Science (non) Fiction

Enough drama for you?

Would it be enough to tell you that in the last two weeks I’ve been in two different urgent care centers in two different states? or that I’ve seen over 7 different medical professionals in the same time? or that I’ve had my luggage lost and hotel reservations misplaced? no? you want more? ok…well…

I arrived in California, raring to go for the last part of Wedding Week 2006, including on Thursday an almost full-day bachelorette party walking around downtown San Francisco, ice skating, and eating pizza late into the night. By the end of that, I ended up in a lot of pain and ended up in the urgent care center the next morning, having been diagnosed with a cyst that needed to be dealt with (while everyone else got their nails done, no less!). The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that night were lovely, and after another visit to urgent care the following morning, and hair appointments, and pictures in 100+ heat outside and in the church (with NO A/C!), Frances and Jonathan were joined in marriage in a beautiful service.

The reception was air-conditioned luckily, and I had lots of bubbly apple juice, and the music was great, and I took it easy with no dancing til the very end, due to the aforementioned health issues. But one of the groomsmen asked me to dance for the last dance, and I figured, ‘what harm could I do in 3 minutes on the dance floor?’ – well, apparently a lot, cause as he (the groom’s twin brother, by the way) went to dip me at the end, my shoes slipped, and, well, we both ended up on the floor, but only after I heard a very loud, very ominous ‘pop’ from my left knee. It immediately swelled up to about 3 times its normal size, and was extremely difficult to handle putting weight on it. Since I was already going to the urgent care place the next morning anyway, they XRayed the knee, found nothing broken, but it was too swollen for them to tell anything about what was wrong. So I ended up with a knee immobilizer (brace) and crutches, a dash to pick up a refill prescription for pain meds, and almost didn’t make my flight out of SF to go to Montana for the conference at MSU.

Upon arrival in Bozeman MT, my bags were not on my flight (the power was also out in the airport – are you starting to see a pattern here?) – they didn’t arrive at the motel til almost midnight (the motel is a whole other story ). Basically, I had to go to an urgent care center in Bozeman every day I was there until the last day of the conference, which was not made any easier by the fact that I was either on crutches or in a brace the whole time. The conference ended up being quite different than we expected, but still somewhat helpful I hope.

On the way back, I had to stop over in San Francisco, and after a debacle with hotel reservations, I finally had a room for the night and got in bed early, cause I had to be at the airport at 5am the next day. That flight left late, which made me miss my connection in Dallas and delayed my arrival in NC by 3 hours.

Now that I’m back, I’ve finally been to an orthpedic surgeon, who thinks that I’ve torn a meniscus (which is better than tearing a ligament) – so I had an MRI tonight to see the tear, and I’ll talk to

Lessons learned:

~ I hate United, and I love American

~ Sometime in my life, I WILL fly first class!

~ As a friend mentioned when I recounted the whole story to her, ‘you don’t normally attract this amount of drama’, and I though ‘I KNOW!’ – I try to avoid drama like crazy, but this trip it seemed to be stalking me.

~ As messy as things were, God was clearly involved, as I had great medical care, and the urgent care centers were always within a couple blocks of my hotel at the time.

~ I realized how much I like to be in control of every part of my life, and given how impossible me being in control was on this trip, I had a really hard time – I didn’t have a car, or any control over my schedule, and I was in a different time zone so getting a hold of people back home was hard – it really forced me to rely on the ‘kindness of strangers’ (or people I knew) – and as much as I hate to admit that I need help, people really came through to help me through the whole trip – whether it was the bridesmaid’s mom who drove me around and picked up gauze at the drugstore (Thanks Maggie and Kathy!), or the family friend who picked up a backpack and various assorted pharmacy stuff before my flight out of CA, or just people being concerned about my wellbeing after hearing what was going on. I don’t know if it will be any easier next time I need to let go and let others help me, but I know I need to learn to accept help from the people I love. As my mom said while this whole thing was going on, I need to be willing to accept the ministry of others in my life. So, while I hope that I won’t need to do it anytime soon, I will hopefully be more open to receiving that help when the time comes.