Gabby and I are both quite happy that as of this moment we are both free from school/work for a whole week.
I used to have really bad nightmares when I was little that my dad had died. I would always find him dead, or at least find out that he was dead, and then proceed to totally lose my shit. I would weep and gnash my teeth in the dream and inevitably wake up to find that the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth was happening in real life, too. These nightmares were so real that I would have to get up out of bed and go to my parents room to assure myself that he was okay. Only after such assurances could I ever get myself to go back to sleep.
Not long after Zack and I got married, the dreams made a switch. Instead of dreaming that my dad was dead, I’d dream that Zack had died somehow. Car wrecks and shootings and climbing deaths occurred regularly in my nightmares. It didn’t take Zack long to figure out how to deal with my middle-of-the-night terror. He wakes me up whenever he hears me crying in my sleep to assure me that everything’s okay and he’s not dead. “I’m right here,” is what he usually says over and over again until I’m awake enough to believe him.
This morning I woke myself up weeping at 5:20. Zack immediately went into his usual assurances, telling me that it was okay, he was right there beside me and not the least bit dead. What he didn’t understand was that this was not your average Zack Is Dead night terror. This was something of an entirely different breed.
Because I don’t, as a rule, usually discuss dreams, I’ll condense this down to two sentences for you. In my dream I was being attacked by a home invader. Immediately after the home invader left, one of my best friends, The Cheese, came over and I killed him by stabbing him in the heart with two different types of kitchen knives.
I was terrified in the dream when I was experiencing the home invasion, but it wasn’t until I realized that I’d killed The Cheese that the weeping really started. I was so distraught: I’d killed someone, I’d made a terrible perpetrator identification error, and mostly because The Cheese was dead.
So at 5:22 this morning, Zack was one confused husband. His attempts to calm me were not proving to be effective and I could tell that he was getting more and more perplexed by the situation by the second. I finally was able to weep out an explanation to him. I told him that I’d killed The Cheese between my gasps for breath. I believe he started to chuckle a little bit, then he told me it was okay. He was pretty sure I hadn’t REALLY killed The Cheese and everything was going to be fine.
As I started to calm down, I realized that Zack might feel a little bit weird about the sequencing of the events. First I dream about dead dad. Then I dream about dead husband. Then I dream about dead The Cheese? What is that supposed to imply, you know? That’s when I realized that I knew just the bit of information that I could tell Zack to let him know that everything really was going to be okay.
“In the dream,” I explained to him, still through a snotty nose, “when I killed The Cheese with two kitchen knives, I used a stabbing motion instead of a slicing motion, just like you taught me. Even my dream-self pays attention to your self defense lessons.” And with that we were both satisfied with our mutual comfort levels, and we fell back to sleep.
Sore Throat + Post Nasal Drip + Headache + Low Grade Fever = enough evidence for me to finally admit that I might be sick. On one of the Top Six Worst Days For SarahThe to Get Sick During The School Year.
Grades are due tomorrow and it’s my job (and my job alone) to get those grade processes completed. And so I can not sleep in, I can not be sick. I can only be miserable and squinty. And whiny. I can be really, really whiny.
Today I had to go to the girl doctor to get my second round of the Gardasil vaccination.
Two months ago, when I was there for my regular Girl Appointment, I pointed out a weird skin irregularity on my shoulder to my doctor. It turned out that it wasn’t cancer. I told you all about how I pointed to my shoulder and was like, “hey, weird spot, right?” And then the doctor was all, “Yeah I guess that could be cancer.” And then a few weeks later someone from his office called me and said, “Hey, not cancer. No worries!”
Before I left the first appointment my doctor asked me to remind him to have a look at my shoulder when I came in for my next shot. I suppose he just wanted to see how the spot healed? I don’t know. He didn’t clarify what his intention was. And because I’m totally just like those suckers in the TV commercials that don’t ask any questions when they’re doctor’s office, I didn’t bother to inquire. I prefer to experience the comfort of blindly trusting my physician.
So that brings us back to today. I got to the Doctor’s office and went straight to the exam room. The office assistants informed me that the Doctor’s nurse was out for the day, so the Doctor Himself would be administering the shot. (Then an office assistant from around the corner chimed in a “good luck!” but that’s neither here nor there. Turns out she was just kidding, the shot was surprisingly painless. I then told The Doctor Himself that he was pretty good at giving shots. You know, for a Doctor.) So I peeled off my belt (I prefer shots in the hip [because it's a far superior location to get shots]), pulled off my work polo and hung out in the office in my camisole waiting for him to come in the room. As soon as he stepped in the door I felt the pressing need to explain to him why I’d gotten half-undressed for a shot. (I’m not sure why I felt this need. I mean, dude’s used to girls ripping off their pants when he comes around. Surely he’s wasn’t that flustered over the sight of me in a tank top. Alas. There I was. Explaining.)
I pointed to my shoulder. “Look,” I said, “here’s my spot. It healed up really well.”
“What’d we do there?” He asked.
“You lopped off a chunk of my shoulder that looked weird.”
“What was it?” He continued to ask me questions that were making me feel nauseated. On the inside I was all, “Um, I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to know that one.”
I said, “Not Cancer? That’s really all you guys told me when you called.”
He said, “Oh, right. Let’s look and find out what it really was!”
Audible excitement registering in his voice. Everyone loves a surprise, right?
He flipped open my chart, leafed through a couple pages of notes and then declared, “Oh, here it is. It was a Neurofibroma.”
I was like, “Cool.” I mean, I know some stuff about science. Neuro=nerves. I know that because McDreamy is a Neurosurgeon and he’s did that big spinal cord surgery on Grey’s last week. And “fibroma” must mean something that has to do with ‘fiber’ right? Like, I don’t know. A bundle of fibers? So he removed a bundle of nerve fibers from my shoulder? That’s weird, right?
So I gave in. I said, “What the crap is a neurofibroma?”
And as causally as one could possibly imagine, he told me. “A Neurofibroma,” he explained, “is a little bundle of nerves and tissues that builds itself into a ball. If you have one, no big deal. If you have 6, you have neurofibrosis. If you have a whole bunch, you have the same disease as The Elephant Man.”
My mouth must have been agape with shock and awe, because he went on to say, “Don’t worry, though I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get a whole bunch. Pretty sure.”
So from now on, when someone asks me what happened to my shoulder, I’m going to tell them that I had a little piece of The Elephant Man removed. Then I’ll assure them they don’t need to worry, cause we’re pretty sure he’s not going to come back.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last run.
Ok, Fine. It’s way worse than that.
It’s been one week since I even attempted any sort of a work-out type activity. The whole truth is that it’s been one week since I’ve tried to exercise AND during said week I have consistently indulged in things like Bacon Cheeseburgers and Steak Fries, along with the occasional 12 piece nugget from Chick-Fil-A.
And Good Lord in Heaven, I’m not going to lie. Those Steak Fries were delicious.
Over the weekend I should have written a post that was dripping with “Oh my gosh, I’m so awesome because I just ran for 7 miles” type comments. But I didn’t run 7 miles over the weekend. So instead I’m writing this, hoping desperately that my untimely training reprieve doesn’t come back to bite me in the butt next Thursday when I’m running my very first Turkey Trot.
If I can run 6 miles alone, I can surely run 8 miles when motivated by race-day adrenaline and the presence of 50,000ish other runners, right? Right!?
