I am leaving my house at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday morning. I have to be at the “rendezvous point” at 5:00 in. the. morning. I didn’t even know there was a 5:00 in the morning in the Summer… let alone a 4:00 in the morning (the time in which I have to get up to shower and finish packing).
This China trip is turning into something akin to going to Russia for 3 1/2 weeks. Only difference is that I’m going by mah self and I’m not bringing home a child… I’m bringing home 3 (hopefully)!! Whee! Only they are teenagers and not mine and I have to return them to their parents and hopefully I don’t lose anyone. Although, we are visiting an orphanage while we are there… I did always want a girl.
Everything leading up to the trip has gone very smoothly. Fundraising was fairly easy, I’ve paid all of my money, there was the little hiccup where my Visa got denied, but I got that fixed and all is good. Something had to go wrong. It is me after-all and no long term overseas trip is without its follies in my world. Oh wait, I know. There is record flooding in the province we are supposed to be going to. Then we found out yesterday that the guy who is supposed to be our guide and who has arranged this whole trip isn’t in China anymore (where he is supposed to be waiting for us to arrive). Nope. He is here. In the states. At the bedside of is critically ill wife. It isn’t stopping our trip. There are other people involved in leading us around. Only we haven’t met any of them and we are all worried about our guide’s wife… and our guide. This news came second hand and we are working today on getting the whole story.
Then there was Wednesday where I thought, “gee it sure is hot outside. I think I’ll wear my flip flops to work.” My flip flops that are very smooth on the bottom. In the place where I work that I could potentially roll a plant rack over my food (which I did) or drop something on my foot (which I did not do) or I could slip on wet pavement (which I did in spectacular fashion).
In what looked like an episode of Keystone Cops I tried to break my leg when I kicked over a watering can and then as I was going to clean up the mess I slid on the pavement, tried to catch myself and then slid with the other foot square into a planter of flowers. I thought the only thing that would happen was that I would have a bruise on my knee where I hit my leg. Oh it is much worse than that. By Wednesday night my back was fairly sore, but on Thursday my back was screaming. I, of course, had to work and, of course, we had 5 deliveries of various nursery related material (that included flats of plants sitting on the ground that had to be picked up and large plants that had to be unloaded from a truck). Needless to say I went to bed high on muscle relaxers and codine. I was great Friday morning. I was fine on Saturday even after standing all day. Then on Sunday I had the audacity to plug in the iron. The damn iron did me in. I felt a catch in my back and thought I was going to cry.
I spent part of the day yesterday in bed and then in the pool (hoping floating might relieve the pressure). A little bit… maybe. I think it was more muscle relaxers that did the trick (good thing I bonked my head or I wouldn’t have those). This morning I’m mostly ok, but I know if I move wrong it will start all over again. Why is this a bad thing? Oh I don’t know… only something about an 11 hour plane ride on Wednesday, long bus rides later this week and long train rides on cramped bunks. No biggie.
The extent of my allergies is well documented on this blog. However, never before have my allergies been of the chest variety. Meaning all I ever do when I have an allergy attack is sneeze. Sneeze like there is no tomorrow, but no coughing. As you well know the pollen count across the country is off the charts. Washington is no exception. The fact that we are finally getting some rain this week is a good thing, but not enough.
I have had a hacking cough for about 2 weeks now. Oddly my mother has too. This trend sounds a little familiar. I had just gotten the boy over his coughing issues (only to be replaced by throwing up) when somehow I started coughing.
When we visited the doctor for the child he said that the respiratory infection was likely a result of a chest cold and allergies. I’m starting to think that is my problem too. I sound like I smoke 2 packs of Pall Malls a day. By the end of the day I’m pretty worn down and Tuesday night I fell asleep on the couch at 9:15.
I would like to think that this is just allergies. Ok, really… I’m sticking my head in the sand and totally ignoring the fact that is probably something more than that. I’ve been to the doctor twice this year and that is more than my normal quota of doctor visits.
Shortly after the filming of this video the dog knocks over my wine glass returning the day to the crappy category.
