Nothing

I don't have the energy to post much tonight.

But, for the record, I am pretty sure I am as drama as it gets. I can't be decisive for anything right now. Warning, I reserve the right to change my mind at the drop of a hat at all times.

Some days I HATE HATE HATE being a girl. Seriously.

Allergy testing is a joke. A big fat freaking joke.

I'm kinda not in the greatest of moods today. Please disregard this post. I will try to be stable again starting tomorrow.

Oh, I don't think I talked about how last week I feel out of bed. Yep, I'm 28 and I fell out of bed. And I have a huge bruise to prove it. I have a nasty habit of sleeping on the very very edge of the bed, and it finally caught up to me. But it made me laugh really hard. So, I guess it was still worth it.

enough already.

This is just to say that I am done dating.

I am considering getting a cat.

I just thought you should know.

the good, the bad, and the ugly

This post is not for the faint of heart.  If you are not ready to see some real brusing, I would consider closing your browser window now.  I promise, all I show is my ugly leg covered with brusing.  Nothing else gross. 

The Good:

-I go to the orthopedic in the morning.

-I got more drugs for the pain.  This time it is a higher dose that I can take more frequently.  Thank you PCP.

-Rollover minutes on the cell phone

-I can walk with one crutch around the house.

-The swelling has decreased slightly, as you can see in the last picture (which I contribute to my finally resting my knee consistently)

The Bad:

-I am growing very bored of sitting around doing absolutely nothing all day.

-I have used way way way too many minutes on my cell phone.

-The bruising is looking worse each day still.

-When my PCP walked into the room, both he and his med student said "wow" when they saw my leg.  Never a good sign.

-My PCP thinks I am most likely getting surgery.

The Ugly:

ER

I do not like dancing.  This is something that I have not enjoyed doing, well, pretty much ever.  Last night I decided to step out of my comfort zone and go country dancing with some friends.  I was just going to have a good attitude and be a good sport.  I drove downtown, payed $4 and started dancing.  At the beginning they have a lesson to benefit all of the people like myself that do not regularly (or ever) country dance.  Maybe 15 or 20 minutes into the lesson I injured myself.  I am not sure what move we were doing, but it involved a drop, twist and pull back up.  The guy I was dancing with, who I had never met before, kept saying that I needed to drop lower.  Well I finally did and then I twisted, like you are supposed to and somehow in all of that I dislocated my knee cap.  It is officially called Patellar Subluxation.  Essentially it means that my knee cap went to the lateral side of my knee instead of staying on the top.  I have done this once before about 8 years ago.  As soon as it happened I was pretty sure what had happened.  I felt my knee and realized that may patella was not in place.  Knowing what to do to put it back in place, I straightened my knee.  The dislocation and relocation hurts like CRAZY.  Like you can't breath and you shake kind of hurt.  I sat on the floor unable to move, holding my knee.  My dance partner (don't even know his name) just kinda huddled next to me and had no idea what to do.  The instructor kept going with the lesson.  Good going.  Luckily one of my friends came over to see what was going on.  He asked if I was okay, to which I responded "no".  At that point he yelled for help and I was carried to the side of the room to a couch.  I knew I needed to go to the emergency room, so as soon as the pain decreased slightly, enough to move, my friend drove me to the hospital.

What this means:

1. I am now in an immobilizing brace- mid calf to mid thigh.

2. My knee is swollen like crazy.  It is the size of a grape fruit or maybe a bit larger.

3. I am taking narcotics to try to stay on top of the pain.

4. To add illness to injury, since I can't swallow pills I am taking liquid lortab- sick!

5. I am on crutches.

6. I won't be able to work for a couple weeks, at least.

7. I am not sure if I am going to still be able to go to europe this fall because I will be using a huge chunk of time off for this.  I think this is what hurts the most.

8. I have given up country dancing forever.

After not sleeping much last night I got up and thought I would watch a movie.  Unfortunately the DVD player is on the bottom shelf, almost at the floor and I am quite sure that I won't be able to get to it.  So I laid on the couch all morning watching the nothingness that is on in the morning.  Good times.  If anyone has some extra time and wants to come put a movie in for me, that would be great :)

Oh and we are taking family pictures today.  That ought to be fun.  And I will look very nice with my big brace on.

Some pictures to curb your curiosity.  They really don't do justice to the swelling.  And today my knee is bruised.

I don't like being pressured by your sales pitch

Today I went to one of those time-share sales pitches.  I hate these sorts of things, but I went as a favor for a friend.  You are welcome.

