Short Term Memory Loss and A Bedazzled Belt Clip

This whole cluster of crap has depleted my depth perception, banned me from the Armed Forces, and restricted my roller coaster life. All concerns I can easily live without. Weeellll....maybe not the depth perception. Our poor swaggerwagon has received 3 or more "accidental" dents due my parking. I need to stick to those back empty parking spots where the old and automotivally proud park.

 

Anyway, as I continued with my long term sub job I noticed tasks I normally would remember, like picking the class up from recess, coming back to a student to answer a question, or changing a lunch order would completely skip my mind. This lack of memory was very unusual for me. Typically, I enjoyed boasting to my forgetful Kyle that I didn't need to write anything down and that I was impeccable with names. However, as my mind was being challenged in "the big girl world," my mind, in fact, was failing me. I denied it for a while chalking it up to stress, but Kyle approached me about it after I forgot Franki and Moe at school (no judgment), and I got that dreaded phone call from the school's secretary inquiring if I was on my way to pick them up. "I forgot them, but don't tell them," I said into the phone as I dropped my shopping bags on the front step of house, ran to the beat up swaggerwagon and sped to get my stranded birds.

 

Right around then I had a neurologist appointment where Kyle urged me to bring up this memory situation, so I did. And the neurologist sent me to a Neuropsychologist; whoever knew such an occupation existed?  After a 2 hour consultation, a 4 hour mind numbing testing session, and another hour long recap consultation, it was concluded that I, in fact, had some short term memory loss and delayed processing skills. Personally and honestly, I feel like we could have shortened this 7 hour process to one quick test. The test involved the test proctor giving me 20 random words to remember in any order. She said them verbally and as soon as she was done saying them, I was to recite as many as I could remember back to her. Planning on this being an easy task, I was devastated when I could only spit out 4, yes 4, of the 20 words she had told me. That simple 3 minute test told it all. The Neuropsychologist recommended some cognitive rehabilitation and hinted at some compensation skills.

 

One of the compensation skills was to keep a meticulous calendar. So I went out to T-Mobile to find the phone with the most user-friendly calendar and began adding EVERY minor event I could think of. I set up an extensive network of alarms to trigger my brain that the kids need to be picked up or Henry had speech therapy. I was set...or, I thought I was set. The key, my friend, to using a cell phone calendar is having the calendar/phone with you at all times and having the ringer turned up. I often left my phone at home or forgot to turn the ringer up. So my alarms would go off, and I would be oblivious and in the same situation as before.



My phone isn't too conspicuous.

 

This lack of phone care actually became a huge deal in my marriage. Kyle just couldn't fathom having his phone further than an arm's length's away, and I just didn't have the same urgency. Even though I, unlike him, actually needed my phone to keep me on time and in the right places. So I got one of those super hip belt clips to keep my phone attached to me. I know belt clips scream "SHE IS AWSOMELY HIP!" However, Kyle was not a fan of my solution. He made fun of me and mentioned denying marital relations if I kept wearing my magnificent belt clip. I was even willing to bedazzle it, but rhinestones were not going to convince him to accept wearing my phone on my hip.
 







Well, if a bedazzled belt clip wasn't going to be accepted I saw another idea for keeping the phone on me. At Henry's speech class one of the moms wore her phone around her neck like a backstage pass to a concert. MIND BLOWN! Perfect, I thought to myself. That night I brought the backstage pass idea to Kyle. I think he was more disgusted with that than the belt clip. So we have met in the middle. I try harder to make sure my phone is with me and he is more forgiving if it is on the bed side table and I am at Hobby Lobby. 

Thorns In The Head

This story does not have me saving my head similar to a superhero zombie like the previous post. Instead, I am more of an oaf left standing dumbfounded with thorns in my head.

 

This past Fall, I had enthusiastically accepted a long term sub job in 6th grade at Moe and Franki's school. It was extremely refreshing to be back in the classroom creating lesson plans and making what we called " big girl checks." Being out-of-practice to the whole full-time working mom gig (props to those full-time working moms who balance everything), the house resembled a battle zone with dishes unwashed, toys strung about, and landscaping unkempt. We had leaves in flower beds, crispy dead perennials that needed to be dead headed and a few ugly, scary rose bushes that had grown out of control. One rose bush in particular had thorns on the base that were the size of a guitar pic. Spoiler alert: I would end up fighting this exact rose bush.

