After reliving the foot incident I was reminded of another medical mishap.

When I was around 14 years old I was diagnosed with scoliosis and was told I would need to wear a back brace. Well really I was first told that I would need surgery and would never have children, which to a 14 year old was pretty traumatic, but after dealing with my Mom I guess the Dr’s settled for just the brace and a better approach to talking to children.

So here’s the run down; I get diagnosed, I get a Boston Brace and wear it for 6 months. My mom does a lot of research and finds this holistic approach to scoliosis with the COPES brace.

COPES is based out of Baton Rouge, LA. We get a few cool family vacations as we were supposed to travel there every 6 months for a check up, which should have been a clue as to how crazy this program was. By holistic, they meant holistically ruin your entire life. They took a hair sample, blood sample, spit sample, did a muscle test, x-rays, etc, etc. I thought I might end up like Marie Curie after the first visit.

Their program looked something like this:

I was supposed to wear the brace 23 out of 24 hours a day.

I was on a diet in which I could only eat fruit, vegetables and meat. No cheese, bread, dairy, or processed foods basically.

I did an 18 minute stretching routine.

I did an 18 minute muscle stimulation routine.

I did an 18 minute neck traction routine.

I did an 18 minute lay-on-torture-board-thing.

(are you adding this? Even if I only did 3 of these things, I was out of the brace for 54 minutes.)

And I saw a chiropractor 3 times a week.

All of that sucked, but not near as much as the brace itself. It went from my hips to my collar bone. It was awkward to fit under clothes (which I could only really wear sweat pants and t-shirts), and was noticeable on my small frame. I still have nightmares where I drop my pencil in a classroom and can’t bend to pick it up. Or dreams where I have to take it off because the pain is so unbearable, only to realize I don’t have a bra on (because I couldn’t wear one under the plastic) and my undershirt is drenched in sweat.

I wore this brace for about 4 years.

It sucked, but I’m totally fine now, and like the foot incident, really don’t remember that much of it unless I consciously start thinking about it.

But this is the best part! COPES was run by a man who pretended to be a doctor! All those tests, the requirements, that terrible brace, was thought up by someone, who never went to medical school. He was also convicted of insurance fraud.

I never ever look up scoliosis stuff. The pictures on the internet are, of course, of the worst cases known to man. I don’t need images of twisted circus freaks in my mind. Because of this, I didn’t find out about my fraud doctor until I had a friend get diagnosed with scoliosis and was telling her about the COPES program. Google let me know my doctor was a quack.

Recently I was getting fitted for orthotic inserts in my running shoes when the doctor asked me how my bunion surgery was. I inherited many wonderful things through genetics… but bunions was not one of them. I have fairly long scars down the tops of my feet, so even without me telling him, he knew. I very quickly answered, “fine” without even thinking about it. I have relatively little pain in my feet and hardly ever think about the 2 surgeries I had when I was 18. The scars don’t even bother me, in fact I’d gladly take them over having the actual bunions which I think looked way worse.

But in reality I almost lost my foot. That surgery wasn’t “fine”. My right foot was casted too tight causing my swollen foot to start dying off. I didn’t know, since I’d never broken a bone before, what a cast should feel like. But apparently it shouldn’t be an 11 on the pain scale. The skin turned black and started dying, and then the nerves died too. I had compartment syndrome.

Specifically thinking about that surgery, it was almost terrible. We were furious with the doctors; she didn’t properly do her job and it almost cost me my right foot. I limped around for 6 weeks on crutches terrified if I came down too hard on my broken and uncasted foot I’d have to have a reconstructive surgery for that bone. 8 week later I had surgery for the left foot, and because I’m sure the doctor was worried I might sue her ass, I didn’t receive a cast for that one.

But that pain and near disaster isn’t even what I remember as the worst part of that surgery.

The worst part happened after the compartment syndrome and two surgeries were completed. I wanted the screws that held the once broken bone together taken out of my right foot, as I thought I could feel them when I rubbed the skin over the incision. It was the most sensitive area of my foot, making it so I never wanted a pedicure, or to wear shoes with a hard top that might touch it.

