they warned me the pain would get worse after a couple days...i guess i figured a couple days had passed...i was wrong. jesus, it hurts!

i went too hang out with a friend of mine and his little girl. a/c, good movies, and an adorable child and good friend to spend the day with? who can ask for more? i was going to try to make a grocery trip, but the increasing pain made the idea unbearable. by the time i got home i could hardly walk, so i relaxed until another friend decided i needed ice cream. a cold stone trip later, im ready for bed.

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They tell me the light was red. For all I know it was Royal Blue with gold inlay. What I did see was a van in our path. It didn't really register we were going to collide with it until three seconds after we did. Seat belts locked, airbags deployed, and my brain imbibed a sound and smell I will never forget. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was white smoke and the airbag deflating. It wasn't until I freed myself from the passenger seat that I realized my glasses and my right shoe had been knocked off and that my driver was still inside. I was certain in my mind that he was trapped, so I ran to the driver side to see how bad the situation had become. By then it took little coaxing to get him out of the car to safer ground. Unfortunately we were in the center of a busy intersection, so safe ground was the middle island until help arrived. A couple Good Samaritans called for help and made sure we were remotely alright before police ad ambulance arrived, and once I was sure Geoff was alright I set my focus on retrieving things we'd need from the folded Volvo. I managed to get our glasses, wallets, my shoe, and my bag containing my airport badges and insulin from the front seat, but by then the pain was taking over my sense of deliberation. From there the EMT driver escorted us across the street and into the ambulance to get us to the hospital. Panic had not yet kicked in, but the moment she mentioned strapping me to the board I had premonitions of attacks to come and declined.
The hospital expedited Geoff to the ER and sent me to triage. I immediately felt nauseated, and the triage nurse handed me a shallow kidney shaped pink basin to throw up in should I feel the need. It seemed an ineffectual receptacle to me, so I prayed I wouldn't actually need to make use of it. From there I was taken back to the ER where I was introduced to Dr Charming. I didn't think real doctors were allowed to be that attractive. Geoff's mom checked in on me, and probably managed to show up just in time to waylay the panic as the tears were at that point starting to well. They hooked me up to a heart monitor, and IV of fluids, and a blood pressure monitor that appeared to be connected by a coaxial, and I wondered whether or not I got HBO. They then ran tests and set me up in a hospital gown to compliment the skirt I had been planning to wear to the play. Afraid the sharp pains in my abdomen were one of several things, they ran a pregnancy test and, narrowing out the possibility of a miscarriage, ordered a CT scan. Now, remember I'd been swallowing a majour panic attack since the initial impact. Remember also that I'm extremely claustrophobic in certain situations. I opened my eyes after the initial injection of dye to find my head was under the scanner and flipped out like a ferret on meth. It took them five tries to successfully get me to calm down enough to get a decent image, but by then it dawned on my that I was probably going to lose my job and I'd gone from panic to hopeless in 3 seconds. Transport wheeled me back to the ER, and from there we played the Waiting Game.
Apparently the one person who didn't know I was a diabetic was Dr. Charming, and he held me personally accountable for not disclosing such information immediately. So, when I asked for a cup of water I received a Styrofoam cup with "Jenn does not reveal medical history" emblazoned across the side of it. Obviously, Dr. Charming was in the mood for a smartass competition, so when I sent Geoff's mom for a refill I scribbled "Jenn is a Type I diabetic" across the other side and made sure she delivered it to him specifically. Well, as it turns out, Dr. Charming is not as good at tolerating smartassese as he is at dishing it out, so my cup was returned by him with "a PITA" added to "Jenn is". "It's an acronym," he informed me with a smirk, "know it?" Touche, Dr Charming, now give me the news.
The final word was that my kidney had a pretty severe contusion and that there were air pockets in my abdomen that may or may not have been caused by years of injections. The trauma of the night had sky rocketted my blood sugar over 600, and the decision had been made to keep me overnight. I had just enough time to visit Geoff before they wheeled me to a semi private room on the fifth floor in which, once Geoff's mom and sister took him home, was left laying to finally let the night's events sink in and take root. The pain made it hard to sleep, and the pain killers did absolutely nothing for me, so I watched several hours of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe to try and forget that I was alone in a hospital now knowing even what city I was in having people I didn't know touching me every couple hours. I don't handle hospitals well, and this was no exception. Finally I managed to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.
When I woke up the pain was ten times worse than I remembered it being the night before, and nothing they gave me seemed to help. I managed to eat after fighting for insulin. Apparently the policy is to medicate based on what the numbers say at certain times in the day which do not match up with meal times. Where did these people learn about diabetes? I told the nurse I was either not eating until I was allowed a shot, to which I was told if my number was in a normal range I wouldn't be given insulin anyway, or they would let me follow my normal routine. I hadn't entered the hospital because of my diabetes, and I sure as hell wasn't going to have an extended stay there because they'd managed to make it a diabetes issue. Eventually I was allowed to talk to a physician's assistant who let me "bend the rules" and be medicated before my meals. They ran a bunch more tests, and around 1600 (that's 4pm, guys) I was set free. Geoff's mom picked me up, we filled my prescription, and we headed to their house where I showered ate dinner and fell asleep mumbling to myself.
I slept for a solid 12 hours before Geoff finally coerced me out of bed. I stumbled around for a couple more hours before I finally got my berrings on the day. Then we decided to figure out how Geoff was going to get clean with his arm in a sling and even slight movement of his arm close to unbearable. The following good chunk of an hour was spent putting that plan into action, but we cleaned him up before planting ourselves on the couch until dinnertime. After dinner, his brother drove me home where I am now.

