Prognosis: Unknown

On Saturday afternoon, around 10:30 am, I had just sat down to complete my paper for class that was due the same day (procrastination at it’s best!) when I started feeling a pain in my chest. This felt exactly the same way the pain felt when I would have gallstone attacks before I had my gallbladder removed three years ago. Since it’s been removed, I haven’t had any pain. Until Saturday.

In about five minutes, the pain went from “Ouch!” to

OHMYFUCKINGGODROLLINGAROUNDONTHEFLOORCANT
CATCHMYBREATHPLEASECALLANAMBULANCE.

When I first felt it, I sent a text to SC. He was working on a Saturday morning for inventory. Then I opened a new browser window and searched “gallbladder pain after gallbladder has been removed” or something to that effect. The page didn’t even load before I got a hot flash, felt nauseous, and ran to the bathroom. I broke out in a sweat all over my body and was literally writing in pain all over the bed and floor and everywhere. Next thing I know I’m on the phone with SC and I can’t speak. He’s asking me questions but my breathing is out of control. My hands started cramping up, I couldn’t even think.

While SC was driving home, I attempted to dress myself. I think I had already put my hair up in case I actually puked. He got me straight in the car and took me to the ER where we waited. And waited. Apparently chest pains don’t get you straight in to see a doctor anymore. At least not if you’re 24. And then when I finally did get in to a bed, I waited about an hour more before they even came to hook me up to an IV. They gave me morphine, took all these tests, sent me for an x-ray and EKG and we waited.

By around 3pm we were on our way out the door. The couldn’t find anything “emergently”  wrong with me so they discharged me and told me to see my primary. They also suggested I see my GI doctor who did the gallbladder surgery as well as my OB/GYN, as he might be able to set up a laporoscopic surgery to go in with a camera and look for scar tissue that may be causing a problem.

I got prescription for Prilosec (heartburn medicine) and Percocet (narcotic pain medicine). I can’t take narcotic pain medicine or I throw up. Half a Vicodin sent me into ten hours of heaving until the doctor had to prescribe me something to get me to stop because I was busting my stitches. Prilosec is what they gave me the first time I went to the ER before I found out I had gallstones. I’ve never had heartburn in my life. I’m taking it, but it’s not doing anything.

So what did I end up doing? I went to see my aunt, an ultrasound specialist. She told me that my surgery site looked good and I didn’t have any lingering gallstones. But she also told me that my liver is slightly larger than she’d like and my spleen is definitely enlarged. To her, this meant one of two things. There’s something wrong with my immune system. I may have a virus or a disease. To diagnose that, I’d need more tests done by my primary.

Another idea that she had was that I am projecting my stress inward and making myself sick. That my episode on Saturday may even have been an extreme panic attack. In that case, the solution would be to find a way to relieve my stress or I’d give myself an ulcer (there are none so far).

Either way,  I have to get a diagnosis first. I’ve got an appointment with my primary on Tuesday. In the mean time, I’m just dealing with the moderate pain that I’m in.

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Photo A Day Challenge: February Complete!

By now, we’re almost all the way through March, but I promised a recap post and a recap post you’ll have! Better late than never, right?

I chose to post the photos from each weekend on Monday morning as a collage, rather than fussing with all the editing apps while I should be enjoying my time off. However, most of the time, I still took the photos on the requested day.

As for March, I didn’t participate. I wanted to do this challenge to see if it would boost my habit of posting to Instagram. That happened, but it wasn’t really photos that I wanted to take. And then I felt like after I’d just posted my challenge photo for the day, I didn’t want to post another one that I’d taken just for the sake of taking a picture that I liked. So it actually ended up discouraging me from posting the ones I’d like to remember. The challenge was fun, but not something I’ll probably do again.

Have you done a Photo-A-Day challenge? What did you think about it? Did you post less or more photos that weren’t related to the prompts?

Photo a Day Challenge: February

I’ve been thinking about participating in a Photo a Day Challenge on Instagram (HI!) for a few months now.  So I figured the best month to start would be the one with the least amount of days in it, right?! Ultimate laziness. Anyway, I chose a list for the challenge based on things I would actually enjoy taking pictures of. The Idea Room’s challenge seemed like a perfect fit for me. Here’s the challenge:

 

If you’d like to participate, make sure to add me on instagram and hashtag all of your posts with #idearoom. And when the month is over, I’ll post a recap of my photos for the month. YAY!

Blogged:

Last year, on Memorial Weekend, SC and I flew to Massachusetts to a) see NYC with my Dad and b) drive my sister back to Cali to live here. She’d been wanting to move back to Cali ever since my Dad forced her to move to MA. It took her about 4-5 months, but it seemed like she was really adjusting to life here. She had a solid group of friends and she was dating someone.

Then she went back to MA for the holidays. As soon as she came home, things changed dramatically. There was always tension in the house and I felt like she was making it a point to avoid me at all costs. She made me feel like she was mad at me. I’m not sure if she was planning this before she left or not, but finally a week and a half into January, she let me know that she was moving back to MA in March. It was all decided. She had plans. I wasn’t included in any of it.