The doctor agreed to take the screws out, even though she seemed to think it was pointless. Instead of going under for this surgery, which was minor, they put a block in and a curtain up so I couldn’t see my foot while she cut on it. Unfortunately I could still hear everything the doctor was saying.

“Why is there so much blood!”*

At this comment, I started crying. I was going to bleed out. I was going to die. I could feel the pressure of the knife cutting what felt like 8 inches up my foot.**

She pressed down,”Is this where you feel the screws?”

Through sobs, “Yes.”

“Well they aren’t there” and she starts scraping the knife along the bone to signify to me that there is nothing there. Just knife, running along smooth bone. The sound of the knife sharpening along my exposed bone was too much.

I. Was. Freaking. Out.

Trying to distract myself, I glance up at the TV in the corner of the office. It’s a cooking show, and they’re demonstrating how to cut up a chicken. The fleshy limp chicken gets cut in half by the hosts huge knife. “That’s my foot,” I think. Being cut open by this evil cooking show watching doctor. Who watching a Emeril Lagasse while cutting into another humans skin??

The screws were removed, about an inch higher than I thought I felt them. I left the office with a tear stained face and probably scared all the other patients in the waiting room. My foot is still sensitive where my phantom screws are, which is probably a result of the nerve damage.

*Notes: She made this comment because the torniquet came loose and blood started coming out of the new incision on my foot. My dad, who sat with me during this incident, told me later it was, “like 2 drops”. But I still maintain I could have bled out.

**Note 2: The scar might be about an inch and a half long, but if felt like at least eight inches of cutting.

See: Why We Need Cell Phones: Also Related to Divorce Rate: Squirrel Skinning Kit.

I realized while Joey and I were witnesses to the near divorce due to a bag cell phone, this is not the moment my parents remember as near divorce. Theirs is related to recovering a chair, which we like to call “The Squirrel Skinning Incident”.

Here’s the background: One day, some time ago, my grandpa shot a squirrel and asked my grandma to help him skin it so they could cook it up and eat it. Now squirrels, I hear, are tricky to skin. It involves something like nailing the tail to a tree so you can pull down on both sides of its body. The pulling needs to be very exact, or you’ll rip the skin and cause terrible squirrel skinning issues. My grandma starts telling him, “You’re pulling too fast”, he replies “You’re not pulling hard enough”. Back and forth until I’m sure the squirrel was never eaten, and it was a divorce or death situation. This squirrel will live in infamy in my family as the moment my grandparents almost killed each other, but didn’t, and realized their marriage could survive anything.

My parents experienced their squirrel moment while trying to recover a chair. Incredibly similar to a squirrel, recovering a chair means pulling the fabric to exactly the same tension before stapling it down. The story goes they both had hammers, but survived the incident.

Whether it’s a family curse or destiny of man-kind, I have been waiting for my squirrel moment ever since learning of its powers. Once J and I tried to assemble Ikea furniture together, but it just didn’t feel quite squirrel worthy.

We Need Cellphones: To Decrease the Divorce Rate.

I can attest to this, as I’m pretty sure my parents were the closest I ever saw to divorce due to the lack of a cell phone. Actually I think we had a cell phone at this time, but it was in a bag in the car.

Anyway my family likes to hike. Mountains, streams, grassy knolls, we’ve trekked along them all. During family vacations we like to travel somewhere that is known for it’s beautiful hiking. The bad part about hiking is the lack of flushing toilets, and I supposed what’s worse is toting along small children. So before we took off on a long hike my mom took my brother and I to the bathroom, telling my dad to go grab the camera out of the car. Somewhere in the transit of that message, something was lost, like where we were going to meet up afterwards. We made a pit stop at the gift shop and headed down to meet at the trail head. Waiting and waiting, we realize dad must be at the gift shop. So we head back that way. Of course there is more than one path to the gift shop…

I don’t remember how long we walked in circles until we found each other. All I remember is once we did all meet up, Joey and I were deciding who we’d pick to live with when they got their divorce.

Cell phones people. It’s the greatest invention of all time.

That or a squirrel skinning kit, but it’s a toss up, since they both relate to divorce rate.

