack of experience in these things (seriously, it had been a year and a half since my last date), because I really just don’t know how to read him. I’m guessing he must feel something, though, because he keeps agreeing to see me again.

As you can see, it’s all going well. Isn’t this the point in the movie when everything starts going horribly awry? Either that, or hilarity ensues. I’m going to hope for the latter.

By the way, thanks to everyone for all your support during this Get Healthy Initiative. It’s really motivating to check on your Facebook status and see that over 35 people “like” it, and it’s inspiring to see the @ replies on Twitter. All of you coworkers, you’re helping, too. I love the encouragement. I wouldn’t have had a strong first quarter without all of you. Keep it coming.