 

Thinking I needed to get as much Fall clean up as possible done in a quick Sunday afternoon, I got my nippers, rakes, and yard waste bags. The weather was nice; however, the wind was gusting at 30 mph. I had this one afternoon and wind was not going to slow me down so I started digging those crispy dead annuals out of their pots. Next I put on heavy duty gardening gloves and got my large nipper to tackle our rebellious and unruly rose bushes. I went head first (this will be even funnier in a second) into the base of the biggest rose bush, the one with the guitar pic sized thorns, and started grooming. The wind made it hard to keep my balance, but damn it I was going to at least get the outside of the house looking neat again (even though the inside was a disheveled disaster). Well the wind won, and dropped me head first into the rose bush.







 

Once again I was laying on the ground wondering what had I done to myself. With gardening nippers in one hand and thorny rush bush vines in the other, I didn't have a chance to protect my head this time. After all, nippers to the head is generally frowned upon whether you've had brain surgery or not. After pulling myself out of the bush, I felt a warm trickle  of blood running down my face.
 

Leaving my pile of weeds on the ground I race inside to survey the damage. I am bleeding from my head, and the punctures are around the shunt site. I also see that there are some thorns embedded in my scalp. I yell some obscenities and throw the bloody wash cloth on the ground because I am embarrassed to show Kyle I am also having flashbacks of how a small cut turned into bacterial meningitis and two more surgeries last fall. I need him to pull the thorns out, so with sheepish eyes I approach him and explain what happened. The look on his face said, "How in the hell did a rose bush kick your ass?"
 

Tweezers in sanitized hand, Kyle pulls out at least 3 thorns from my scalp. Then I apply an antibacterial cream every hour completely paranoid of infection. I walked around for two weeks with a permanent greasy spot from my compulsive application of Neosporin. However, after pulling 3 thorns, I still felt like there was still something in my scalp. Sure enough the next morning a 4th thorn came to the surface. It was completely submerged; Kyle couldn't even see it.

The first three thorns Kyle pulled out of my head.



Paranoia also made me call the neurosurgeon-on-call at Research Medical Center on a Sunday afternoon with my issue. He was polite enough, but I am sure that surgeon was thinking "What a quack!" We also called my neurosurgeon on Monday wanting an emergency appointment. All I could think of was last December, and I wanted to do EVERYTHING possible to prevent an infection, hence my perpetual greasy Neosporin spot and the rubbing alcohol on my vanity. Well, my neurosurgeon did not see my situational urgency and refused an appointment.  Its not like he wasn't busy ;) Everything turned out fine and everything healed, but it did start the thought process of if I was the best candidate for a shunt with all my klutzy tendencies. It also made Kyle seriously consider buying me a helmet. But a helmet with a wig so I could still look awesome, of course.

 

 

 

 

The Oak Tree Farm Zombie: How a nighttime jog led to a fractured collarbone. BUT I SAVED THE HEAD!

Seems appropriate that I create this post as I have been convinced to do a 1/2 marathon in late September in Columbia, MO at the Roots and Blues Festival. Now in my pre-kid days I jogged four different half marathons and even managed to complete the 2003 Chicago Marathon. I was never fast, but had perseverance to not stop until the race was over. Also,the running brought a lot of confidence and pride that aided in guiding me from a college student to an adult with a real teaching job. Unfortunately, as kiddos were born and then the surgeries started up, running became a very, very non-realistic goal. Along with the running a good amount of the confidence and pride became obsolete in my life.


Kyle and I after The 2003 Marathon





So last summer I thought, "what the hell, lets start running again." It would be a "safe" exercise. Unlike Crossfit or yoga, there was nothing being lifted overhead or balancing acts that could lead to injury. It was simple running . . . putting one foot in front of the other. Now, I had aged 9 years and my knees slowed my pace considerably. Also, I started out at mile 1. I really thought I could start with a 3 mile run, but that thought was seriously halted when I went out and nearly collapsed of respiratory failure after a 1/2 mile.

