WE DID IT

We started our "Losing it--if not the weight, then our minds" blog. No one will want to read it because it will be boring, but it's to help keep us accountable.

Tonight I got that strange pain in my armpit again. I was scared out of my mind for and thought, I didn't change my diet quick enough and I'm going to die--again! Not that I actually died the first time but I thought I was going to. But the pain went away after about five minutes so maybe, just maybe I'm not too late.

Pam will be there, daily, hourly, if I need her--she's that kind of a girl--to encourage me, to keep me on track. It's good to have a cohort in this business of changing my life for the better.

I met Pam when I was assigned to be her visiting teacher. I went alone the first month because my partner was a young mother and couldn't get away. I was glad because I got to meet Pam alone and we both knew we would be friends. (For those who are Mormon you are probably wondering why I didn't already know Pam, if I was in her ward. That is because 24 years earlier they had split our ward and then, wonder of wonder, they put us back together. Anyway, Pam wasn't in the original ward, she had moved in just a few years earlier so I didn't know her from before. Is this confusing enough?)

So, blog number four. Not that "Walking in Starlight" ever gets written on and not that the Cookbook gets written on much.

So, what things are new with you?

WHAT AM I DOING IN THE HOSPITAL?

What was I doing in the hospital this morning? I don't know for sure and it turns out neither do the doctors.

I had started an email this morning when my left arm went "wonky." No other way to explain it. In about a minute I had pain--bad pain--in my left armpit. (I gotta stop using cheap deodorant.) Then I had pain in the right armpit. (I am an equal-opportunity-armpit-pain kind of girl.) Then the pain hit my back.

I am not the kind of person who goes to the doctor or hospital but the pain was bad. If "ten" is a "the pain is so bad I'm going to pass out or die" it was a seven. This was not pain for sissies. I told Phil about it and he said we better go to the hospital.

I couldn't go with hair like that! I plugged in the curling iron and did my hair. Phil paced the floor and said things about my priorities that I will not repeat here. (Bless his heart.) It's a good thing I did my hair because about the time we would be halfway to the hospital I threw up. Throwing up in the toilet is much nicer than doing it in the car. (That's the only good thing I can think of to say about throwing up.)

I threw up my fish oil pill, which floated merrily around while I tried to drown it with contributions of my stomach, which was only water. If I had to throw up I'm glad I had something interesting to watch. You can't imagine how amusing a fish oil pill can be during a tempest in a toilet.

So, they ran tests--how much this will cost me I can only imagine. I had "leads" stuck on every available inch of my skin and I was hooked up to wires. The cuff for blood pressure cut my arm in half every time I got semi-relaxed. (They don't allow relaxation in hospitals. It's a rule.)

They wheeled me by the cafeteria at lunch time on my way to get an x-ray. Roast beef, the technician said as I inhaled, salivating on my gown. I will never taste roast beef again because I am changing my diet.

They said I DIDN'T have a blockage that made part of my heart die but that's about all they could say. After four hours they sent me home. I am supposed to have a stress test next week--which I have decided I aint havin'. Because I'm changing my life and I won't need it. Besides that, people die after stress tests. I've heard stories.

And when I was ready to leave do you know what was written on the prescription pad. "Take and aspirin a day." Does that sound familiar? "Take two aspirins and call me in the morning." I aint callin'. Most expensive dang aspirin I'll ever take.

So, I'm still here, a little nervous that this may repeat but having positive feelings that it won't.

Here's a tip for those of you who are local. Timpanogos hospital is not busy, it's somewhat relaxing. You can almost doze off, until the blood pressure cuff pumps it's self up, that is. I recommend it. But change your life with me, and you will never have to go and the blood pressure cuff will have to retire to Hawaii.

I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE TODAY

About two hours ago I got a terrible pain in my lower back--the kidneys, I think. Then it hit my stomach. I started to perspire--a river of sweat. Honestly it was. A river. I felt like I was going to throw up. The pain intensified. I had never felt anything like it. I was frightened.

I asked Phil what kidney stones were like.

"Well, I got a terrible pain, felt like I was going to throw up and I perspired. It felt like my back was breaking."

I paced the floor and worried. I took my pants off, even the waistband was too much pressure on my back. Then I got cold and huddled under a blanket in the recliner and when Minkey came to sit on my lap I didn't shoo him away. I was nearly incoherent with the pain and the cold and the fear and a cat didn't even register on my annoyance monitor.

I wish I could have time to tell my children I love them and tell them why I think they are wonderful, I thought. I wish I could tell their spouses how much I love them, too. I wish I could see the grandchildren grow up but I wasn't going to be able to do that. I was dying.

I was in too much pain to even pray. I should have asked Phil for a blessing. But I'd have had to put pants on; it seems irreverent to have a blessing with no pants on.

So I sat and feared and shivered and thought of all the things I had eaten that might be poison and might be killing me. The only thing I could think of--that Phil hadn't eaten too--was a seafood egg roll. Maybe it had some of that poison Puffer fish guts in it. It seemed silly to die from a seafood egg roll with Puffer fish guts in it but we all have to die from something and at least it would be amusing to tell at my funeral. That is if the autopsy could pin down the cause of my death but since Utah Valley Regional Medical Center doesn't have a Dr. House... or a Ducky... I figured my death might remain a mystery.

And then I wondered why I didn't clean house today. People would be in and out, giving Phil condolences and bringing him something to eat, maybe a pie or a casserole and the thought of a pie or a casserole sent me to the bathroom to hang over the toilet, hoping to throw-up and not die there instead. Who wants, "died with her head in the toilet," on her obituary? But then again, obituaries are usually so boring, someone might read mine and call to the other room, "Say Kim, it says here that Lynne died with her head in the toilet. Those Mormon's are a strange bunch."

And then I felt bad that I didn't get any of the books finished that I started. Not the reading ones, the writing ones. I'm the only one who knows how they end. And not that anyone even cares but I have one grandchild who would. She is a story-hound and I remembered I had never finished the epic story I have been telling her in instalments. I promised her another chapter the next time we were sitting on the lawn swings. There wasn't going to be another chapter because I was dying.

And then I looked at my fingernails and my polish is ragged and needs re-doing and I hated to die with ragged fingernails but I simply couldn't give my self a pedicure while I was dying.

And then...the pain started to go away. And in about a half hour it was gone, leaving behind only tenderness and damp clothing and pantless legs. And then I remembered that the Augmentum I have been taking causes nausea and that I threw up the first time I took it, a week ago. And I realized it was poisoning, not only the bacteria in my body--the good bacteria and the bad--but was poisoning my very body.

I resolved that I would call Dr. Jessica, who is a mom and a hair stylist and does a mean job of making teen age girls look like road kill for Halloween with her great talent for imitation scars and wounds. Dr Jessica is systematically educating herself on how to cure illness with natural remedies instead of drugs. She has even decided that some things are not to be eaten, like sugar and white flour. Imagine that? Maybe egg rolls are on the list. Certainly Puffer fish guts are. Yes, the next time I had an ailment I would call Dr. Jessica because this dying stuff is for the birds.

So, tonight I am thankful that I'm not dead. Yet. And I hope you are thankful that I'm not dead, too. Because if I were, I might be visiting, and then you would be freaked out in a major way so perhaps you might pray for my good health for a l-o-n-g time.

And call Dr. Jessica, yourself, if someday you think you are dying.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY--SUCCESS. AND PAIN.

"Behind every successful man is an untold pain in his heart." Bill Jacobs

Is this true, do you think?