Tuesday, January 20, 2009

How Do You Pack for a Hospital Stay?

So next week, I will be staying at the hospital for a test called a VEEG. I've had one before, so I'm not very scared. The first time, I was terrified and wanted my mom with me 24/7, the poor thing. Every time she got up to go get some food or just get a break and go home for a while, I would cry the moment I saw her get ready to stand. This time, I realize that it isn't a trip to Jamaica, but I don't need to subject anyone else to the hospital for such long hours.

Basically, wires are attached to my head and a camera is watching me, so I can't go much further than my bed, except when I need the restroom. When that happens, I'm not allowed to walk alone, because they're taking me off of all my medication and I'm going to have many seizures, possibly the type where I fall and am unconscious, though that didn't happen last time. So, the bottom line is that I won't feel well and I can't travel far.

When I pack for a vacation, I know exactly what to pack. I'm not an over-packer, so I pack an outfit for each day, pajamas, unmentionables, dressy outfits for each dressy occasion, make up, decide if I need more than one pair of casual and dressy shoes, toiletries, accessories and hair ties. Maybe a baseball cap for days when I don't want to do my hair. If I'm flying, my carry-on luggage has one magazine, pencils, a notebook and a drawing pad. And now, it'll have my iPod. The end. I'm set.

But what about this hospital stay? I know that I will wear pajamas and that the shirts have to button down. Oddly, though I have three pairs of pajamas like this, I cannot find the tops to two of them. This is curious, because I usually don't like the button down tops and just wear the pants with a t-shirt. So wouldn't the tops be in my drawers? Who stole my button down PJ tops?

Next on the list, I obviously need unmentionables. Then toiletries.

The hard part is figuring out what to bring to keep myself entertained. When it's a vacation, you are going somewhere to be entertained. For this, I need to entertain myself, away from home, confined to a bed.

I have to consider that at first, I'll feel reasonably fine. I don't feel the best these days, but I'm well enough to work, so I'll feel well enough that I'll want something to keep me busy... I could do crafts and read and draw. I was hoping I could write, but I've had a year and a half long writer's block, so I don't know about that. I'll want stuff do to if I'm feeling well, 'cause I don't really have the patience to watch TV all the livelong day. My iPod Touch has games and a movie on it... I specifically asked for it with the knowledge that I'd have a VEEG and perhaps other hospital stays and (hopefully) recovery from brain surgery.

But what happens when I start feeling withdrawls from my medication and the seizures kick in? Do I just listen to music on my iPod? Lay there and watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond? But what about during the day? I hate daytime television and when I don't feel well, I can't focus on reading. Maybe I'll feel so sick that it won't be hard to sleep. But one day, I have to stay awake for 24 hours. Is there anything good on TV during the day? Maybe some I Love Lucy on TV Land or something? Lucille Ball has saved me more than I could ever explain.

Maybe I should find an audiobook to put on my iPod for the part when I don't feel well. I like hearing stories when I don't feel well, but can't fall asleep. Yeaaaaah, that's a good idea.

So we've got drawing, crafts, reading, iPod games and some TV for when I'm feeling relatively well (once Oprah hits at 4, I'm good for TV for the rest of the day)... music, audio books, and naps for when I feel more sick. Now I think next week could possibly fly by. :)

If only I could find the button down tops of my pajamas. hmph.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

The masterpiece that wasn't

The purpose of this blog is to help me keep up with the writing and sometimes to keep friends and long-distance relatives up-to-date on what is going on in my life... Mostly, I just want to get my talent for writing back. It's in here somewhere. It used to come so easily, then I stopped, and now it's difficult for me to write stories the way I used to.

So this weekend I was alone here at my home and thought I'd take the time to live how I used to, if I wasn't feeling to sick. Back in the day, on night's when I wasn't feeling sick, I did my homework (mostly writing) at my (former) favorite coffee shop downtown. They haven't done anything to bump themselves a notch from the favorite position. I've just gone to more coffee shops since those days and enjoy the others more. Anyway, so I thought I'd get all cozied up in a spot there, put pen to paper, 'cause I am NOT a computer writer.... everything always starts with a pen or pencil and eventually ends up on the computer... and see what masterpiece happened that I could edit and eventually send to someone.