Happy Birthday to the best red Power Ranger Ever!

I’m one for one on working weekends.

Who’s surprised?

Not me.

Also, I’m still sad she left.

Packing up boxes is sad. Always.

The act of putting away memories and moving them to a new place is hard. Leaving behind the things you know in exchange for a fresh start is hard. It’s harder to help pack up boxes, and not get to leave with them.

The beginning of this year is a sad one. I helped my friend pack up her things to move across the country to Washington. I had definitely started to take for granted how nice it was to have a girlfriend living in this place with me. And not just anyone, but someone who I had a pretty long history with.

When I first moved down here everything was new; new people, new job, new places to shop and eat. But what made it a little bit harder was that none of it was new for J. Everywhere we went also had a college memory attached to it. People we saw in stores were people he knew from a class. Every time we drive through the main circle he repeats a college tour to me, “This is the bar I worked at. This is the place we ate at hung over. This place has the best peanut butter milkshakes” and so on. But those places mean nothing to me. They look like worn out college town buildings that need updating. But then last January, I had a friend I knew in college move here. While team JSU was reminiscing about things we’d never seen, we could remember Ovids and hockey games and everything else that made us bleed blue.

It was sad the first time she left me in Lexington, and the second time isn’t showing any promise to be any easier. I know she felt the same way while in the middle of packing boxes and two bottles of wine she suddenly stopped, stood up, and said, “This sucks”.

This. Sucks.

I know what she meant. Packing the boxes doesn’t suck. Picking out what to donate doesn’t suck. Leaving sucks. It was just a truly sucky thing. No matter how exciting it is to be at the next place, or the next level; the leaving sucks.

A, I can’t wait until our paths cross again. Love, S

This past year I didn’t so much make a resolution as make a choice that I was not going to spend so much time at work. In 2012, which was my first year working full time at CMP I never took any vacation time. I was worried that if I used any of it I wouldn’t have enough time saved up for my actual vacation in August or at Christmas when it’s mandatory that you take time off. I would sit in my office, staring at the computer, doing absolutely nothing. I’d wish that I could go home and work on our Little House, or cook some meals, anything to be productive. Instead I miserably sat at my desk feeling forced to work even when there was nothing going on.

This year James maxed out on his vacation and had to donate some to me in order to not lose it. For some reason this gave me the security to feel like I could take a few days off. I don’t know why I needed his vacation time to feel like it was ok to leave work; I could have easily taken it during my first year as well. But it took some time to realize feeling miserable at work was worse than getting a paycheck with no overtime.

This year I also kept track of how many hours I worked. I kept an extra tab in our financial budget sheet to see how many hours I took off, overtime, travel days, etc. Having all this information in an excel sheet completes an OCD part of me. The sheet started as a way to track our finances to pay off my student loan, but now it’s just a helpful guide to know how much we paid for items, or if we’re getting crazy buying food out or something. But this year, I can tell exactly how much time I put into CMP.

When we got to December and finally looked at the total I was really surprised, since I had made this conscious decision at the beginning of the year to work less overtime and I didn’t even take a single vacation day until June. Even then, I took 1 day off.  Here’s what the breakdown looked like:

Vacation (or sick time): 92 total hours this year (54 of them were for Sturgis, and 24 of them were mandatory for Christmas) That means I used 14 hours during the year for my sanity. Even if I add in the Christmas and trip to South Dakota, that breaks down to taking .95 of a day each month. I didn’t even take a whole day off!

I also worked 32 hours of overtime on average per month (or an extra 4 days each month).

On average I traveled for work 5 days a month.

Even with weekends I only got off 7 days a month on average. There were 100 weekend days in 2013, and say 10 paid holidays. I only got 91 days off in 2013. That’s counting a week and a half vacation I took in August and a mandatory 8 days in December for Christmas. That’s because I worked 29 weekends this year.

