Psych Ward......again!

So as all of you know already, or I assume you do, I was in the psych ward from Thursday night till Monday afternoon. This time I was in the one down in Provo and not in Salt Lake. This one is a lot more prison feeling and the food wasn't as good. Oh, and I couldn't get all the Dr. Pepper I wanted. But other than that, it was good. And actually, there was one great thing about this place. They follow this "lifetrap" philosophy thing. It's all out of this book called "Reinventing Your Life." This book was basically life changing for me.

I went to UNI after an anxiety attack so that I couldn't even try to attempt suicide. But this time, I had actually tried to commit suicide. Two cop cars, an ambulance, AND a fire truck came. That pretty much scared the crap out of me. Especially since I am really afraid of cops and he was the first one to arrive. And of course a lot of people were standing around looking to see what happened. So then I walked myself into the ambulance, crowd watching, and went to the hospital. They put me in the pediatric room. That was awesome. It was all decorated with Finding Nemo stuff. SOOOOO COOL. And Happy. So the social worker finally came in, and it wasn't Randy this time. Whew. He's the idiot who kicked me out of the ER in October. Anyhow, this nice new social worker came in and told me basically that I was gonna be staying there. So I did. And then I got all my nice reading and thinking and praying in. And there were a lot of group therapy things that I went to as well. And in the end, I've decided to make some much needed changes in my life that will help me to be MUCH happier and hopefully keep me out of the psych ward in the future. Oh, and they added Wellbutrin with my Prozac. That's the other change. Guess we'll see how that works. Anyhow, that's once again my life as it stands right now.

Clyde go BOOM!

So I think that anytime you plan on waking up early and have lots of stuff planned to do during your day, you may as well just sleep in because your plans will get screwed up anyhow. Case in point, the Clyde building (engineering building) is closed all day today. Apparently a contractor blew up a transformer and caused a gas leak inside the building. So it was all evacuated and nobody is allowed back in until they get it all fixed. Usually, not that bad, but I had like 3 things planned to do at work today. There were two catalysts that needed final impregnations and TPO to analyze and a TPR to run. But NO! I can't do any of those. Usually I wouldn't really care, but I want hours at work! Haha, me need moneys! Secondly, I need to get this data done as I have to present it all in less than a month. At least I get to do that. The ORCA grant stuff didn't work out so well. Our group went 0/3 in ORCA grants this year. Lame. Oh wells. In other news, I did get a pay raise at work, always appreciated. And i get to work more hours as well. Another bonus. So in the meantime I guess I just try to catch up w/ the work I missed being in the hospital. It shouldn't be too bad now that I only have 8 credits. (LAME, I would like a healthy semester for once!!!!) Anyhow, that's me in a nutshell at this moment.

Surgery is fun?

Okey doke. So in lieu of telling the story multiple times, I find easiest to just blog about it! Woohoo! Plus I haven't blogged in quite some time, so those of you who have been waiting (I write as if anybody cares) here a new one is. So almost two weeks ago by now (wow, it's been a long time) I got this incredibly bad pain in my stomach. Actually below my stomach, in the intestinal area. And to top that off, I couldn't eat anything without throwing it all back up again! Pretty good stuff, I know. So I tried to tough it out and just wait for it to fix itself. But after like 16 hours and a night with literally no sleep b/c of the pain, I decided to go to the ER. Always good times there.

So I get in the ER and they do their spiel and take forever and a day to do anything about the pain. But thankfully they gave me something for pain and something for nausea. Then they took some x-rays. I didn't know that you could find intestinal problems on an x-ray. Anyhow, I sit in the ER, they run my blood tests and urine tests and give me a whole bunch of fluids b/c the throwing up all night has made me quite dehydrated. So after many hours, like 7 or 8, probably average for an ER, the doctor comes in and tells me it's just a bowel obstruction that will go away on it's own and he prescribes me some percoset for the pain and some zofran for nausea and was about to send me on my way. Then he asks me if they did any x-rays and such. First, how does he almost discharge me without looking? Anyhow, I tell him they took three. So he goes and looks at them and the radiologist suggested I get a CT scan of my intestines b/c the x-ray showed some abnormal stuff. Ironically, when you can't keep any food down and your intestines are blocked, they make you drink 6 cups of apple juice mixed with contrast. Crank up the nausea meds....that's about all that can really be said at that point. So I dutifully drink it all down and then they take me to get the CT scan. Pretty fun stuff. Actually, they're really boring. So they finish and bring me back to my lovely ER room. Guess what happens next?