At first I was really angry and hurt. I’m still hurt. She didn’t even give it a chance here. She hasn’t lived here for a whole year. It took her 4-5 years to even admit that she didn’t completely hate living in MA. I feel like I took huge risks with my Dad and my Papa to go through with helping her live here, because I thought it would make her happy. And now that it comes down to it, I’m being pushed out. Not to mention, my wedding. She’s my bridesmaid. And she’s moving across the country 5 months before I’m getting married.

Now things are very distant. She’s hardly home, she doesn’t even sleep here most nights. And when she is home, her room is completely shut up, like she doesn’t want anything to do with living with me. I have to ask her to do her dishes after a week and a half of them sitting in the sink. And I am pretty sure her room smells like weed. This went from being a great living experience, to totally horrible.

It’s like, what happened? How did she so completely change? And is she treating me the way my Dad treated me before he moved to try and “detach” himself from me? Because this is totally reminiscent of the 6 months before my father left. I feel rejected. And I feel like this might affect our relationship for a very long time. And that makes me want to bawl my eyes out.

Gettin’ My Groove On!

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this post. Please visit Ubi.com to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. #UbiChamps

After the holiday season I just had (and am still hoarding stocking candy from!) I need all the help I can get. This time,  I’m reaching out to my friends at UbiSoft for a little dance workout action! They kindly sent me a copy of The Hip Hop Dance Experience and I was able to find my groove! ‘Cuz sometimes I just don’t wanna get out of bed at 9am on Saturday and drive my butt to Zumba.

So I’ve been droppin’ it like it’s hot with hip-hop’s hottest dance game instead! The Hip-Hop Dance Experience is the first authentic hip-hop game in the dance category. All of the songs are choreographed with original moves designed by the most famous hip-hop choreographers in the industry. Check out the game trailer now!

This is the part where I show you extremely embarrassing footage of me attempting to look a lot cooler than I actually am. Seriously, you might want to look away, while you still can.

I had so much fun laughing and dancing along with the game. I can’t help it, I’m a goofball! If looking like a fool in the best possible way while your fiance laughs at you from behind the camera (not that this was my experience!) seems like something that you’d like to do, you can purchase the game for Xbox or Wii here.

I can’t wait to explore the game even more because I can already tell that these dance moves are much more realistic than other dance choreography games I’ve tried. Hey, maybe it’ll even help me become a better dancer for Bloggers in Sin City in May!

The Warehouse, Part Two

He came with me, of course he came with me. Who else would I have by my side for the biggest adventure of my life? This was my mission. This was my purpose.

We gathered all the strong members of our group that we could. Many said that we were foolish for even trying. Some didn’t think we’d come back. My father didn’t support the expedition, but my mother and the major lack of supplies kept him from forbidding that we go. We packed our bags with what little food we could manage and grabbed our best climbing gear. There was only one way in, from the top.

There were fifteen of us altogether. Once we got everyone on to the roof, it was time. We pried open the hatch and repelled down into darkness. I went first, he made sure everyone else got down safe before going in. We had our earpieces in, but we both knew there wasn’t much battery left.

I didn’t go six feet before I hit the ground. There must be different levels. I switched on my light and looked around. This was the sleeping area. Semi-permanent walls were erected, but they didn’t go all the way to the roof. There were beds everywhere. All perfectly clean as if they had just been made that morning and were waiting for night so that they could be slept in again.

“What if we could move in here? That would solve everything!” I thought.

I quickly found the staircase. There were three levels in all. The bottom was the most interesting. There was a section devoted strictly to food. Large refrigerators stored cheeses and meats and milk while there were giant iron shelves that went from floor to ceiling stacked with bags of rice and potatoes and laundry soap. From the ground level, there was probably enough supplies for our group to survive on for at least a year.

And then I heard it. It was like I had been tuning out everyone and everything. I was so amazed at what I was seeing. He was calling me through the earpiece. He sounded worried.

“Hey, can you hear me?!”

“Uh, sorry, I can hear you.”

“I made it inside. Everyone’s here. What do you see?”

“Everything. Just, everything.”

And then I realized. There was power. It had been over twenty years and there was power in this building. There were no people, but there was fresh food. Something wasn’t right. It’s a trap.

“It’s a trap!”

“What?”

As I looked around, I saw a camera. Very small and very high up, but it was definitely watching me.

“It’s a trap! This place, this whole place is bait. They have to be coming. They’re coming. GET OUT!”

As I sprinted up the second flight of stairs, shouting at every person I saw to get out, I smelled it. The gas. I looked straight into his eyes, pleaded for him to get out if he still could. And then it all went black.

The Warehouse, Part One

Sometimes I see something that helps me understand what it used to be like. A billboard that hasn’t fallen over yet with just a bit of paper left in one corner, or the remains of a building I was told was once a movie theater. I wonder what it would be like to watch pictures come to life? All I know is, that world may as well have been a fairytale because it’s never coming back.

