Georgia On My Mind

Been a bit absent around here lately. Post-Mardi Gras I've been trying to catch up with school and work, which has kept me ridiculously busy. My mom, brother, and uncle came in this weekend to visit for a friend's wedding, but unfortunately, I had a bizarre unexpected medical nightmare and ended up in the ER/hospital for the weekend. Eh. There's been a whole lot of miserableness and negativity born from this weekend. I need a break from it. I left the hospital yesterday, after getting in a glorious fight with my mother (ugh), a very long night of my screaming in pain in the ER on Friday, and more tests than I can imagine. I took home very high blood pressure, a lot of fear, plans for follow up visits (mostly to rule out the possibilities of a long-term issue), antibiotics, and the reality that now I have to catch back up with my life and prep for what will probably be a nasty fight with my insurance company.

I'm having trouble staying completely lucid lately. The headaches from the blood pressure leave me in a fog, and as I told someone today, I'm only firing on half my cylinders. Unfortunately, until my blood pressure meters out some, I don't know how much writing I'll be doing. But they're saying it should be back to normal in 2-3 weeks.

Anyway. All that aside. I need to focus on some of the positives coming out of all of this, so that the stress doesn't consume me.

So here's a list of all the awesome things about being in the hospital and being really sick:

1) Permission and encouragement to consume as much ginger ale as I wish. (Though this will end, soon, because apparently ginger ale is both high in carbs and high in sodium. Yikes.)

2) An excuse to be more healthy. Any motivation to drink less, smoke less, exercise more, and eat healthier is a push in the right direction. Plus, sex is exercise. Ergo, this is an excuse to have more sex. (Anyone else follow my logic here?)

3) A reason for falling asleep in someone else's arms.

4) Super awesome friends who took me to the hospital, checked on me, hung out with me, listened to me bitch and whine, took my blood pressure, called for second opinions, and generally did super awesome things.

5) A perfectly acceptable time and place to cry. It's so very hard for me to cry, unless I'm extremely emotionally and physically weak. But sometimes, it's a great release.

6) Hours of listening to Josh Radin and Micheal Buble and Disney songs, all of which soothe my headaches.

7) A lot of rest time.

8) Gorgeous purple flowers.

9) A reason to read through everything my insurance covers and my school clinic provides... and the realization that the school clinic offers free STD testing, gyno services, and discounted birth control. So, while I would prefer Planned Parenthood, any free health services are a blessing right now.

10) Recognition of what high blood pressure feels like. I worried I wouldn't recognize it, because often there are no symptoms. Knowing about the problem means I can respond accordingly, and not worry that I'm putting stress on my heart and kidneys when I'm unaware.


11) Gratefulness to be off a liquid diet. Still not sure what that unlabeled red stuff in a styrofoam cup was?

12) The blessing of feeling so much better, and the reminder that I am not invincible. Both are incredibly important.

Ok. Enough of this personal stuffs. I'm ready to be well and get back to writing about what this blog was designed for. :)