Insect Encounter, Part 2

I think I must accidentally be dragging home chemicals from the lab on the soles of my shoes, and inadvertently breeding mutant insects in the apartment. First the giant centipedes, and now the largest cricket I have ever seen just sauntered across my living room floor. I am no wimpy girly-girl -- I spent four summers working in the middle of the woods living in a tent at a summer camp teaching riding lessons, and I have the lyme disease to prove it. Insects, spiders, snakes, etc., do not bother me, but I don't want them in my home so I have no problem squashing them. However, considering I have yet to heal from my last bug-killing incident, I'm a bit apprehensive to start chasing a super-sized hopping cricket around the apartment. It seems like the least I should do is wean myself off the vicodin before re-injuring myself and requiring a refill.
Anyone want to come play my exterminator??

Snip Snip

As I updated the header to the blog to reflect me with my new shorter hair, I realized that I never posted the before and after pictures, as promised. While every other girl I know has decided to grow out her hair before getting married, I took the opposite route and cut off 11" to donate to Locks of Love.

This "before" picture is from back in January, so when my hair was cut in June, it was actually about 3.5" longer than it is in this picture (my hair grows fairly quickly). In other words, it was pretty long. Yes, that is Dr. Scott, the hubby-to-be, pictured with me, and the picture is actually taken from where our wedding ceremony will be held, overlooking center city Philadelphia.


The "after" picture is from our engagement party, and I am with two of my best friends who are serving as ushers in the wedding (asking them to be bridesmaids and forcing them into dresses just somehow didn't seem right!). This is the shortest my hair has been in over 10 years -- I still haven't adjusted to it. I suppose both these pictures are false representations of my daily life, since my hair is actually curly when not beaten down with a flat iron.

What happens in Vegas... happens without me

At this precise point in time, I should be somewhere flying over the mid-west, en route to Fabulous Las Vegas.
Instead, I am lying flat on my back on my couch in my apartment. DAMN YOU, CENTIPEDE!

Needless to say, I am totally bummed. I have been looking forward to this trip all summer. If anyone happens to actually be able to walk out their front door and finds themselves in Vegas, you are certainly welcome to my Saturday night tickets to Blue Man Group or Sunday night tickets to Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity, as clearly I will not be using either.
Truthfully, I shouldn't be complaining (but that won't stop be from being bitter about missing my trip and losing out on a lot of money on the hotel room, show tickets, etc.) as I am at least able to hobble around bent over, which sure beats crawling on my elbows as a means of transportation. My mother came down to D.C. to help out, and brought her supply of vicodin and percoset from her rotator cuff surgery, which has certainly helped with the pain (since I was unable to skateboard myself down to student health). I am almost acting my age again -- I can actually use the toilet, and I slept on the couch and not the floor last night!
For the first time in ages, I wish I was in the lab. This has been the worst "sick week" ever, since I am mostly immobile, in tons of pain, and not able to sit up to watch TV. Of course, that's not saying much for the lab when it is just one step up from full-body debilitation.

"Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!"

The past 24 hours have been the most unbearable, excruciating 24 hours that I can recall in my entire life. Yesterday morning, while jumping around wildly swinging a shoe attempting to kill a centipede on my ceiling, I managed to pull a muscle wrapped around a nerve in my lower back. I have never experienced such intense pain in my life – immediately as it happened, I crumpled to the ground, writing and screaming in pain. A day later, I am still unable to get off the floor, stuck in the middle of my living room lying on my back, staring at the ceiling and wishing it would just cave in on me and put me out of my misery. I am completely unable to sit up, get my knees under me, stand, move to the couch, or do anything which one is required to do in daily life. Since my fiancé is currently in Philadelphia on an away rotation, I am stuck here on my own. Thankfully, a friend of mine came over yesterday to fetch the Aleve that was in the bathroom cabinet, totally out of my reach, and bring the heating pad, a few blankets, a pillow, my laptop, the remote for the TV, etc., so that I at least don’t die of boredom while I lie here and wait to atrophy. It took me 2 hours just to wiggle on my elbows from the living room to the front door, and to stretch up in excruciating pain to unlock the door to let her in (mind you, I live in a 750 square foot 1 bedroom apartment, so it is about 15 steps from the living room to the front door). Now, on top of everything else, I have such bad rug burn on my elbows, that they are bleeding all over the white carpet every time I try to move!

I am certain it is just a pulled muscle and nothing more serious, as I have complete function in my legs and no numbness whatsoever, just one hell of a pain in my lower back whenever my back moves (and half the time still when it is totally still). Because nearly overdosing on Aleve has done nothing but start to give me an ulcer, my fiancé suggested that I contact student health and see if they would prescribe something over the phone and then I could find a friend to pick up the prescription for me.

As we all know, I loathe student health. I have yet to make it through a visit without being forced to pee in a cup, despite the fact that half my visits to student health are because of problems with ovarian cysts and I couldn’t get pregnant now even if I wanted to do so. I am quite sure that if I make it in for a visit today, they will assume that my back pain is related to pregnancy and send me on my merry way with a bottle of folic acid vitamins.

Last night, I sucked it up and called the student health doctor-on-call pager number. Seven times later, I still hadn’t received a call back. I attempted to sleep on my back, but every time I would try to roll over, I woke up with unbearable pain shooting through my back. As soon as student health opened, I called and asked for a doctor to call me back. This is the conversation that resulted:

Nurse Practitioner: What seems to be the problem?
Julie: I pulled a muscle in my back, and I am incapable of sitting up or moving. I have been
laying on the floor since yesterday morning.
NP: And you are by yourself? You poor thing! You need to get up and walk around to help the
pain.
J: I CAN’T get up. I can’t even sit up. If I try, I get a muscle spasm that pulls me right back
down and leaves me with intense pain.
NP: You need to come in for an appointment, how about 1pm today?
J: I can’t move. I can’t get to student health.
NP: Take a taxi.
J: I can’t move. I can’t get to a taxi.
NP: Just pull your knees under you and stand.
J, attempting: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
NP: Oh dear. You need to come in for an appointment.
J: I am not currently capable. Maybe I will feel better in a few days and I can make it in then.
NP: No, you should come in sooner.
J: The only way I can leave this apartment is on a stretcher.
NP: No, you don’t want to call for an ambulance. If it is just a pulled muscle, the hospital will
take X-rays, not find anything, and send you home. You just need to come to student health
for an evaluation and we can prescribe you pain medicine. I will see you at 1pm.

Needless to say, there is no way I am going to be able to make it out of the apartment by 1pm, considering it took me over an hour this morning just to put on a clean pair of underwear (don’t laugh until you try it, laying on your back, unable to lift your shoulders forward so you can’t use your arms, and can barely move your legs). The only foreseeable way I see of escaping my prison of an apartment is by duct taping myself to a skateboard and pulling myself forward with m arms. Anyone have a skateboard I can borrow for the morning?!