In these days, exactly 27 years and 4 months after everything changed, we all just try to keep our heads down and stay off the radar. No one wants to end up like them. Gone.

It wasn’t like we were breaking in. The thing was abandoned, everyone knew that. Ever since I was a kid I’d been told the stories. One day they all just vanished. The thing is, we just had to risk being caught. Our group was running out of things we need to survive. Everyone always had enough until one day we didn’t. Between bartering with leaders of other groups for supplies, information, security, and new additions to our group we just didn’t account for the loss. We were desperate and we needed to act.

Being the leader’s daughter, I’d grown up overhearing stories about the warehouse. Just after everything changed, a large group of people were taken there. They tried to hide it, so of course everyone knew. Every once in a while someone would catch a glimpse of kids playing on the roof through the trees, and of course there were the shipments that went in full and came out empty. But there was one thing no one knew. Why?

After a few years, my dad said, everything just stopped. No more children, no more shipments. The surrounding area started to become overgrown. But the building stayed strong. The story goes that they all disappeared one night and no one knows how. It was like something shifted in the air, and then they were gone.

That’s how we know it’s empty. No one knows exactly what is inside that warehouse now. It could be the way to save our group. That’s why I’ve got to go.

forty one.

In 2012, I set a goal to read 50 books. In the end, I pretty much gave up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish seven books in the month of December. Between a new full time job, going back to school full time and wedding planning, the book goal just took a back burner. I still read all I can, but there just isn’t enough time. In 2013, I plan on reading as much as possible. I’ll still set my goal at 50, as I’ve reached every milestone lower than that, but I won’t put as much weight on it as I have in the past. And that will be okay. Instead, I hope to write a small review type thing for each book that I do complete.

Here’s what I read in 2012.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern

Crossed by Ally Condie

Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Hana by Lauren Oliver

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

Death’s Excellent Vacation by Charlaine Harris

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

Pulse by Kailin Gow

Life’s Blood by Kailin Gow

Blood Burned by Kailin Gow

Blue Blood by Kailin Gow

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Drown by Junot Diaz

Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland by Melinda DuChamp

Fifty Shades of Alice Through The Looking Glass by Melinda DuChamp

Birthmarked by Caragh M. O’Brien

Prized by Caragh M. O’Brien

Tortured by Caragh M. O’Brien

 

What did you read in 2012? Anything you think I’d like based on my choices so far? Wanna borrow a book? LET ME KNOW, I’VE GOT YOU COVERED!

Unresolutions.

I am absolutely against setting unrealistic goals for the year ahead, also known as resolutions. I absolutely plan on sticking with any goal I make for myself. In my mind, resolutions just aren’t meant to be kept. So I have never made resolutions.

There are some things that I’ve been slowly changing over the past few months, and some new things that I’m working on that just happen to fall in between the change of the year.

I’ve been going to school. I started my Bachelor program in communications with an emphasis in digital technology at the University of Phoenix in September. The goal is that I will be working in social media. The program is completely online and I have one class every 5 weeks. I’ve completed 3 classes so far. In the Spring of 2014 I will have my Bachelor’s Degree. This is important because I am under strict rules that I’m not allowed to have a baby until I finish my degree. If we get pregnant on our wedding night (more on that later), I will have my degree before I give birth. That totally counts, right?

Speaking of weddings and babies, we officially set the date! As in, Save The Dates went out and people are already making travel arrangements! We will be getting married on Sunday, September 1, 2013. That’s Labor Day weekend. We have all but put down a deposit on a venue and my dress is bought and paid for! Seriously, guys. I HAVE A WEDDING DRESS. squee.

After we got engaged, I basically resolved that I would not be losing any weight or “sweating for the dress” before the wedding. I’ve never been good at it and I didn’t want to crush myself and feel horribly fat at my wedding. Instead, I decided to keep expectations reasonable and focus on loving myself as I am so I will be comfortable in my own skin and confident at my wedding. But then I started having sleeping troubles. I couldn’t fall asleep, I was restless, and I couldn’t get into a deep enough sleep to feel rested. Someone suggested that I try to exercise to tire myself out. So I tried. And it worked! And then I bought a gym membership and started attending regularly (minor surgery aside). And my gym membership came with free classes. Among those classes are Zumba and yoga, both of which I’ve been wanting to try since before I met SC. That is over two years. It’s time to make this happen, people. So this weekend, I will be attending my first yoga class and my first Zumba class ever. And I am so excited about it!

Speaking of minor surgery. I had two major goals for 2012. Those were to get contacts and to have my wisdom teeth removed. I am an extreme procrastinator when it comes to my health, but SC is very good about pushing me to take care of myself. So I got my contact exam and have been wearing contacts since October. I also scheduled and had 5 teeth removed at the end of November. Goals achieved!

So that is what I’m focusing on at this moment. What are you up to? Do you make resolutions? More importantly, do you keep them?