As the weeks went on I did manage to get to three miles. Now I hope you are not picturing me effortlessly gliding down the sidewalk with a smile on face and my long stride moving me forward like one of those crazy Kenyans that run marathons in under 3 hours. You need to picture a short, "fluffy" mom who is struggling to make every stride. She is completely red in the face and quite frankly is running slower than a normal person could walk. Actually if I saw myself running on Todd George Road, I would stop and offer myself a ride just to put the "running me" out of my misery. But I was doing it and some of my old confidence was creeping back (along with two weeks of debilitating leg soreness that kept me from making several treks up and down my stairs). I was back and feeling accomplished.

One day was too busy to run in the daylight, so I thought I would go at night. After fighting with Kyle on whether or not I should take my phone, I took off without any fancy gadgets that new runners like. When I run I don't wear my glasses and when I don't wear my glass my eye doctor claims I am "night blind." I am a bit skeptical of that term, so I never invested in contacts or sports glasses. So I take out on this humid night to trudge 3 miles. I had to deviate from my normal route a bit this night due to a lack of lighting. Though we love in a safe neighborhood, I still imagined an attacker jumping out at me. He/She would have been disappointed to find just me, no gadget mom, but to be safe I took another route.

As I was getting closer to a familiar part of my route something simply tripped me. Not sure if it was the side walk, a branch, or more likely my own feet. I began to fall forward but managed to correct myself. I overcompensated a bit, and the whole left side of my body crashed into the pavement. I skidded along the pavement just enough to skin several parts of my body. Luckily I had managed to use my left arm and protect my head as I did not want another trauma to my new shunt. I did hit my head; just no where near the effin' shunt.

I laid there wondering if this whole body blow out had seriously injured me. Was the shunt hurt?Should I move? Where should I go? My friend's house was a block away and my home was a mile away. After air came back into my stomach, I quickly and embarrassingly got up and immediately started to speed walk home. I, however, heard voices across the street; two people had seen the whole thing and said nothing. No "Are you ok?" or "Can we take you home?" or "Need a beer?"  As I was walking home I kept my hand down, but a few other night walkers were randomly giving me this stare like they had seen a zombie. I would give them a grin and they would ask if I was ok. How did they know I just fell doing the simplest exercise of mankind. After I said yes, they would quickly walk away from me acting like I was going to eat their intestines. After two encounters, I looked down and noticed that both legs were intensely bleeding and my elbow was a causality too. I was so worried about my head I didn't even evaluate the rest of my body. The scared walkers had all cause to be weary because I did look like I had slaughtered someone. BUT...BUT...despite their fear they had manners enough to ask if I was ok, unlike the schmucks who said nothing at the scene of the incident. I made it home, and all I could say to Kyle is "I SAVED MY HEAD!"

The next three days my whole left side hurt especially my head, neck, and shoulder area. A wretched headache plagued me, so I went to the doctor and we just chalked it up to soreness from the fall. On the fourth day the pain became a bit more localized in my collarbone, but I kept on doing life. I did mange to get in with my chiropractor. When I told her the story and begged for a impeccable adjustment, she looked at my collarbone and said she wasn't doing anything until I got it X-rayed. I had always pictured broken collarbones as unbearably painful injuries that took one to the ER immediately, not a nagging pain that didn't prevent me from living life. The chiropractor said people walk around with fractured bones all the time and don't know it.

Needless to say the collar bone had a greenstick fracture in it. When I fell my collarbone bowed out making little bone splinters, like when you try to break a green stem. Since it was only a fracture, all she could do was tape me up and use some laser gadget to reduce the swelling. She taped me everyday because Kyle and I had a 2-day music festival camping trip where we would be sleeping on a tent floor. Between the tape and the Hydrocodone I did just fine on the trip. However, I learned in a moment of distress: ALWAYS PROTECT THE SHUNT! Regardless of what else could happen to the body, the shunt is to be protected at all costs. I retired from running after that, but I am back at it. Please no pity if you see me struggling on Langsford Road. I may look like I am going to die, but that is just my normal running face. But if you see a bloody suburban zombie bite it on the sidewalk in front of your house, at least offer some sort of acknowledgement. Even if it is just a chuckle and a "Smooth move, Exlax!"

Notice the spider taping job to stay comfortable while camping.