So it went something like this:  First we met in a big group and got a quick introduction from a guy who really thought he was funny.  And who was really impressed that I travel so much (p.s. I don't travel THAT much).  He kept saying "everyone except her..." and pointing to me, because I was already a traveler.  Good start.

Then we went back to sit and talk with a salesman one-on-one.  This is where the fun really started.  Things were going okay (I am being very generous here), until he started laughing at me.  He kept asking how much I pay for hotels.  I kept saying that I never stay in hotels.  This was unheard of to him, how could I travel so much and not stay in hotels?  Apparently it was not acceptable to him that I stay with friends and family.  And weird to him that I have friends and family in so many places.  Here is part of our conversation:

Him: "You are going into debt for your hotels"

Me: "I don't stay in hotels"

Him: "But paying for hotels that you do not own is like going into debt"

Me: "I don't think you understand the concept of 'debt'"

Him: "Yes I do, you are paying money for something you do not own"

Me: "No, debt is when you spend more than you earn.  It is a very simple concept.  I do not spend more than I earn, therefore I am not in debt (except for my condo, but that is a different category)"

Him: "...."

As we went on I just got more sassy and more fired up.  Eventually he said "Now, you are a smart girl, so..." at which point I cut him off and responded "Yes, I am."  He wasn't expecting that.

Next we had a great conversation where he insisted that since I often do not pay for hotels in the places I go, then I must not be traveling where I want to go, only where I can go.  We argued this topic for several minutes.  Apparently smart travelers are not part of their time-share.  And I am not allowed to enjoy vacations that are inexpensive or in which I visit friends/family.

So then his sales-person friend came over and tried to give me pricing.  He made a big mistake by starting with "can you afford $10 a month?"  I said "yes, I can afford $10 a month, but the real question is whether I want to pay you $10 a month."  He just got up and left the table.  But since he had not quite had enough, he came back and asked again if I could afford $10/month.  I said, "that sounds great and all, but I really hate paying interest.  It makes me mad.  And if I pay you $10/month for the next...forever... then I am paying an awful lot of interest to your company, and that seems like a bad idea to me."  His amazing response "But it is only $10 per month, even if all you pay is interest it is really inexpensive."  Seriously.  Do I really want to just pay interest and never actually pay down the cost of the time-share.  And, to top it off, the actual price was much higher than $10/month.

Is anyone surprised that I did not take the bait?  Is anyone surprised that when the 4rd guy sat down to talk to me about my overall experience that day I told him it was a 6 (scale of 1-10), and that I was being very generous in rating the experience a 6?

At least I got a lot of laughs out of it.  And $40 in Home Depot gift cards.  And a 4 day, 3 night stay in my choice of Las Vegas, Orlando, Reno, Kona (Hawaii) or Los Cabos (Mexico).  Where should I go?

Wednesday

Lets start at the beginning.  I have a hard time swallowing.  This is because my esophagus has decreased motility.  It is not very fun, trust me.  Also, in just the last 2 months or so I break out in hives everytime I sweat.  That is not fun either, I promise.  So after getting home from work on Wednesday morning I took an Allegra (prescribed by my dermatologist to help with the hives).  I have had a difficult time swallowing pills for a very long time, but thought I would be okay, the pill is relatively small and is round.  Well that was about 8am.  The pill lodged in my throat.  I will spare you the details, but lets just say at 2pm the pill was still lodged in my throat and I was still unable to swallow even a drop of liquid.  Things were going really well at this point.  I decided that I probably should not be alone since there were several times when I couldn't breath at all during the previous 6 hours.  So, I headed over to my parents house.  No one was home.  Hmm.  I called my doctor and they said that if I could be there in 3 minutes (2:20) I could come, or I would have to wait until 2:50.  I promised them I would be there in 3 minutes, they told me to drive safe and I headed over.  I got there and everyone could see I was in a fair amount of distress.  (gagging and wretching for 6 hours will do that to you).  They got me back to a room (although they first had to get my weight and height...seriously- priorities people).  The medical assistant person took my blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate.  My blood pressure was 135/94 (I think), my heart rate was very near 120.  Her comment was "your blood pressure is normal, except the bottom number is a little high".  What?!?  For those of you not in the health profession, the high end of normal for blood pressures is 120/80.  I was definitely hypertensive.  And, she was not concerned about my heart rate at all.  Normal heart rate is definitely less that 100.  The doctor was concerned when he came in because he immediately took my pulse again.  Then he told me that I would be getting an emergency endoscopy.  Ooh, fun.

