Flood Diary Part 2!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I_r5Cso5QU

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Flood 2009

Check out my video blog as the great Red River Flood of 2009 progresses...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-q4HwSOXxg

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Vegas, baby!

We're going to Las Vegas this week and I am so excited!

I've never been to Vegas before but I've heard lots of good (and bad) things. Most people that I've talked to recently about the trip say things like, "It's a fun place," "It's like a playground for adults," or, "Seriously? You've never been?"

We're staying at the Bellagio, which I only know from scenes from Ocean's 11 CSI. This coming Friday is my birthday and that night we're going to a Cirque du Soleil show... I think it's the new show but I'd be a bad person to ask because I really have no clue what's going on. I really don't care what we do while we're there, but I'm not too keen on gambling. I just look at all the money/chips and think about all the other things I could be doing with that money (spa, dinner, bills, savings...).

If you have any tips/advice on Vegas, I'd love to hear it! We leave Tuesday evening.

In other "news," I've been having some writer's block issues lately. This past week at work I had to write some copy for a direct mail piece for a chiropractor. Doesn't sounds too hard but it was! I couldn't get into it. I couldn't communicate what the chiropractor wanted. It was frustrating.

I've also been stuck on issues for the blog. I can't ever think of things to write about. Or, if I do think of something, it's at an extremely inconvenient time or place and when I sit down to write, I can't remember what the idea was! I could easily make this blog just a recount of what happened to me during the past X number of days, but I think it would be boring. When I started blogging it was about interesting or funny things that had happened... not just everyday things. And now nothing interesting OR funny is happening in my life.... hm... oh well.

If you're wondering about what ever happened to my skin issues... it got worse before it got better. Without going into detail, on Friday the rash came back to my hands and wrists, and then traveled up my arms, then jumped to my feet, and then ran up my legs to my hips, and then stopped on my back. Thursday night from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. I watched the rash envelop my body. And I called Ask-A-Nurse. She told me to go to the E.R. I didn't. I went to bed and woke up the next morning with the rash 99% gone! But then it came back. So Jerry and I went to Urgent Care at MeritCare in Fargo. Told the doctor I wasn't convinced it was an allergy and wanted answers.

"Do I have Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever?"

"I see you've been on the Internet. No, you don't have Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever."

"I Googled this rash and the three options are Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, syphilis, or meningitis."

"Well, you don't have any of those."

"Thank God!"

He seemed to think it was a virus of some sort and prescribed me MORE steroids (in pill form this time) that I started this morning. Oh, I also went to the NDSU health center on Friday (before the rash got to my legs) and the doctor there told me to take some Zyrtec which didn't work at all.

Hopefully 4th time's a charm...??

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Steroids and sneezes

So, I'm not really sure what's going on with my body... but something weird is happening.

I first noticed it in January when Jerry and I were in Chicago for a later Christmas. I woke up one morning and the area below my left eye (where the dark circles appear) was puffy and swollen. It was strange and annoying but I didn't think anything of it. It went away around lunchtime. The next morning the exact same area under my right eye was swollen. Hm... odd. Probably just a mild reaction to the detergent used in the sheets or something. It went away by lunch.

The puffy eyes slowly started to get worse. It only happened in one eye at a time and usually occurred about once a week or once every two weeks.

Then I started noticing little red bumps and spots on my hands. Every so often, I found these little splotches but thought they were from having dry skin in the winter. They always went away after a few hours.

On Monday night, as I was driving home, my left eye started to itch. When I got home and looked in the mirror it was completely red in the inner corner and the bottom lid and top lid near the outer corner of the eye were swelling up. It had happened before so I wasn't really worried... just frustrated. I put a warm compress on it hoping the swelling would go down. No such luck. I went to bed and before I fell asleep I noticed that my eye was almost swollen shut!
By the time Jerry got home from his fishing club meeting I could hardly open my eye. I thought it would go away overnight...

But it didn't. So I went to the walk-in clinic at MeritCare. An hour later, the doctor took a look at my eyes and said, "You should see a specialist" and referred me to an ophthalmologist at MeritCare Southpointe. Later that morning I was sitting in another room, this one filled with equipment to stare deep into my eyes (read like a romance novel).