Yup, you guessed it. I wait some more! Eventually my nurse asks if they have received the results of my CT scan, and they had....a while ago. Go figure. But this time instead of just the ER doctor, they also bring in the trauma guy working at that time. You know you're in for some fun when they call in the trauma guy. So he comes in to deliver the diagnosis. Apparently, I had a volvulus. It's kind of a cool word I guess. Basically it means that my intestines got all twisted up around themselves, wikipedia it if you really want to see. He explains this to me, and then tells me the good part! A volvulus can kill your small intestines pretty quickly and I may already have some dead tissue. GREAT. And the cherry on top? This was all caused by some scar tissue from the surgery WHEN I WAS BORN! A 21 year time bomb. Awesome stuffs. So then they wheel me into the ER. Naturally, I want to know what they're gonna use. And they be using Propofol, that stuff that killed Michael Jackson. Sign me up. And then they put me under and I don't remember a thing.

Then I came out (please hold all gay jokes, I didn't say the closet), and they gave me a nice SMALL room on the surgical floor. Then I got to chill there with some morphine and nurses and patient care techs and all that good stuff till Saturday (surgery was on Sunday). Then I got home and did nothing, except take a lot of percoset. Now, almost another week after that, I'm still taking my percoset! But at least I made it to class and such. Well, today. I'm gonna try to make it to all of my classes tomorrow! Wish me luck! So all in all, I almost lost my small intestines last week. And now I have them. Hooray!

So after all the hub bub of the past week, which I will blog about later, here are the pictures I took while everyone was around! Enjoys!

Purple Staples: Gotta love the simple things

So I keep having to go to the library for the sole purpose of stapling my homework. I don't have a little mini staple in my back pack...which are super convenient. So today, I needed to get some other school supplies and such, so I went to the stapler aisle. Okay, they don't have their own aisle, but they do have a pretty decent selection. So I perused over all the choices and I found a blue swingline that was the perfect size for my backpack! I almost bought an XActo brand stapler, but I couldn't do it. I had to buy a Swingline. Anyone who has ever seen Office Space will understand. Now, I have my little light blue stapler and I came home and opened it up to put the staples that came w/ it inside of it. And much to my surprise, the staples that came w/ it are purple!!!!! It's awesome! I was expecting the regular ones, but instead they were colorful!! It was way cool. So they pretty much make me happy when I see them. It's the Simple things in life that seem to make you happy, like colorful staples. Happy Day!

Volleyball!

So, I have an addendum to the post from yesterday...or whenever I did it. On Saturday, there was also a volleyball game. We won the game quite nicely in 3 sets over Weber State. No surprises there, but here's the news worth mentioning. They always throw out these little volleyballs during the game and I've never gotten one. Haha, I've been to like a million volleyball games and never got one, sad! But finally my hopes and dreams have come true! I got a volleyball!!!! And it was a special volleyball. It had a coupon for free popcorn on it too! So Kristin got the popcorn and I got the ball. Pretty much amazing. It's alright to be jealous. :) Funky fresh, I'm out.

Rise and Shout, the Cougars are out!

So yesterday was the big BYU-Oklahoma opening game in which all predictions had BYU losing by quite a bit. But, who really trusts those things anyhow. Though a number 3 against a number 20 is usually a pretty easy call. Ha! But not when BYU is playing! As the cheesy ESPN thing said during the game, "Every underdog has a chance." And we took that chance and rammed it down their throats and pulled off the biggest upset of opening week, and let's see how the rest of the season plays out. Though this isn't the first time BYU has one big, it's the biggest upset we've pulled off since 1990; the biggest since I've been here. And b/c of that, there was some CRAZINESS following the game. As soon as it ended, we all ran out of our apartments and started yelling and screaming and jumping and such. It was awesome. Then we all went to the street and started yelling w/ people from other apartments as cars drove by honking their horns and more people screaming.

Then we thought that there was probably something good going on on campus, so we headed up to the Wilk. to see if anything was going on there. We got there and there was a huge crowd of people standing out in front of it, so we joined the crowd. Then we all stampeded through the Wilk cheering and singing the fight song. Next was a race from the Wilk. to the victory bell. That's a much longer jog than I remember, but it was good. Probably just seemed longer b/c I'm so out of shape and not used to the mountain air and such. So they rang the victory bell, and some guy gave a little victory speech and we all walked down (whew, no one was in the mood to run anymore) to condo row for a block party. Someone had hooked their speaker up to an amp and had some music playing while everyone was cheering and dancing and such. Then someone had an OU pinata that they hung from a balcony and beat w/ a stick. Then I was pretty much done for the day. Basically non-stop screaming from 5-10:30 or so. All in all, AWESOME!

Hands down, this was the craziest night in Provo since I've been here and could quite possibly be the craziest I'll ever have. Then again, I do have another three years, so we'll see. But it was totally amazing and the craziest night of all time. w00t w00t Cougars!!! Ra, ra, ra ra ra. Ra, ra, ra ra ra, Gooooooooooooooooo Cougars!!!!!!!