stuff is cool

Tonight I am in bed with my leg covered in prescription cream, wrapped in gauze that has mysteriously begun to turn black. I have 2nd degree burns running from my hip to below my knee.

All I wanted was some mac and cheese.

Last night around 11 I tried to make some Easy Mac. Protected by oven mitts, I reached above my head into the microwave to retrieve the bowl of noodles cooking in boiling water. Next thing I know, I am standing in the middle of the kitchen, there are noodles everywhere, and I am frantically swatting at my leg and screaming. Then somehow I was on my bed (I guess Danny guided me there.) I was SCREAMING. Danny immediately went into First Aid Mode but I screamed and cried for a good hour. I was delirious. My muscles were jerking all over my body. (Later I came to find out that I had probably been in shock.) I had some prescription lidocaine jelly on hand (for something else awhile ago) and Danny gently smeared it all over the deeply scalded skin. Mercifully that helped. But I have never cried so hard or actually begged to die. And last night I did, and I pleaded to God at the top of my voice to please, please help me. I have been through quite a share of painful experiences, but this topped everything. My voice is still hoarse.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but God must have heard my prayers. The two superpotent vicodin I took must have helped, too. I woke up today with pink, peeling skin covering my thigh and knee. I had to dress a little innapropriately for work because all I ever wear is jeans and there was no way I was putting denim on that burn. So I wore a very busty, very short sundress in order to leave most of the burn area bare.

I made it to work (late) and put in a call to the doctor, leaving a message with his nurse, casually saying “yeah, I kinda spilled boiling water all over my leg and it really hurts, what should I do?” She called back a few hours later and said “You need to come to the office NOW.” I said “Uhhh, work is busy, can I come Monday?” And she said “No, honey, things are going to get a lot worse for you before they get better and you need to get here as soon as possible.” I grabbed my keys and left.

They rushed me to the first available doctor, someone I had never seen before, who actually told me to call her Debbie “because it’s nicer.” (My new favorite doctor.) She took one look at me and said “Yep, second degree burns” and several nurses came in to click their tongues and say “Oh you poor baby.” Debbie asked me how I got to the office and was shocked I had driven myself. She prepared to give me a shot of pain meds but I started crying and opted for the pain of the burn over the pain of a shot (I am terrified of shots.) She cleaned the burn for what felt like 20 minutes and then covered it in a cool cream and wrapped it in gauze. She sent me home with 3 prescriptions and actually suggested I come back to the office to see her tomorrow because she wanted to check on the progress of the healing. I might.

Guys, that was the purest pain I have ever felt. Jaw surgery, inflamed spine, kidney infection . . nothing compares to that hour that poor Danny had to hear me absolutely lose my mind to the pain.

I am now terrified of boiling water and I am not sure if I can go near a stove or microwave again for a long while.

I am not exagerrating anything. Ohhhhhh my gosh that was so so so bad. Thank God Danny was here to take care of me or I would have been calling 911 incoherently.

Now I have to change my dressing but I am too afraid to do it myself so hopefully maybe Shannon (my friend who happens to be a nurse) will do it when she comes over in a bit.

I fear what I will see under the bandage.

UPDATE Sunday July 1 2007

Shannon was a huge help the other night. I owe her big.

Cleaning and redressing the burn is a major hassle. It’s a delicate and painful process and one that I do not savor having to face right when I wake up each morning. I have not mastered the bandaging ritual, and throughout the day the wrapping slips and some of the burn becomes exposed, which is then really hard to fix.

1 roll of gauze is 5 dollars and I use 2 rolls a day. This is proving to be a very expensive injury on top of being owie.

So far I have just been washing my hair by leaning over the edge of the tub and otherwise sponge bathing. It may be weeks before I build up the courage to take a real shower again.

Last night I had spaghetti for dinner but Danny made it for me so I could avoid the stove alotgether

The doctor said it would be bad for about a week. Almost 3 full days down! I should really see improvement by the 4th, I hope. I am not supposed to be very active (doctor said to stay in bed with my leg propped up) but I wanna celebrate the 4th, so hopefully I’ll be in good enough shape. I’ll skip the vicodin that day so I can have some few beers That oughta kill the pain.

Peter Petrelli needs to use his healing powers to get rid of those awful tats he’s sporting in the latest Fergie video.

I was just reading this nerdy and obsessive “Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies” (read the Back to the Future stuff, it’s nutty) and I thought “Gee, I really liked that little movie ‘Disney’s the Kid.’” I wouldn’t even mind owning it. It’s cute.

This video is pretty cute. I’d love to work at whatever office this is! I read it’s collected teams from CollegeHumor and Busted Tees, which appears about right. Everyone is so young and attractive and intentionally ironic.

http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=404

They look like that had a blast and that’s what I love about it.

This MSNBC story pissed me off big time. Made-to-order defects?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16299656/

My thoughts:

1) The parents obviously aren’t as comfortable with their conditions as they think they are if they are so inescure that they have to make sure their babies are “just like them” expecially because of the . . .

2) pain and suffering that comes from such deformities as dwarfism (the example used in the story.) Not just emotional pain but lifelong physical health problems as well. How could you wish that on your baby?