After a couple phone calls he told me to go over to the hospital.  I was to go through emergency so they could admit me, then I was to go to endoscopy, they would be waiting for me.  I got to the hospital, my sister-in-law Liz was waiting for me (I had called to ask if she would be so kind as to drive me home from the hospital when the test was over since I would be sedated).  I won't go into the details, but an hour after we arrived at the hospital we finally found the endoscopy lab.  Apparently the staff at the hospital still do not know where things are.

They got me set up immediately, sedated me and got to work.

They couldn't fit the endoscope down my throat so they had to use a bronchoscope (a much smaller scope used to look at the lungs), which barely fit.  Then they had to work really hard to dislodge the pill.  So apparently my throat is about 11mm in diameter, whereas normal throats are around 20mm in diameter.

It has been almost two days and it still hurts to eat (my throat tore when he tried to dilate it).  So, I am still on a liquid/soft diet.  Which mainly consists of mashed potatoes.  Good times.

I am hungry.

I may be dying

For the second time this week I had a weird medical experience.  I don't really know how to describe what happened in a way that you will fully appreciate what occurred.  Both Monday and again today I have suddenly developed a wide-spread rash.  We're talking, all over my legs and arms and back.  Red, itchy, raised rash.  Today I looked down and my legs were bright red/purple.  Along with the rash comes an intense itch.  Horribly itchy.  It is so bad that I cannot stop itching, literally.  On Monday all I could do was take a benadryl, take an oatmeal bath and then sleep it off.  Today I didn't have that option.  All I could do today was keep on keepin' on.  As in, I was at my Condo painting with my dad.  I told him that I wasn't sure what was happening, but that I might be having an allergic reaction to something.  He told me to stop talking and keep painting.  I said that I might stop breathing if it was an anaphylactic reaction.  He said to stop talking and keep painting.  I told him that I couldn't handle the itch.  He told me to stop talking and keep painting.  He is good like that.  He later said that if I had collapsed he would have just pushed me out of the way and kept painting.  The compassion is amazing.  We Johnsons are known for our compassion and caring.  I can't think of anything that was the same about the two experiences that would have been a trigger.  However, being the medically-minded person that I am, my mind immediately focused on all the horrible things that could be happening.  So, hopefully I am okay after the next spell (if there is a next time).  Otherwise, I will let you know how the hospital stay was.

Dinner, the easy way

There are a lot of nights (pretty much every night) that I decide to have an easy dinner. You know, warm up the left-overs, eat a frozen burrito, make a sandwich, have some cereal. It is just so much quicker than making from scratch for yourself every night. However, when I go out to eat I expect my meal to be prepared for me. One could argue that a cooked meal is indeed what you are paying for. Of course, atmosphere and not doing the dishes are included in the price, but the meal is really the primary reason for going out to eat.
It is no surprise, then, that I was somewhat aghast when my dinner came looking like this:In case the picture does not do justice to my dish, I will describe what I ordered and what arrived. I ordered the "Pear Salad". Doesn't that sound good. A nice salad with fruit. I love salad, and I love pears, so it was a match made in heaven. However, what I got is not something I would ever describe as "salad," even in the most liberal sense of the word. The plate that came to me consisted of a head of iceberg lettuce (still in it's head form) with a slit cut in the top and three pear slices placed in the slit to give it a mohawk look, around which was sprinkled cranberries and almonds, with a bit of dressing drizzled throughout. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to work to eat food (i.e. I will cut my steak myself, I will even put the condiments on my hamburger), but seriously, I was there to order dinner, not ingredients to make dinner. I was at a restaurant, not a grocery store. I was tempted right then to ask if they could just box up my "salad" throw in some carrots and tomatoes and send me home so I could make a salad out of what they brought me. Instead, I laughed. I was still laughing when the waitress came back to ask how the food was. I was laughing so much that I couldn't even tell her what a joke of a dinner she brought me. And, I hate it when people complain about what the ordered and ask for something different. So, I cut up my head of lettuce with my fork and knife (how else would you eat it) and sparingly added toppings to my fork-fulls of lettuce. The amazing thing, I was as hungry when I left as when I arrived at the restaurant, because it turns out that iceberg lettuce is really just water with a lettuce shell. The sad thing is that I didn't even get good atmosphere for my money- they sat me in the aisle at the end of my table, and people kept bumping into me as they walked by because there was not enough room for me and foot traffic. The nice thing, my friend paid for my dinner for me. This was possibly because he felt bad because I started out the evening by crying. Oh well. A free meal is a free meal. Beggars can't be choosers, right.