So I went to the coffee shop. I ordered a latte and some baked good and found the best spot that I could. Unfortunately, the couches and plush chairs were taken. Those are my favorite spots, but you have to work with what's there. And what was there was a tiny table in the middle of the room. I sat my pink purse and my "creative bag" (read: black bag with the Beatles "Abbey Road" photo in silver on the side) on one chair and sat down in the other chair with my tasty coffee and chocolatey baked good in front of me. Around me, every other person, except for two ladies who were visiting, had an Apple laptop in front of them. No joke. But I still confidently pulled my notebook and pen out of my bag. We artists all have our way of doing our work, yes?

And mine began with being distracted by my coffee and the chocolatey goodness of the baked good. I could only write one terrible sentence before the baked thingy was gone. When that was finally out of my way, I slowly wrote another sentence, but I was distracted because the ladies who were chatting were speaking an Oriental language and it was so beautiful to listen to them say something I couldn't understand in such animated ways and laugh. I would wonder if they were talking about travel, school, boys, work, kids? But I tried to at least look like I was thinking about my writing. Then I actually did think about my writing and wrote a third sentence, but to write something well, I need to be very emotionally involved, and it's so hard for me to do that when I'm distracted by conversation and just as those women left, the man at the table that was practically connected to mine was joined by another man. So as I tried to talk myself into focusing to see if my sentences even made any sense, if they drew any emotion out at all, it turned out that these men spoke what appeared to be Spanish, but could have been Portuguese. Probably Spanish. They had an animated conversation and after a while, words like muchacha and bonita were being thrown about as I noticed they were looking at me, but trying to act like they weren't.

By then, my masterpiece wasn't going to happen. I couldn't stop eavesdropping on conversations that I couldn't understand and eventually getting paranoid that these foreign languages, as beautiful as they both sounded, were all about me.

So I got four sentences of a poem done, then started writing a letter before I finished my coffee.

Me with my striped notebook, surrounded by people with their wireless internet accessible laptops. Am I the only one under 40 who is attached to notebooks?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

In just one year...

So much changes in just one year. One year ago, the husband and I had rented our house out and were living with my mom hoping to get awesome jobs in an awesome city that wasn't too far from home base, preferably Iowa City. I had been feeling the best that I thought I'd ever feel and figured it was time to get started on my career, so I was applying in television, radio, public relations and marketing in every city from Springfield, IL to Omaha, NE.

I got many responses from many cities, then had to think if I actually wanted to live in such towns as Mason City or was I just applying to get the "Sorry, we don't want you"'s out of the way and find my way towards "We love ya, when can you start?"

The goofiest job interview was definitely in Springfield. It was for "promotions." The way it was described, I was going to be promoting child safety at big events in great locations, sometimes traveling to Chicago to give the presentations! It took three interviews to get this job, so I knew it had to be quite the big deal. It was the first interview where I was told about the events and that our main goal was to get the word out about child safety... and that if I was good enough, I could even be the manager of a new business in some awesome city (California, anyone?) within a year. This was sounding good and they called me back for the second interview.

I was all dressed up and ready to help give a presentation at the event. I was to job shadow someone, and then halfway through, start doing the presentation, myself. I was pretty confident. I gave thousands of presentations in college and if I caught on to what we were doing for the parents of these kids, I knew I could feel passionate about it. I was told that the event was about an hour away... and halfway there, I decided to ask exactly where we were going. A college hall? A hotel ballroom? Were they providing the computer for the slideshow? Did we have the free helmets and car seats and the information about how to use them properly?

Um.

The "event" was at the front door of Home Depot. Our "promotion" was to sell fairly unnecessary items (read- mugs and stickers) to anyone using whatever technique we could. Guilt, dancing, singing, flirting, it didn't matter. Worst of all, 80% of what we sold was the paycheck, but it looked like we were donating 100% of the money to a charity for children. It really felt like I was selling my soul to get people with hearts who really didn't want the items, but didn't know how to say "no" because they thought all of their money was going to help a charity, not just a small portion. It felt terrible. By the end of that "interview," the person I was shadowing was in love with me. She kept saying I did a great job (insult?) and that she wanted me to come back for a third interview. As much as I wanted a "real" job, I also wanted an honest job and told her that I couldn't see myself doing that. She truly didn't see what was wrong with it. She even thought she could retire in her 30s because she worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day... but when I calculated what she made in a year, she makes what the average person makes... there'll be no extra early retirement for that girl.

