I'M ALIVE!!!

Sit yourself down, take a sigh of relief, and pull your oxygen tube out of your nostrils. It's fine. I'm here. I'm alive.

My grand total of TWO avid followers must have been worried sick about me. (hahahahhahahahahaha). I am alive in fact, after an incredibly busy spring and summer, with a blog that I completely forgot about. Many-an-injury has happened to me since I last imparted my wisdom upon you.

Softball season is any hypo's nightmare. Bruises, scrapes, and swelling up the wazoo. More importantly though, I was instructed to try catching for the last ten minutes of a practice and again the next day. To catch as a normal player, you usually have your second hand next to the glove to help it close around the ball. However, catchers have their second hand behind their back, so you have to catch with one hand. I tried this, and after about ten minutes I caught a ball directly on the tip on my thumb, because my hand was in a slightly different position than normal. This jammed my thumb two knuckles in, and I had to ask the coach to let me switch out. I am wont to play for hours in excruciating pain before asking to be taken out, so this was a big deal. However, of course I never went to a doctor and never did anything but ice it. It still hurts to this day, and it's hard to lift things up like textbooks because my thumb has to press down to counteract the lifting done by my other four fingers. Needless to say, I probably won't ever do anything about it, because I'm too embarrassed that nothing will be wrong with it.

NEXT, I was working as a camp counselor in northern Minnesota when I was playing ultimate frisbee with a bunch of the guy counselors. I was instructed to defend the French superman on the other team, so I was full out sprinting when I landed with all of my weight on my left ankle, which immediately collapsed on its side. It swelled up to the size of two softballs within 15 seconds, and I limped off to the nurses office. When I landed it made an excruciating snapping noise that I still think of and shudder to this day. (just did) I could manage to limp to the nurses office, and I hopped up on the examination table, and she put ice on it and gave me crutches. However, five minutes later when I hopped down, I wasn't able to put ANY weight on it whatsoever. I hobbled around on crutches for the rest of the day, and at night didn't sleep more than 3 hours. It got even bigger and more painful. A fellow counselor told me that their ankle looked similar when they broke it, and told me that I should go to the clinic in the nearby town. However, the next day was Sunday and the clinic was closed, so I was driven to the ER by a fellow counselor. We got X-Rays in the tiny community hospital and they said there was no break, but I snapped a bunch of tendons and ripped a ligament. They gave me an air cast and crutches. The air cast would last 4 weeks and the crutches 2.

When I got home I was supposed to follow through with PT, which I did for one appointment, but then quit. Now, it has not fully healed so it still doesn't feel strong to run on, almost 4 months later. My thumb still hurts also. I live the dream.

LASTLY, I need to ask you a question. Have you ever had a kid sit next to you in class who compulsively taps his foot when he is nervous or even when he is not? I am that kid. However, I don't tap my toe, I swing my hand around so my wrist grinds in it's socket. I find myself doing it all day making worse and worse grinding and snapping noises, like knuckles cracking continuously. By the end of the day, my wrist is swollen and it always kind of hurts. I can't stop now though, because now it's a habit. This is my left wrist also, so the more I swing it the more my left thumb hurts.

The only solution seems to be to amputate the left side of my body.

The final thing I will say is that in the last post in February I mentioned carrot cake cupcakes. I ended up making those the final week, on the SAME DAY my step-mom decided to go gluten free. Out of the kindness of my heart I made them to suit her new dietary restriction, so they were soggy and sagged in the middle about an inch. We ate the 20 cupcakes with spoons over the next two weeks, and they were delicious nonetheless. My new endeavor seems to be banana bread mini cupcakes, because they are more fun to eat than big cupcakes, and we always seem to have rip bananas that won't otherwise be eaten.

I hope you have calmed down now that you know I am still alive (even if just barely). I will try to be more consistent with my posts so you don't get too worried.

Hope I Live Until Tomorrow,

Carol

Snow (Hey Oh)!

I have some horrible, horrible news. I never made carrot cake cupcakes. *gasp*. Here's the story of my very eventful day:

At 1 o'clock softball ended, and it took 30 minutes to get home, as opposed to the usual fifteen. I needed to be at a friend's house at 2, so as soon as I got home I ran inside, grabbed study materials, and hopped in the car again. I never had time to change, so I was still wearing a tee shirt, sneakers, and running shorts. I got to the friend's house on time, and we hung out in her house until nine-thirty. At nine-thirty, another friend and I said our goodbyes and left to drive home. I opened the door only to find 8 inches of snow piled up against it. This was a tad bit daunting, so I borrowed some sweatpants from my friend for the trek to my car. Friend B and I complained while walking down the street that it would take "like ten minutes... uggh" to uncover our cars from the heaping mounds of snow. Over the last seven hours it had dumped profusely on the whole neighborhood. We swiped all of the snow off the two cars for ten-ish minutes like we expected. Then we tried to drive.