I HATE Flagyl

The following is a list of reasons that I hate flagyl. I have listed the many side effects I am having from this horrible antibiotic. If you are weak of heart, this may not be the post for you. If you are sick of mind, keep reading: (taken from http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/metronidaz_ad.htm)
1. Mouth: A sharp, unpleasant metallic taste is not unusual. Furry tongue; these may be associated with a sudden overgrowth of Candida which may occur during therapy.
2. Central Nervous System: irritability, weakness, and insomnia.
3. Hypersensitivity: flushing, nasal congestion, dryness of the mouth, and fever.
4. Renal: polyuria. Instances of darkened urine have been reported by approximately one patient in 100,000. Although the pigment which is probably responsible for this phenomenon has not been positively identified, it is almost certainly a metabolite of metronidazole and seems to have no clinical significance.
Additional symptoms listed in the Rite Aid Pharmacy pamphlet:
5. Stomach pain, loss of appetite, constipation, changes in taste, sore throat

Hence, I am a mess. I am a walking warning label for Flagyl. Oh, and it tastes horrid. We are talking, I nearly throw up every time I take it (every 8 hours). And the taste lasts and lasts. It is pretty great that way.

And the pharmacy pamphlet says I should tell my doctor immediately if I have a sore throat because it could be a serious side effect. Hmm, I have had the sore throat since Monday. Oops.

However, I have lost a bit of weight, if we are looking on the bright side.

Can't sleep

So I have been sick for a week or so. I am a horrible patient. You would think I would be better considering I am a nurse, but no, I am a miserable complainer when it comes to being sick. Anyway, the unfortunate part is that I slept all day. So now I am awake all night. Hooray. And, I have been wanting to go to the gym all week and haven't been able to go because I have been feeling so sick. I hate that. I miss the gym (I never thought I would say that).

My illness has two fronts: neurological and intestinal. We will not discuss the intestinal side of things, as I am sure you really don't want to know. Neurologically speaking, I usually only rarely have headaches, and when I have them it is usually a migraine. Sadly, I have been having headaches much more frequently. I do not want to know if I have something seriously wrong (people keep suggesting brain tumor as the possible diagnosis, thank you). So, I have been trying to stay well hydrated, and ignore the fact that my body is currently fighting against itself. This is what I get for working with sick kids all the time. I guess you could say I signed up for this, so I shouldn't complain.

It is 4:11am, and for the first time all day I feel okay. Not great, not even good, but okay. I will take that.

I need to be better before Tuesday when I have to go back to work, because I hate being sick at work.

I have a really good attitude right now, can you tell?

TRAX and I are in a fight

More accurately, transportation in general and I are in a fight.
So a few days ago I rode TRAX to work. I love TRAX. Normally we get along fabulously. All went wrong on Saturday morning when I was riding home. At the station there were two trains, both shorter than normal. Trying to be smart about it, I chose the longer of the trains to board thinking that they would use the train with more space for transport. Oh how I was wrong. I got on the train, the driver was just standing there waiting around for departure time, a usual occurance. I sit down and only moments later the other train leaves. Rude. I said to the driver "If I would have known the other train was leaving, I would have gotten on that one." He indicated that that was the other portion of our train and we would be meeting up and connecting togther at the next station. Whew. So I sat, patiently waiting. We finally leave the station and meet the other train at the next station. We proceeded to bump into the car in front of us repeatedly while trying to connect all the cars. Apparently if you slam into the train in front of you hard enough the two trains will magically connect. 10ish minutes later, still not connected, the front train leaves. Rude. At this point I have already missed one connecting train. So, we eventually go, way way behind schedule. And, because we had to wait for the other train at each stop, it took forever to get anywhere. Meanwhile, I miss another connecting train (this one I see driving past as we are a mere block from the station. Rude. So, I sat in the freezing cold waiting for the next train for 15 minutes. Personally, I think it would have made a lot more sense to put all of us passengers on one of the trains, and do the normal route, meanwhile having the other train drive past the stations without stopping. Then, connect at the end of the route where there is actually time to do something like that. I should run TRAX. That is if we weren't in a fight.
So, I took a day off from riding the train. We needed our space. Yesterday evening I was all ready to ride again. I head to work at my normal time. The station is a whopping 1.1 miles from my house. Turns out it takes like 10 minutes to go a couple blocks now that the new hospital is open. Rude. I miss my train. Rude. I hate the Death Star aka IMC aka IMed aka Intermountain Medical Center. Turns out from now on if I want to go West I have to go East and if I want to go North I have to go South. Stupid traffic.
Raving completed.