3) Some argue that parents want their children to share in their “culture.” It makes me think about those children of immigrants who were raised millions of miles away from “the homeland” but were able to grow up with some of their parent’s cultural traditions because their parents made the effort to share those special rituals and traditions with them, told stories, sang songs, and so on. I know a little of my Slovak heritage though I have never been to Slovakia. Why should it be any different with a family that has a genetic heritage?

4) As you know, I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. Never in a million years would I subject such pain and disruption upon my child INTENTIONALLY. The idea sounds downright cruel. I have already wondered if I should even have children if they run a high risk of having similar autoimmune problems.

5) And back to the people with genetric differences who consider it part of their culture - well, I can’t stress enough that you are also giving your child lifelong medical problems and annoying curiosity if not downright cruelty from others. YOU KNOW IT. YOU EXPERIENCED IT. You may be well-adjusted (though judging by your intentions with your kid, I disagree) but your children would be facing years of anguish, both physical and emotional, because of your selfish need to have them be “just like you.” Let them be THEMSELVES!

6) I know nobody with such intentions is reading this thread, but it felt better to adress it to them than to be general.

7) Yeah, in closing, let me go ask my brother if he would like to make sure all his kids have diabetes so they can all share Insulin Injection Family Fun Time multiple times a day.

Apparently folks with red hair are enduring pretty cruel teasing and even abuse in the UK. I wonder how Prince Harry fares?

From the article:

“There is nothing like this in the US where having red hair is not a precursor to having someone abuse you. Red hair is considered glamorous.”

While there has been at least one report of a serious anti-red hair hate crime in the UK - a 20-year-old stabbed in the back in 2003 - it’s unclear whose responsibility it is to monitor discrimination.

BBC News Article On Gingerism as a Form of Racism

So Danny comes home from Austin and announces that he, too, has injured his back! I had been doing fine all afternoon, but I was in safe in bed watching What a Girl Wants (guilty pleasure). I didn’t put any stress on my back at all.

When I got out of bed to make hot dogs and greet Danny, I must have triggered something in my back, because in the middle of my second hot dog, I was siezed with the same searing pain from last night. So there we were, me and Danny, flat on our backs on the bed, holding hands and miserably in pain. We both drugged up. I spent a good 30-45 minutes holding onto Danny’s hand and moaning and crying. He would cry out in pain whenever he moved, but he still got up to get me more meds and some water, sweet man.

Now the drugs have kicked in for me, mercifully, but not so well for him. We are two miserable gimps tonight, but its so nice to be together, no matter what.

Ole Tready Bear has gotten me down already. I started way too strong. I hopped on there and did an hour a day thrice (4 times maybe) this week. About an hour later each time, my back would hurt pretty severely but then it would go away by bedtime. But not this weekend. I worked out on Friday. At dinner with my Baker friends it started to get distracting, and by bedtime it was bad enough that I took a muscle relaxant. Saturday found me abed all day until I rallied to go to dinner with my mom and some family friends. Maybe the wine helped for the time, or the decadent food (sirloin topped with lump crabmeat and 3 tabel-side flambe desserts) but during the drive home last night, around 10, I started to hunch over in pain. It seemed to take hours to get home, and I collapsed on the bed when I got here.

I talked to both my mom and Danny to let them know I was home. Over the next 15 minutes, my back went from being really really sore to being ON FIRE. I could not move my head. I could not breath normally. I called my mom crying because I was scared and alone. I had taken not one but 2 of my strongest pain meds and my strongest muscle relaxant but it takes almost an hour for them to work. I just sobbed to my mom on the phone and she helped me breathe normally. Something made me cough and it felt like a gunshot to the chest. Soon I just told my mom I had to get off the phone because I couldn’t hold it to my head anymore.

I lay there awkwardly on my bed, on my back, unable or unwilling to move a muscle. The TV was on and I listened to a show about the history of Siberia. I couldn’t turn my head to watch it, but what I heard was interesting.

I started to relax and dozed off, and when I woke up an hour or so later it was like I was in a whole different body. When I go from feeling like I’ll never walk again to being able to get up and take a shower, the two extremes confuse me. During one I can’t comprehend the other. I try to remind myself that the pain always goes away. But it also always comes back.

Today is better. But now I am again dealing with the back pain that plagued me in April. I inflamed my spine again, obviously by walking too much on the treadmill. I should have started out at half an hour each time. Now I’ll have to talk to my doctor and get things straightened out before I can get back to working out.

I love LOVE my treadmill. I love watching CSI and just walking. I just have to be careful not to overdo it.

Wish me luck.

He’s not afraid to show his age:

L: “How do you know they weren’t involved in this girl’s murder?”

Guy: “Hey, these were good kids.”

L: “So were Leopold and Loeb.”

Leopold and Loeb were two upper-class college students who randomly killed a 14-year-old boy in 1924. They thought they were such brilliant young men that they could commit the “perfect crime” and the murder was just a game to prove they were genuises. It was, of course, a huge media event. But who knows about it these days but random history buffs and crime fans? Law & Order knows who’s watching: not just your average viewer who likes procedural drama, but folks interested in criminology and criminal justice as well. And also fans of grizzled old cops. Yay Lennie!