Boring Week, But A Thrilling Weekend

Really small because they are from my phone, but this is me in the hospital bed

This is the IV in my arm
How swollen my knee was
Another one of my knees
This was Laura playing with the teal rubber band they used as the tourniquet when giving me the IV. She wanted to keep it as a souvineer so they let us take it home:)

Well, this week hasn't been too horribly exciting. I had a lot of tests and I know that I did well on my Psychology one, but Sociology is another story. I also got some really good compliments from my English teacher on an essay that I wrote. I thought that I had a really good chance at getting a job at Barnes and Noble, but they haven't called me back yet, so I'm giving up on that plan. I have been here for a month and a half and still don't have a job. It's driving me crazy and I won't be able to do it much longer.

Friday night I went to the end of a dance with a guy from my ward named Phil. I was sick of being home and so I texted him and he said he could come get me after work and we'll head up. Well, he didn't get off work until about 11:20, so we missed most of the dance because it ended at midnight and he still had to come get me. After the dance we hung around the church for a while and I met a bunch of people from my ward. They were really cool and fun to talk to. I got the nicknames Roxy Girl (because I was wearing a Roxy shirt) and Miss Utah (because most the people I talked to knew I was from Utah). We found a group that was going over to Matt's house for rootbeer floats, so Phil and I headed that direction. After getting lost, we finally found the house. It was an older house that was rather small, but as you walk in the first thing you see is a grand piano in the kitchen. It was a gorgeous piano and after the invitation to 'go to town' I hit it up. The keys were harder to play, but I loved it. I have a keyboard, but it's nothing like a real piano, especially a grand piano. Phil has played the piano for twenty years, so he showed me up but he knew some really pretty songs. We had rootbeer floats, played the piano, played on a rope swing outside, and finally at about 2:30 am I decided I needed to go home because we were taking Shane to the airport at 4:20. I finally staggered into the house around 3:00 and crashed.

Saturday was Laura's birthday, so after taking Shane to the airport, we came home and went back to bed. I was going to be all sly and make her breakfast in bed but she was up before I was! So I offered to make her breakfast and she was very excited about that. I made her French Toast and then we got ready to go out and run some errands. Shane's birthday is tomorrow so we had to go and get his presents. Saturday night we went to dinner at Olive Garden and because of an enormous wait we just chilled on the front stairs and chatted for about an hour. Towards the end of our wait, we were suddenly surrounded by 20 guys in green polos. And guess who was on this soccer team! Our friend Jake Hustedt that we went to high school with. We were both really surprised to see him and he had the same reaction for us. It was really funny to talk to him. He was with the school Cal Poly from San Luis Obispo and they were up here to play Sac State on Sunday. Our waitress was really nice and funny, and I asked her if they were hiring and she said yes. She gave me some good tips to get the job and even gave me her name and her brother's name to put on my resume.

Well, Sunday was a very thrilling day. Saturday mornign when I woke up my left knee was really hurting me. Throughout the day it started getting really swollen and red. I was able to ignore it Saturday, but when I got up Sunday I could hardly walk. I couldn't put much weight on it and I couldn' bend it. I called the ask a nurse hotline to see waht I should do. She asked me if it was red, which I now noticed it had a circle around it about the size of a baseball or a softball. She then asked me if it was warm. Talk about a weird question, but to my surprise, it was. She said that it was probably an infection and that I should go to the ER to have it checked out. After calling my parents to tell them what was going on, I told Laura and she offered to come with me. I drove us there and we got in and checked in. I had a fever of 99.2 and could hardly walk. I couldn't bend my knee so I was walking really funny too. They took me into a room and I got into one of those fun hospital gowns and waited for the doctor. He came in and pushed every part on my knee that just screamed in pain and I almost wacked his hand out of the way because it hurt, but I managed to stop myself. He tested my lungs and heart to see if there were any other causes and then said that I would need and IV to get some antibiotice because I did, indeed have an infection in my knee. I was really nervous and happy that Laura was with me to hold my hand. They tried in my right arm and missed twice, so another nurse came in and tried in my left arm where after some prodding around he finally got it. It was very painful and I cried more than I expected to. It was interesting to have the IV because once the plastic tube was in my vein I couldn't really feel it. They drew some blood to do tests and then hooked me up to an antibiotic called Vicromiacin, or something close to that. It started making me itch, so I got some Benedryl straight into my bloodstream and was tired within minutes. Luckily I had Laura to drive me home. It took an hour for the entire 250 mL of the antibiotic to go in, but it was worth the wait and the blood test results were back by then. My white blood cell count was high, which usually means your body is fighting something off.

After being at the hospital for nearly six hours we finally headed home. We went to Target to get my prescription and then stayed home. I had so many painkillers and antibiotics in my blood stream taht I could not stay conscious. I was asleep by 8:30 and dont recall much of what happened besides my dad calling me about 9:30 and textign Bryce a bit. I slept on the couch because I couldn't wake up enough to get into my bed. I slept for thirteen hours and today my knee looks a lot better. A lot less redness and reduced swelling. I can bend it more now, but it still is very tender and very sore.