This doctor, who was very nice and educational, had me put my chin on the chin rest and look up. He looked through his little microscope thing with the blinding light and said, "Yep! You have GPC." Then he put some strange dye in my eyes and looked at each one again. "You have a bad case of GPC. You're definitely having an allergic reaction to something in your eyes."

GPC stands for Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis. Apparently, when you look at the inner lids under a microscope they look like a cobblestone street. All the papillae are swollen and inflamed. Apparently, it's sort of like adult pink eye, minus the itch and discharge (ew!).

"You need to figure out what you're allergic to. Are you using any new soaps or lotions or makeup?"

"No. I don't think so. Is there something that commonly causes this?"

"Well, 9 times out of 10 it's caused by contact lenses."

"But I don't wear contacts."

"Right. So you'll have to really think about what could be causing this. It's possible you'll never figure it out. And, unfortunately, the drops I'm going to prescribe will only have a 50/50 chance of working."

"Hm...."

So I get these steroid drops to put in my eyes 3 times a day for 10 days. End of story? Of course not.

The next morning I woke up with a rash all over my hands. From my wrists to the base of my fingers. It doesn't itch but it's really gross-looking and annoying. I had seen it before this winter but never to this extent and I always thought it was just because my skin was dry and irritated from the dry winter air. I took pictures and e-mailed them to my mom from work. She called back and said, "I think you need to go back to the hospital."



So I did. Met with a different doctor (who was very crabby and rude) who told me I was having an allergic reaction on my skin (dermatitis) and I would have to figure out what I was allergic to. He thinks it's strange that it's only on my hands and asks if I've started using a new lotion.

"Nope."

"Soaps?"

"No."

"Hm... okay. We'll you'll probably never figure it out."

"Awesome."

He prescribes me a steroid cream to put on my hands twice a day. And now I'm trying to figure out what I'm allergic to. I threw away all my eye makeup. I threw away my mittens. I threw away my lotions. I bought new hypoallergenic soaps and makeup. I've been staring at my hands to see what happens after I do things like wash them or eat things.

And I have no answers so far. I've also been abnormally sneezey lately but I'm not sure if that's an allergy thing or the start of a cold.

As I'm typing this I'm starting to notice a few red splotches on my hands. What did I do today? I put the cream on this morning and still I'm having a reaction. What's going on?? I was feeling really sick yesterday around noon. Does that have anything to do with this? What's going on??

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Leaving my husband...in a letterman's jacket

No, it's not what you think. We're still married and still together.

Yesterday Jerry dropped me off at O'Hare International Airport. I was on my way back home and he is still in Chicago because he's giving a seminar this Thursday. This goodbye was one of the hardest in recent memory. Not sure why, but it felt like we were saying goodbye for good. I couldn't help but cry. It was painful. I wanted him to come home with me.

One thing that was nice was that an airport employee saw that I was upset and when I went to get my boarding pass printed he was extremely nice to me. I tried to explain to him that I needed a new boarding pass because when I checked in online I didn't have a printer handy. But I was bumbling over my words and trying to keep my tears in. He looked closely at me and interrupted my shaky words-- "You need me to print you a boarding pass? Put your stuff down here and step inside." (We were at one of those curbside check-in kiosks.) He was so kind to me and so patient. I know he'll never read this blog, but if he does, thank you, sir! You made a difficult moment just a little bit better.

As I walked through the airport with my large sunglasses on, trying to hide my red eyes, I thought about how many different emotions airport employees must see on a weekly--or even daily--basis. Certainly, I was not the first, nor the last, person to cry their way through the airport. I thought a lot about people traveling for funerals of loved ones. I can't imagine being forced to travel with the death of a family member or friend on my mind. Enough about death and depression.

On another note... I went out to eat with my brother last week and we saw some kids wearing letterman's jackets. I started to think about what a waste those jackets really are. Don't get me wrong and don't take offense if you wore one-- I had one in high school myself. What's wasteful is that most people don't get the jackets until their junior or even senior year in school-- after they've been able to letter in something-- and then you can't wear them after you graduate, can you? So we're really only looking at about two years of use. But they're too heavy to wear in warm weather and a little too light to wear in really cold weather.