I’m not complaining. I’m interested by something I kept track of for an entire year. Most people go to work everyday they’re scheduled, never get vacation… and I get that. My dad, who works for himself, works weekends, holidays and over 8 hours everyday. He does manual labor to earn a living, and I know is working harder than I am. I’m sure if we were to compare notes, he spends more time working than I do. Again, I’m not complaining. I simply, for my sanity, needed to stop feeling guilted into being at work when I wasn’t happy being there. And since I am allowed vacation time each year, I tried to use more of it up, and have a happier 2013.

My budget sheet is completed for the year; every excel block is filled in with a number. My obsessive need to track a part of my life is fulfilled by filling in the data every week. I don’t know whether I feel more excited to see 2013 be completed or start a fresh sheet with 2014.

There was a fall and winter I lived in Kentucky where I was very sickly all the time. It seemed like I was always fighting off strep or bronchitis or a cold. I don’t have the best record of going to the doctor when I get sick anyway because I assume my body should just fight it off itself, and when I’m left to my own with no one to force me to go, I just suffer through it. This was one of those exact incidents. I was coughing pretty badly for awhile and decided to tough it out. In rebellion my body manifested its illness in hives, while I was stuck in the Detroit airport, during a snow storm, alone.

Since my flight was headed to Lincoln though, I was surrounded my nice Mid-westerners. I found a friendly couple in line, and rented a car with Steve, his wife, Marine guy, and Air Force guy. Now this was also around the time when my brother and I were calling everyone/thing “Steve”.

Mom- “Who was that on the phone?”

Us- “Steve”

Mom- “Why is there a creepy skeleton head in the Christmas punch?”

Us- “That’s Steve”

So I happened to think the idea of driving across the country with Steve was hilarious!

The idea was that we’d all drive a little bit through the night, and get home in time for Christmas. First off, we weren’t the only ones with this idea and the line to get a rental car was really long. Plenty of time to get to know each other and realize a 12 hour drive (in good weather) with Marines and Air Force guy was going to suck. Between the one-upping of each another, dissing of the other’s branch and overall low IQ’s, I was inwardly groaning before we ever got in the car. Not to mention that by this time my mom and boyfriend were freaking out that I’d get attacked by these people on this trip (they weren’t as excited about the Steve thing as I was) so I just shut my phone off.

Then I started to get really, really itchy. And miserable. We were hardly moving down the road because of the massive snow storm. It was getting to be late at night and we were realizing we’d have to drive longer and later than we expected. I was bundled up in my coat and really tired of listening to the banter. So I took a Benadryl and passed out. Yes, passed out, in a car, with strangers. But it seemed like a better option than listening to Marines and Air Force talk about who was better and trying not to awkwardly scratch myself.

I made it safely home and paid my part of the rental car in Lincoln. All’s well. But I still think about this trip when I’m doing something particularly dreadful, because nothing will ever be as dreadful as that hive infested drive with strangers.

I believe there is a right time and a right place. Which means there is also a wrong time and a wrong place. Maybe everyone I met before May of 2008 was just wrong time. Or maybe everyone I met while living in Nebraska was just wrong place. But I know May 2008, in Anniston Alabama, was right time and right place, because nothing else before that worked.

My husband and I met while both working at a summer camp position that involved traveling across the country. If there’s anything less like real life than a job which required a different hotel every week for us to meet in, I’m not sure what it would be. Either way with no real cleaning, laundry or cooking to speak of we were in a bit of a fantasy land, however we somehow make real life work too. Those hotels, airplanes, rental cars, and beautiful scenery, was all the right places.

But before that time, we had a wrong time. We met at a competition where I was an athlete and he was a judge (that’s what we get for having an age difference.) I was standing in this long line to challenge the outcome of my match. Holding my scorecard I was waiting to get to the front of the line and learn if I could edge out a few more points and possible earn myself a spot on the podium. Since the line was so long, someone in charge told J to go down the line and see if he thought the people would get their extra points or not. Making quick work, he got to me and told me no, I should not in fact be wasting my time in line because I wasn’t going to get the extra points.

Although I’m normally pretty quiet and respectful I told him I wasn’t going to get out of line, and probably something about how I had every right to stand there (since I was, like, 15 and very genius at this time). Nothing else was said, and J left me to continue down the line, but all I was thinking was he was such an asshole.