So yesterday I woke up, had breakfast and then felt like I was going to throw up. I thought it was because I was desperate for breakfast and resorted to whole milk yogurt. I managed to get myself to work, but Ibuprofen and Tylenol were not touching my headache or neck pain. I was supposed to drive south to meet the trusty SIL to pick up the boy, but informed the trusty husband that I questioned my ability to drive over 2 hours in the potential rain. I also told him about the nausea and headache and he informed me that I would be calling the doctor’s office while my lunch cooked.
I called the doc’s office (twice) and after being on hold forever I got through to the receptionist. I explained that I fell on my head and after telling the whole story she suggested that I go straight to the urgent care.
The trusty husband picked me up and we proceeded to wait at the urgent care for what seemed like an eternity after I told the receptionist that I bonked my head when she asked what the nature of my visit was. We were lucky enough to observe the doings between a dad and his son. The dad repeatedly got upset with his son for dropping some game system on the floor. Dude, the kid is a kid. If you don’t want him dropping an expensive gaming toy on the ground, don’t buy one for him.
Then we got called into the exam room where we continued to wait for another century. While waiting aforementioned man from waiting room was being seen by a doc. Why do I know this? Well, the walls of the doc in the box are very thin. We heard something about hurts here, lifted something and something sticking out. We totally diagnosed him through the wall as having a hernia. Then the doc poked him or something and the guy evidently didn’t like that as evidenced by the owee yelling.
Doc finally came in, but not before I turned 62, and said she didn’t think that I had a concussion, but rather a nice case of whiplash. I asked for pain meds and then we proceeded to the pharmacy.
At the pharmacy we celebrated my 142nd birthday and I walked out with pain meds and muscle relaxers. Mmmm, drugs.
So I spent the afternoon in my jammies laying on the couch with the dog watching Julie & Julia. It was decided that Busy is certainly not a lap dog.
My girlfriend, Alicia (aka Tacoma Chickadee), said she was going to start doing roller derby. I thought that might be fun seeing as I’m dumb and all (not that roller derby girls are dumb). Then I started talking with her about the cost of it all and it was beyond my price range. For that much I could play hockey and well… hockey is just better. Needless to say I said no.
This week is Spring break. The boy is staying two glorious nights with his Auntie. To honor the childlessness we went out to “dinner” (I wouldn’t really call it food) and pool at a local tavern with NEAL and Alicia. We had to meet a little earlier because it was derby night. After 1 very large glass of wine and very little food later I had somehow agreed to go with Alicia to try out roller derby.
Now I’m a pretty good skater. On ice that is. Any pitfalls that may (or may not) have happened were NOT because I had been previously drinking.
First of all, roller skates weigh a metric ton. Have you worn skates outside of 1986? I hadn’t. Oh mah hell are they heavy.
Second, roller skates don’t slide of the floor. Ice skates do. Sliding side to side is how you stop.
And third, there is a big fatty rubber thing on the toe of the skate that can be treacherous to anyone who skates while dragging their toe.
I should also say that Alicia and I had a conversation about what to wear (cuz you know I have to look hawt… right) and protective gear. She said a helmet and knee pads are handy, but not required. In a haste to leave the pub I didn’t grab my helmet (which was in my hockey bag in the back of my truck) and I didn’t have knee pads. Alicia wielded the power of her iPhone and informed me that a helmet and knee pads would magically arrive for me to use. I was proud, I didn’t want to wear a helmet. Once we got there I was convinced otherwise.
I put on the skates and tried to get a feel for them. After about a 10 minute warm-up I was mostly good to go. I could perform a decent crossover turning left. All that time of playing right wing really helped. I wasn’t the fastest skater, but I wasn’t bad.
Things were going well until I lost focus… (oh look butterfly!) and started dragging my toe on the turns. Dragging toe + giant rubber thing on toe of skate = Elle landing face down on the floor. Yep, I’s hit mah head. I hit is so hard it dented the foam in the helmet and gave my forehead a nice helmet burn. I pretty much laid on the floor for a while trying to determine if everything was still attached and that nothing was broken. Had I not been wearing the helmet I would have ended up in the ER.
Now being the moose that I am I shook it off and continued with the remainder of practice. I fell again later, but on my knee (also kissing the knee pads). This morning I have a raging headache and feel like I’ve been hit by a mac truck.
Will I go back for derby? Not sure. It was fun, but the prospect of falling down with very little padding on scares the bejeezus out of me. I might just stick to co-ed ice hockey. It’s safer.