So, if we take 52 weeks in the year, and average that about 30 of those weeks are jacket-wearing-weeks (meaning cool enough to merit jacket use). So 30 weeks for 2 years is 60 weeks of use (on average). The average letterman's jacket costs about $150 the first time (each additional letter/patch/chevron costs extra plus the fee to attach them if you can't have someone do it for free). So, a letterman's jacket comes out to about $2.50 each week of wear, which comes out to 41.6 cents if you wear it 6 days a week (I'm assuming you'll wear a different coat or no coat at all one day a week).

Now, 41.6 cents may not seem like a lot, but if you wear a coat with an average life of 4 years.... okay, seriously... I can't believe I'm blogging about this. How nerdy.... actually, it's a perfectly good segue to my real point about letterman's jackets (mine, in particular): I had the nerdiest letterman's jacket of all time! Here were the things I lettered in during high school:
Academics
Student Council
Band
Theatre
Speech

For real. No sports. Just nerdy things. And now, here I am, seven years later, calculating the cost per wear of a letterman's jacket. It's surprising I didn't letter in MATH.

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"Ma'am, are you comfortable taking off that sweater?"

This was a question I heard yesterday while waiting in line (a surprisingly long line) at the Fargo Airport. There was this woman who I think has never traveled on a plane before. And if she has traveled by plane, she is one of those people who thinks every time she travels it will be easy and doesn't understand what "federal rules and regulations" means.

My first notice of this woman was when she was exiting through the entrance of the security line. I was getting my boarding pass and ID checked and she clumsily bumped her way by others waiting politely in line. Apparently she didn't know the whole 4-1-1 rule (no more than 4 ounces of liquids contained in a 1 quart bag limited to 1 per passenger). She had to go to the gift store and purchase a baggie to put her liquids in. Then, on her way back into the line, she walked right by security thinking, "Since I was already checked they don't have to check me again." In any other area of life, this thought process would probably work. But this is the government we're talking about. Nothing is easy with the government. So anyway, she tries walking by the security agent again and gets yelled at. Has to go back and get re-checked.

Then, on her way back through the line, she knocks over an elderly woman's rolling carry-on bag, turns around, looks at the bag on the floor, and keeps walking (I should say walking into people, because this woman was extremely clumsy). How rude! She didn't even apologize for knocking the bag over. I would understand if we were out east, but this is Fargo, people! Have manners! How are we supposed to maintain that "Minnesota Nice" if we aren't actually nice? By the way, I understand that Fargo is not in Minnesota, but Fargo has the whole "Nice" thing going on, too. The poor elderly woman just sort of looked down at the bag, realized this woman was not going to help her set the bag up right and was not going to apologize. She just had this sort of "Did that really just happen?" look on her face.

So next, this woman gets to her spot in line and eventually gets to the X-ray machine and metal detector. When she was about to go through the metal detector, the TSA agent realized the woman was still wearing her shoes, a big scarf, and a long sweater-dress. First she instructs the woman to take her shoes off. Then goes the scarf. Then she asks if she's comfortable removing her sweater... but the woman doesn't hear the question about the sweater. So she asks again, and again. Then an agent at the X-ray machine yells to the woman, "Will you please take your sweater off?" So she does. And now she's able to go through the machine. And, you guessed it, she sets the machine off. Goes back through. Still beeping. The agent asks her to take her jewelry off but the woman is insisting it's not her huge chunky metal necklace that's the problem. Eventually she's persuaded to take off the necklace and -- voila!-- she can now go through the detector with no problems.

GOOD LORD! When I go on vacation I don't even wear metal things to the airport. I try to stay as simple as possible. Easy shoes. Easy layers (if I wear layers at all). Little to no jewelry. And I don't forget about my liquids baggie!