So right now I'm extremely sore. I have a belt of Royal Blue with gold inlay stretching across my lower abdomen with a round bulb on my right hip, and a matching sash across my chest where the seat belt was. Unfortunately I was wearing a camisole, so there wasn't much between my chest and aforementioned seat belt. I've got broken skin on the arm I used to shield my face from the airbags (for those of you who don't know, I'm terrified of air bags) The bruises hurt immensely, my kidney stabs at intervals, and the cyst hurts I daresay worse than any miscarriage or surgery I've had. I didn't lose my job. I managed to talk to Cynthia yesterday, and she assured me I wouldn't be terminated. However, I can't go back to work until I'm cleared for normal lifting again, and that will depend on my kidney. So, I'm prepared to be broke soon.

And now I've gotten word that the boys have brought home food. Chad set me up a box fan, and I'm tremendously grateful. Here's hoping for a more comfortable tomorrow....

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Man, it seems like I've been gone for a long time...and every time I come home there's another issue to deal with. It seems I'm not allowed to go away. Ever. Anywho, here's the rundown.

Tuesday we headed off for an ocean adventure. Of course..no adventure featuring Jenn as navigator would be complete without getting lost. So, in a car without air conditioning we found ourselves on a much longer drive to Ocean City, MDthan previously anticipated. Alas, we did make it, and it was a very nice day out. Unfortunately by the time we were able to shower away an entire day in a sweaty car there was no time for the beach, so we headed out in an attempt to walk to the boardwalk, only to realize it was a good 95 blocks away and decide to take the bus. Once there, I made a complete ass of myself trying to eat the world's fastest melting ice cream cone and failing miserably. It was a gorgeous night out, and we walked the boardwalk for quite some time before heading back onto the bus (OC has a pretty nice bus system), making a detour at Rite Aid for something to fix my toe (I kicked the vent in the living room Monday night, slicing my toe...not a place to get sand caught), and ordering the most expensive pizza I've ever had the fortune to eat quickly before I fell asleep.

Wednesday we woke up to haze and wind, but we were determined to experience the beach. You see, I've never had an opportunity to swim in the Atlantic, so off we went! Unfortunately the weather plus the four good slams to the ground I took make me a bit skittish, so I didn't last long in the water. Once I've ingested a good pint of sand and seawater, I've pretty much reached my limit. We intended to go mini-golfing, but instead we found ourselves in the first of several used/rare book stores. There went all the money I saved using hotels.com. We also intended a second walk on the boardwalk, but were thwarted by parade traffic that goaded us over the bridge...and right in front of a classic car museum!!!! Oh, the joy. Books and cars in one afternoon? We spent a while in there before we realized we were on the road we needed to be on to get to Baltimore, stopped for lunch, and finally we were on our way. Our last detour came in Trappe where we passed yet ANOTHER used book store, and I annoyed the entire State of Maryland with my bookophilia. Needless to say, we made it to Baltimore a few hours later than we'd hoped to, showered, and headed to dinner on the marina. By then it was late, so we called it a night.

Thursday we headed out to an aquarian advenuture! I've been trying to get to the National Aquarium for years (not the one in DC...which is really just a basement of fish), and I finally gt my chance. It was a truly impressive aquarium. I really enjoyed it. We spent most of the day there, but we couldn't end the adventure without one more bookstore. Well..."we" could've. I couldn't. I actually ended up buying a NEW book there, but I'm always willing to support local small bookstores, seeing how I plan to open one someday.

Friday I had to be back at work (booo!) and everyTHING ad everyONE knew it. I have never had such a concentration of angry people harangue me in my life, and in the midst of all that I got to call the fire department about a brush fire. Today was exponentially better, and full of adventure.....

