My New Possession

I am the proud new owner of a brand new...

Yep. I will now be carrying an EpiPen.

Whenever I pick up a new prescription at Walgreen's and am forced to listen to a consult from the pharmacist, I usually just poo-poo them and say I'm fine, I understand, blah blah blah. I mean, I'm a smart girl, I listened to the doctor explain it 18 times already, and I can read if I need to.

Today, I wanted that damn consult. And I asked 1,001 questions. If there is a slight chance I am going to have to jam a needle in my leg, I want to know all the details.

I suppose this blog intro warrants a story, huh?

This morning, I woke up around 4:30 or so, and my throat was killing me. I seriously thought to myself, "I don't have time for strep!" before falling back asleep. At 6:15, I woke up again, and the right side of my face was really, really sore. I stumbled out of bed and looked in the mirror: my cheek, near my eye, was so swollen. It was so swollen, in fact, that it was a little difficult to see: very blurry, even with my contacts.

I got ready and thought that maybe my make-up was good enough to conceal whatever the heck was happening on my face.

As soon as I got into school (literally, as soon as I got into school -- before I even unlocked my classroom door), Linds said, "B! What the heck happened?! Do you have a black eye?!"

Apparently my make-up really wasn't that great -- or, maybe my face was just that bad.

I think I kind of look like Sloth:

Source

Eventually, I headed down to the nurse to see what she thought I should do, and she told me that I needed to call the doctor. Luckily, a family practice doctor was able to get me in over my lunch hour.

But first, I had to teach. And let me tell you: teenagers aren't afraid to answer questions. The conversation usually went one of two ways:

"Ms. B! What happened?! Your face looks funny..."
"Don't I look pretty?"
"Um, no..."
"Correction: you're supposed to say, Ms. B., you always look pretty!"

Or, it would go something like this:

"Ms. B! What happened to your eye?!"
"Bar fight. I won. You should see the other guy."
Nervous laughter.

I ended up having to head to my appointment toward the end of one of my classes (don't worry: a very kind colleague subbed for me), and later in the day, one of my students from that class stopped back to ask what the doctor said. This is a student that, at the beginning of the year, was kind of a pain in the butt but who, throughout the course of the year, has totally grown on me. I cannot even tell you how much it meant to me that he came back into my room to check up on me -- so sweet.

But anyway, let's get back to the appointment: basically, she had no idea what was wrong with me. I showed her pictures of my rash, talked about how my lips poofed up like Angelina Jolie's this weekend (to which my now-favorite-nurse-in-the-universe said, "But you're way prettier than her!"), how I've had issues with allergies in the past, etc.

Yep: she had no idea.

The only thing we narrowed it down to was, again, Ibuprofen. I took Advil on Saturday morning due to a killer headache, and then my lips swelled up over lunch. Last night, I took Advil due to my back hurting unbearably, and I woke up to a swollen face.

So, I've been ordered to steer clear of NSAIDs and only take acetaminophen for pain relief.

She also took a bunch of blood to do a comprehensive work-up as well as a white blood cell evaluation (or whatever), and I should get the results of that tomorrow.

She then referred me to an allergist (that should be fun) and prescribed me an epi pen to carry with me at all times -- just in case.

Woo hoo.

After that fun appointment, I headed back to school, scarfed down lunch during passing period, finished teaching, scrambled to change and get things organized, drove girls to our tennis meet in Urbandale, and "coached" tennis for about four windy, windy hours.

Aside from being super cold, I had a really good time, and I'm seriously enjoying hanging out with the tennis team. I will enjoy it a whole lot more when I actually know who my players are...

After I finish typing this post, I'm going to just chill for about 10 minutes and then crash. I'm wiped -- and am hoping to get to Farrell's in the morning for some kickboxing. We shall see...

Breakfast: Blueberry Scrambled Eggs. For some reason I was running really late this morning, and this was the fastest breakfast I could think of. Luckily, it's also a delicious breakfast.

Lunch: Leftover Taco Salad (that I inhaled during passing period -- and partially while my next class was reading silently).

Snack: During the tennis meet, I ate an apple (which was actually part of my lunch), a Ziploc full of an almond-cashew-cranberry trail mix, and a banana.

Dinner: I wasn't really hungry after tennis, but I made Paleo Oatmeal anyway. And I'm kind of glad I did: I think I would've been fairly famished if I had not.

As I was typing all of this up, I realized that I ate kind of a lot of fruit today. Usually I try to stick with a maximum of two servings of fruit/starchy veggies (i.e. an apple and a sweet potato or blueberries and an apple or an apple and a banana). I never have this many carbs. Oh well.

Peace out!