One thing I would like to know is since when did TSA agents start asking, "Do you feel comfortable taking off your....?" Why even give the option? I went through security once in flip-flops and had to take those off. Which meant I had to walk around the security area in care feet. Gross! I told the agent I didn't want to be in bare feet because it was disgusting to get other people's germs on me (I'm not a germophobe, I promise!) but he still made me do it. I don't feel comfortable taking my belt off sometimes (makes me feel like I'm about to be really exposed) but I still have to (although I don't wear belts through security anymore). If a terrorist went through security with a bomb strapped to his chest would he be given the option to take it off or leave it on if it made him "more comfortable?" A little outlandish, I know... but do you see where I'm going with this? I wonder, had that woman been of a different color, would she have been asked so politely about the sweater? Or would it have been a command: "Ma'am, take off your sweater."

I'm just still amazed by the stupidity some people show when it comes to airport security. Plan ahead, people! Plan ahead.

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Valentine's Day on "D' Range"

I spent my Valentine's weekend in Grand Rapids working at Zorbaz. It was a really fun weekend! And in case you're wondering, no, Jerry wasn't up there to celebrate the most amazing holiday of the year with me. He was in Milwaukee. And now he's in Hayward, Wisc. And then he's going to Rockford, Ill. And then he's going back to Milwaukee. And then, two and a half weeks after he left home, he'll return to my loving arms (ha ha ha).

And no, I don't really think Valentine's Day is the best "holiday" of the year. I don't really get it. Shouldn't every day be a day you tell your sweetie you love him or her? Shouldn't we always tell others we're grateful for them? Why set aside a day to be "extra special" to those you love? I think we should strive to always make sure those we love know how appreciative we are and how much we love them. It's corny and cliche, I know, but think of what would happen if you were to die tonight. Would everyone that you love really know it? Would you regret leaving a relationship a certain way? Would you regret words you said that would end up being your last? Would you wish you would have told more people that you love them?

I don't want to regret not telling someone I love them. The one thing I regret most in life is not telling my Aunt Carol that I loved her before she died. The last time I saw her was in her living room. She was dying of leukemia. Her thick, curly hair was gone. Her body was gone, replaced by a mere skeleton draped in skin. Her mind was gone. The last thing I remember her talking about was the smell of the color green and the way asparagus felt. She was gone. My mom warned me before we went to see her that the person I was going to see wasn't really Carol, but what was left after the chemo and radiation took their toll on her mind and body. We were going to see a person who was full of morphine and other drugs.

Even after this warning, I was still shocked, horrified, and deeply saddened by what I saw. She didn't even register that I was there. She didn't say hello back. There wasn't the warm welcome that I was accustomed to when entering her house. I remember following my mom wherever she went. We went into the kitchen and I started to cry. It was one of those moments when you're so, so, so sad that your whole body hurts but you try to hold it in. I didn't want others to start crying. I didn't want what was left of Carol to hear how upset I was. My uncles and mom tried to console me and reiterated that this wasn't Carol anymore. Just her body.

On our way out the door, I stood at the end of the hospital bed that was right next to the front window (so she could see all the birds and butterflies that were attracted to her beautiful flower gardens) and thought about saying, "Goodbye Carol. I love you." But I was too afraid. I didn't want goodbye to be goodbye. I just wanted it to be a "see ya later," but I knew better. I was too scared to say anything because I didn't want to start crying again. I wanted to be strong, but what I perceived as strength was more like ignorant pride. I was too proud to cry. I cared more about how I would look to others that about letting my beloved aunt know she was deeply loved. So I muttered a shaky "Bye" and walked out.

This is the thing I regret most deeply in my 25 years on Earth. If I could relive one moment, it would be this one. I would go to her side, hold her hand, give her a kiss on the cheek and say, "Carol, I love you." There would be tears. There would be lots of tears. But I would be content knowing the last thing I said to her was from my heart.

I don't want this scenario to happen to anyone of you, nor do I want to go through this again. I challenge you to get in touch with those loved ones you haven't seen or spoken to in a while and remind them of how they're loved. It can be an e-mail, a phone call, a card, or a conversation over coffee. Just let them know.

To my friends and family, I love you so very much. It might not mean much coming from a blog, but it's true. I love you. Thank you for everything. You have all shaped me in ways you could never know or imagine. I will never forget the love you have given me nor the lessons you have taught me. Thank you and I love you.

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