But a week after that, I got my dream call. A television station wanted me to work for them in the traffic department. I had no clue what that meant, but if a door was going to open at a TV station, I wanted to slip my foot in there. I'd wanted that since I was 10 or 12. I had an interview set up, and right as I was about to take off for it, I got a call from SHARON saying that a "family emergency had come up" and she couldn't meet with me. I suspect now that her baby was sick. We moved the interview to the following week and everything felt right straight from the beginning. I met with both of the traffic managers from Fox and CBS, because they are a family here in the Iowa City viewing area, and SHARON carried the interview. My favorite part is that they were going under new management, so the interviewing process was new to her. She was supposed to ask specific questions that were written down and she did precisely that with a pause after each word and then she'd look up at me proudly and expectantly. I felt relaxed in the presence of her and the other manager and felt like we hit it off from the moment we met. As soon as we left the interview, I got in the car where my husband and mother-in-law were waiting, because we were apartment shopping that day (Kevin had just learned that he had a job, so we were definitely moving, whether I got the TV job or not) and I shrugged and said, "I think I got the job."

Twenty minutes later, Sharon called and said, "The thing is... we like you and want to hire you." We worked out a few specifics and I was set to begin my first job in television. That was a year ago in March. By April, I worked in traffic, which, by the way, is basically making television run smoothly... assigning commercials to the client's specifications and preventing dead air... and I also worked as a production assistant for the noon news, which was my actual dream job. When 11:15 came around and it was time for me to prepare for that job, I couldn't have been more pleased. I thought I rocked the headset pretty well, the director and anchor were awesome and we were always dancing and singing in the studio. Those are memories I'll always keep.



By June, things got pretty rough. The flood hit and I was suddenly doing more production than traffic and before I knew what was happening, I was told that we were starting a morning show and I was the production assistant for it. We had no one else to be PA, so we had other people from other departments do the things that I couldn't do from the floor. With the flood closing the interstate, the director, a commercial producer and I drove crazy routes starting at 2 AM just to get to work and start a show at 5 AM and finish everything by 1 and get home by 2:30ish. When the Interstate opened up after the flood, we could leave closer to 3 and be home by 1:30...

... but my health was not happy. It wasn't very happy when I started working 40 hours, anyway, but I ignored it as much as possible by going to bed by 8 and hardly moving on the weekends. But when I had to be asleep at 6 PM, up around 2:30 and under more pressure for a show that we were doing on the fly without enough staff, my health couldn't take it. I didn't want to admit that it was too much, but I finally did and left my job. That was the hardest thing I had to do in 2008. What was harder is that it left me wondering what I really want to do with my life. I had a good experience there. I loved who I worked with, I did what I always dreamed I would do, but I didn't feel complete. I'm going through that thing I think a lot of 20-somethings go through where you try things and discover they aren't what you thought and need to try something more to discover more about yourself until you discover who it is you really are and what it is you truly love.

After a break in the summer to get my health back on track as much as possible, I took one of the most laidback jobs you can imagine. I'm tucked in a far back wall of the library and help people get study rooms, computers, and I keep the magazine area clean. When someone has a problem and they're stressing me out, it is my job to send them to someone else to take care of it. I work parttime with a great group of people and never feel stressed out there. I get plenty of rest. Everything my brain demands.

By fall, I discovered that this isn't the best that I can feel. There's a chance that I can feel better, and that chance is brain surgery. It rolls off the tongue now, but it used to be scary to say. I don't know, yet, if I'm a candidate, but in a couple of weeks I will begin undergoing tests to see if I am. Best case- I am a candidate, I'll have the surgery, I'll spend months in recovery and I'll be a new girl with new opportunities placed in front of her. Worst case, I'm not a candidate, but we can try treatments that I haven't been made aware of that could improve my life a little more and I will peruse opportunities that best fit the lifestyle that I have so I can feel like I'm living life to the fullest even if I'm not the typical 26 year old.

I had no clue I'd be doing this one year ago. I was just hoping to move out of my mom's house to a bigger city doing a careery job that I loved. I wonder what I'll be doing in January 2010?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Like Football Fans, Like Penguins

So I grew up surrounded by boys who loved football, so I sort of get how it works. The sport isn't just a sport. It's life. Watching your team play is an emotional experience. And watching how other teams you don't support play each other matters because how they do inevitably effects how they'll do when they play your team. Got it. And fans watch these games on various days of the week at home, friends' homes, (sometimes at work, as I've witnessed), and bars.... right?

Right??