Not possible. We both were stuck. Both his Honda Sedan and my Jeep. We got out of our cars and started kicking snow away from the front of the cars and behind the tires. Then we got in our cars and tried to rock them back and forth, alternating who was pushing. This continued for thirty minutes. By then, my borrowed sweatpants were soaked and about fifteen pounds, and my sneakers and exposed ankles made my feet numb. Basically we were living the Minnesota dream. Friend B finally called his parents to come and help us, and we went up to get a shovel from Friend A's house. They were surprised that we were still at their house, they thought we went home 40 minutes ago. Ha. The parents instructed us to shovel the cars out and we kept rocking them, until we got them both turned around and down the street.

This whole time, since two o'clock, I had no phone. I had left my phone in the backseat of my car, and I didn't find it until I returned home. We left the house at 9:30, got unstuck and departed at 10:20, and I arrived home promptly at 11. My dad had been calling me all day warning me about the snow and wondering where I was, but of course I had no idea. On my way home, somebody else on Lyndale was stuck and the roads were otherwise empty, so I stopped and helped them push for another ten minutes.

By the time I got home, I had no patience for carrot cake cupcakes. I had to unthaw my body and sleep. Now, however, I have a day off school, and I am predicting that some will be made today. We'll see...

Hope I Live Until Tomorrow,

Carol

Lacerations, Migranes, and Cupcakes, OH MY!

Yesterday I began to re-experience the headaches I have been having lately. I got home on Friday night around ten thirty with a dull ache above my ears. Two hours later I was still awake, playing card games in the basement, when it began to intensify. I still had a friend over, and we stayed awake until two-ish until we fell asleep. Needless to say, the ache did not go ignored. This morning I woke up and felt no pain, until breakfast at eleven. I have a theory that perfectly explains this strange timing: In my head (adjacent to the strips of hair that might remain on a balding man's temples) I have groups of cells that despise me. Whenever I begin to do things I love, such as playing laser tag with friends on a Friday night or eating, they get together and start a band. This band is not in the business of producing easy listening music, nor do they play soft jazz or piano ballads. This band above my ears has two specialties. Some days, it performs Japanese Taiko drumming, and other days heavy metal. I am not at liberty to confirm the identity of their fans/groupies/followers, but I can honestly tell you that I AM NOT ONE.

Later this morning, before taking a shower, I noticed a fairly prominent cut across my right deltoid. It was raised, bright red, and stung like a b****. I proceeded to scrub-a-dub-dub, and twenty minutes later I examined it again. I could not remember for the life of me where it could have come from. Very spooky... The rest of the afternoon it continued to sting, and gradually I began to feel it deeper and deeper into my muscle. I have never had a surface scrape (with no blood) that hurt like that. The pain wasn't great, but it was in a very strange location, like a deep tissue bruise or swelling.

Even later this afternoon, I watched the Food Network and Bobby Flay's Throwdown with a man who baked mini cupcakes for a living. I watched for an hour as they slaved over rum raisin cupcakes with a butter cream frosting and vanilla cupcakes with rich chocolate frosting. I was impressed. I also hadn't had any food in a while, and I was madly craving sugar. I made a plan for tomorrow to bake carrot cake cupcakes. I rarely eat carrot cake, so my decision was very random. They just seemed like a good choice. I'll report back sometime with whether or not I actually end up making them, but don't they just sound so good?

Hope I Live Until Tomorrow,

Carol

My Confirmed and Completely Legit Medical Ailments: A Compilation

So, to start off this blog about the inner quirks of life as a modern highschool-er, I decided it would be fitting to list all of the things medically wrong with me. (According to Webmd.com)

I am:

Pregnant (always the first suggested when I enter in my symptoms)

Broken (I have a broken collarbone, leg, cheekbone, and two fractured wrists.)

I have:

Restless Leg Syndrome,

Costochondritis,

Bone Cancer,

Heartburn,

Peripheral Neuropathy,

Osteomyelitis,

A Spinal Tumor,

and Several Chemical Burns.

Basically, my life looks like it's going pretty well. As a mild hypochondriac, I have Webmd.com bookmarked and it is my most frequently viewed site. Although I don't see a "real" doctor after every time I visit the page, the disease names linger in my brain for weeks. It is impossible to shake the near-death life that I am living. 

Now this all seems very exciting I'm sure... living on the edge and what not. False - it's a pretty tough job in the end. Balancing my medical fatalities with homework, softball, off-season training, watching six or seven weekly T.V. shows, and nightly StumbleUpon and WebMd sessions... the schedule gets pretty tight. I'll report back with some disease updates, but for now, I'm off to a hockey game. 

Hope I Live Until Tomorrow,

Carol