It was a pretty easygoing day in D side Bagtopia, until the belt stopped...for a while. I climbed up to peer into the hole (not a hole things generally go into) to see if I could see a problem. Sure enough, there was a bag stuck in the belt. I climbed in, jiggled a few things, Voila!, the carousel started to move, so I surf edmy way down from my perch and got back to work. Not 30 seconds later it stopped again. Back to my adventure, since I was the only one there willing to climb into the bowels of the baggage carousel, to find a backpack coiling its way into the belt like a python. There were a bunch of other bags stuck behind it like an interrupted conga line, so I pulled those free and sent them on their way. The other belts started to move, scaring me shitless, so I jumped out of the hole, to the enjoyment of all watching, and hoped everything would move as it should. It didn't. By then Ollie had gotten himself involved with the offending bag, torn it from it's coiling strap, and worked on moving said strap away from the sensor so the damned thing would just move already! Finally it came back to life, and all was as it should be. Not something anyone gets to see everyday.

So thats been my week.....there'll be more later I'm sure.

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when he jekyl and hydes on me
makes it clear as day this is where it ends...
says some of the things he said to me last night...
then in the morning it's like nothing ever happened and we're best friends again.
i don't know how to react.
and i don't know what to do with the love it leaves fallow....

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This weekend was an adventure. Rich picked me up Friday morning, and we made it to IAD to pick up cat with relatively little event. It was nice to be able to catch up a bit on the way. We got to the hotel, checked in, then headed to the Cracker Barrel for lunch. From there Cat and I went in and took a nap until it was time to leave for the rehearsal dinner, which we arrived at half an hour late because I can't read directions worth shyte. We did make it, though, and the rest of the night was spent relaxing in preparation for the Big Day. Cat and I ended up crashing pretty early after a burrito/soda tun to the Shell station, but I'm glad we did.

Yesterday we woke up in time to shower and prep before Jeanne and Mary showed up for hair and makeup. From there, we formed a little assembly line of cosmetics. I must say, we did a wonderful job of being efficient and pretty at the same time! We scooped up supplies, packed it all up, and headed for the church; this time we did NOT get lost.

From there it was a waiting game. We weren't allowed to get dressed before the photographer showed up, and he was half an hour late, so we sat around in a stuffy church library trying to keep ourselves occupied and Christina relaxed. Once he arrived we were able to compare green dresses and strap on whatever tortuous heels we'd brought along to complete the ensemble. Then there were pictures. Now, maybe I'm being a snob because I felt out of my element as a bridesmaid and not the photographer...but there are certain things you know. I won't go into detail, but that photographer made things a million times harder than they needed to be, hah. Towards the end, during the reception, he was even following me around taking my shots and technical fixes. Ass! After pictures, which included but was not limited to dragging Christina through the mud, there was more waiting. By then the undergarment of torture making my dress look remotely nice on me was starting to live up to it's title by performing a stealth appendectomy. Ouch! We found a classroom with couches and chairs in it, and decided to relax in there until show time.

The ceremony was extremely light and auspicious. No majour slip-up's, I didn't pass out when my blood sugar crashed during the ring exchange, and no one caught on fire. It was great! I made it back to the library in time to discover my juice had frozen, so Cat picked M&M's out of the trail mix for me, then we headed out to watch people pelt bird seed at the happy couple. This is when the real adventure began.

The reception was at a winery about an hour's drive from the church. The bridal party was herded into a limo, and the rest of the guests were guided onto two tour buses. When we boarded the limo we noticed it was a bit stuffy, but once we found the air conditioning controls we were optimistic the temperature inside the mobile greenhouse would change. It didn't. In fact, it got worse until we detected the familiar aroma of burning polyester and realized someone's dress was about to ignite. We alerted the driver, asking if there were seat warmers on, but it turned out there weren't. A moment later we pulled over and everyone evacuated the limo, which was starting to fill with smoke. Luckily for us, the buses were right behind us, so we didn't have to stand on the gravel shoulder of the road in heels for very long. I sensed at any moment I was about to fall and break my ankle. Once at the winery, which was gorgeous beyond words, things went a bit smoothly. We ate, we danced, I had my "single girl with no date at a wedding" moment, drank some wine, and everything was a-okay. I'm sure there are several details I'm missing, so this story may be augmented a few times. I apologize for the inconsistency of my memory. The ride back on the bus was half rowdy-half cozy. I fell asleep halfway home, so I don't remember a lot.

This morning we all overslept, and poor Cat may or may not still be in IAD trying to catch a flight home. I hope she made it. The drive back was nice, albeit a bit hot. I need to make an effort to spend more time with those guys. They've stuck by me for almost six years now. Last night only solidified the fact that they really are around when I need them, and that I can always count on them for a shoulder to cry on or an arm to reach for when I need support. Thanks guys.

Pictures to come as soon as I find a RAW conversion program for Geoff's computer.

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my nails turned out pretty well. i didnt twitch as badly when she was doing the pedicure as i thought i would. oh, it tickled, but i was stronger! my nails look pretty! the girl who did it for me said i had beautiful nails already...on my hands anyway. my feet are gross...i tipped her well. i'm now all packed and ready to go...i should be asleep but im wide awake. we're leaving at 815! i'll take a nap when we get there maybe.

so thats that...for now. im sure ill have lots to tell when i return. send me some luv while i gone!

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