That's what I used to think. Then Kevin, who doesn't even watch his own favorite football team play, and I went shopping at the mall this week. We had wandered from one side of the mall to the other, in and out of stores, without incident. After Kevin grabbed some food, it was time to wander on back to the side of the mall that we had originally entered. This time, however, something very strange happened. Something I've never witnessed before.

A crowd of 20 men were standing outside of Victoria's Secret, staring, not in the store, but in my direction. I've had a lot of attention from the gentlemen lately, so naturally, I thought, "Oh, I've got this," handed my purse to Kevin and swayed my hips up towards the men to give them what they wanted. Ha, okay, not really. But they were grouped together at a Qwest stand, staring in our direction and I didn't know what could possibly be that intriguing that all these men had to stop at the stand and stare.

I had seen something similar to this once before. It was at the St. Louis Zoo in the penguin exhibit. One penguin would find a random spot and just stand there with it's wings spread back. Then two more penguins would join it and stare off in the same direction and spread their wings back. Then another penguin would join... and two more... and another.... until the space was filled and they were all staring at the same space.

But we're people. We don't often just gather with strangers and stare at nothing. So when Kevin and I passed them, we casually looked at what they were gaping their mouths at and it turned out that there was a television on the stand and on the television was a football playoff game. Some bird team against some mythological Greek thing. Apparently, only seconds were left in the game and they were tied. This was enough to stop nearly two dozen men in the middle of the mall... even my husband who doesn't even watch his fish team at home. I didn't know what to do. They were so into this, I felt like running down to the food court and getting nachos and soda for everyone. There was "OOOH"-ing and "AH!!"-ing. It just seemed so out-of-place. You do that in your cozy basement or at the bar. Not at a Qwest stand.

The moment the tie was broken and the seconds of the clock ticked away, everyone wandered away, as if these strangers hadn't just spent several minutes of their lives bonding over the bird team and the mythological greek guy tackling each other. It was as if they truly didn't see the oddity of the situation. I stared at my husband in quiet awe for five minutes afterwards, expecting an explanation.

Why doesn't he watch his "favorite team" at home or with buddies, but he was moved to join the strangers to watch two teams he doesn't care about, as though he were a penguin joining other penguins as they stared off in space??

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Day My Car Burst into Flames

Hello, Fine Readers.

I'm sorry it has been such a long time since I have blogged. December was a lot crazier than I ever could have imagined, and it went out with a bang, as I'm sure most of you have heard. But, for the sake of memories, I'm going to describe in detail what happened.

So Kevin went home for Christmas on the 23rd, because he didn't have to work on Christmas Eve, like I did. He took Logan, the gifts he bought and, obviously, his own stuff. He used my car because we consider his Toyota to be the "safe" car in the winter. It's heavier and handles wind well and we knew Christmas Eve was going to be windy with blowing snow.

I just worked until 1 on Christmas Eve and had my car all packed so I could leave straight from there. In the car, I had a few days' worth of clothes, plus all of the fixin's to get ready for the day (hair dryer, make up, hair straightener that I recently bought, etc), meaningful accessories, all of the presents I had packed for everyone, Christmas cards that I was going to hand out and send late (seriously, it was a crazy month...). On top of this, Kevin's car had almost every single one of my CDs, plus he might as well live in his car. He had his whole weight set in there, our camping gear, sleeping bag, a friend's blankets... really random things.

This said, I hit the road to go home. With the weather so windy and snow blowing all over, I told myself what I always say when I'm driving during that time of year- Nothing bad can happen to you if you're listening to Christmas music. So I popped in my Jessica Simpson CD, first, and got down to O Holy Night as I drove. After a bit, I was tired of her music and threw Mariah Carey's Christmas CD in. Soon afterwards, the car started making a grinding noise in the front. I was confused, obviously, because the Toyota has never given us any trouble. We brag about that. To resolve the issue, I turned the music up louder so I couldn't hear the noise and figured I'd just mention it when I got home. Then I noticed that the RPM was going from 2-4 repeatedly, but I also ignored that 'cause my first car (shout out to Chelsea who had a nearly identical car!!) did that all the time. Just as I soothed myself about how my first car did that, I heard a POP in the back, which called my attention to the rearview mirror.

I saw flames shooting out the back of my car.

Fortunately, no one was tailing me or anything. I slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder. As I did this, my car slid so that the trunk was facing the highway. That was a little frightening, but all I could think was, "Get out of the car. Get out of the car." So I automatically grabbed my purse and keys and got out. As soon as I did, I saw that a nice man about my age had pulled over behind me. My first instinct was that he was going to be mean and scary and steal me. So before I let my real instincts about him go through, I called the Iowa State Patrol, because Kevin made sure YEARS ago that I had them programmed into my phone. I happened to be right next to a sign saying what the next exit was and told the lady that I was the only person in the car and where it was. Then the man asked if I just wanted to get out of the freeeeezing cold while we waited for the cops to come and my instinct was that he had no intention of stealing me. He was actually, like... how do you say.... kind hearted.

While we waited, another man pulled over. At first, I thought he was part of a rescue crew, because I didn't see his car, but he was dressed in emergency gear. He was an innocent bystander who was all set to go in my car and save anyone who might have been stuck in the evergrowing fire!! I absolutely could not believe the heart and bravery this man had! I waved him over and told him that I was the only passenger and I didn't have so much as a scratch. To be honest, when I got out of the car, my biggest worry was that I was going to fall, because I'm a huge clutz, and I didn't even lose my balance. To this man, I didn't even think saying, "Thank you for attempting to save the lives of strangers who would have been my dearly, intensely loved ones while risking your own life" was enough. How do you thank a stranger for that??

When he was safely back at his car another stranger pulled up. He was such a man. First, he wanted to make sure everyone was out of the car, which was, obviously, incredibly nice. He had been driving on the other side of the interstate and turned around. Once I assured him that I was the only one in there, he exploded with, "THAT WAS AWESOME!!! THAT WAS... THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THAT!!! THE FLAMES WERE GOING OUT FOUR FEET ON EITHER SIDE OF YOUR CAR!!!" Then, although we were already several yards back from the car, he suggested we back up several more feet in case the car was to explode. He then returned to his truck.

Soon after, a lady pulled up in her van. She jumped out and had the most worried look on her face. I got out of the man's car and waved to her and shouted that the car belonged to me. She sighed a huge sigh of relief, saying that she was wondering why no one was near the car, helping and now understood it was because I was already out. She asked if she could hug me, 'cause the fire had scared her so much and when we hugged, she asked if I had my purse. By then, everything was so overwhelming, that I couldn't remember. But I looked back in the man's car and saw that I did.

We waited what felt like an hour, but was maybe five more minutes and the firemen and state patrolman pulled up. I hugged Ruben, the man who had let me sit in his car, and went to sit in the state patrolman's car while I watched the firemen put out the flames.

For most of the time, the reality hadn't hit me. It felt like I was watching a movie. But when I decided it was time to call Kevin and tell him what was going on, it really hit me. I suppose because that was when I had to live in the moment and describe what I was seeing. Flames engulfing his car. We call everything "ours," but to me, this really was his because he bought it before we were married. His first "grown up" purchase as soon as he started his career and I couldn't believe I was watching it go up in flames. And at that moment, I was also just thinking of all the gifts I had for everyone and how I wouldn't have anything to give anyone. As more time went on, I realized all of the belongings that we lost, mainly the things that I packed for my stay that had meaning to me. One was a necklace that my aunt bought me in Texas just last March. She let her daughters and me each choose a piece of jewelry that we wanted and it was such a hard decision, but the necklace that I chose was so meaningful and the design was so "me," but the memory of feeling like a sister with my cousins while we chose our jewelry was priceless... and I guess that also means the memory doesn't burn up in flames, even if I don't have the necklace. Another was a gorgeous silk scarf from my godmother. Another was the duffel bag, which was from my Grampa. I've been attached to it since the day he gave it to me. There were also CDs that people have made just for Kevin and me, sand that Kevin and I collected on each trip to the beach where he proposed... the list goes on, but like everyone says, "Things are replaceable, Meghan is not." I'm so blessed that I wasn't even scratched by the door that day, let alone so much worse.

Not only did those strangers have the heart to stop and make sure I was okay, which I found so heartwarming... my coworkers and supervisors at work got together and chipped in some money over the past week. They surprised me with a check big enough to replace the expensive things that I lost in the fire and use daily- a hair dryer, a hair straightener, and there might be some left over for a pair of pants. I was so touched I couldn't find the right words to thank them. I think the best way to thank them will be to do something equally kind when I meet someone who has gone through something difficult and could use a little help.

Pay it forward.