It Could Have Been Worse

Well, I am blogging, so that must mean....... I'm at work, yes. I have been legitimately busy this last semester. Not the kind of busy where I get behind because I'm messing around on the computer, the real kind. I thought this semester wouldn't be that busy, but it's not so easy breezy so far. As I mentioned in the last post, I took a job at Primary Childrens, but I also TA for two other teachers, and blindly agreed to do additional faculty assistance for another professor (who has this little habit of emailing me 8 times a day with little "it would be awesome if you could do this today" tasks). In recent Susan news.....

I GOT MY THESIS DATA!!!!!!! This has been a long time coming you see. The study actually ended in June. However, since I did not do one lick of organizing on this monster of a intervention, I am at the mercy of those that did. The downside to this is I still have to run the tests on the data. This is something that I had talked about in a very general, theoretical sort of way. But apparently this is the real deal, and I actually have to do this stuff. And, as though it was a wonderfully early Christmas present, I will get the results just in time to do over Christmas/winter break. Happy Christmas Susan indeed! But, there is a silver lining, it will hopefully be done by February. That's the plan. The orginal plan, of course, was to have it done by now. But, what can you do?

Another bit of exciting/progression news is that I will be starting my advanced practice internship in January. It is scheduled to be done during the summer semester, but I want outta here! After much thought, consideration, and eliminating where I absolutely did not want to go, I decided on the Utah Diabetes Center located in Reaseach Park. I am pretty excited about it because I don't really have any experience working with adults, which seems kind of important. Especially because there is only one children's hospital in this, and surrounding states. Plus, according to some awesome (and questionable) statistics, in 10 years everyone is going to have diabetes anyway, so I should probably learn how to do some education on the matter. One scary thing is that my preceptor is a roller derby gal (kind of intimidating) who insists that her interns be able to inject themselves with saline (to be able to demonstrate to clients) and wear a saline pump. Say what now? Good thing I don't have a fear of needles! Just snakes.....and worms.

So, here is where I tell an embarrassing story. Actually, not so much embarrassing, as just plain stupid. As you (3) readers know, I am a pretty massive Utah fan. And this year the holy war was going to be waged at Rice Eccles Stadium, and I had tickets in the student section!! Whoo ah.

So the first 3/4 of the game were pretty depressing, the Utes were being real cool guys. However, it picked up at the end, the Utes showed their true colors and blocked the kick that would put BYU ahead and win. In this jubliant environment, my friend Jennie suggested (pulled me down the bleachers) to rush the field. I had never done this, and felt the time was right. Until I got to the end of the bleachers. Did everyone else know there was a 10 foot wall you had to drop down to get to the field? I sure didn't. So Jennie throws her legs over and gracefully jumps down. I am literally starting to shake with nerves because I noticed you jump onto concrete. But people are pushing behind me to get down, so I swing over, and try to throw myself far enough away from the wall to land on the grass. And SUCCESS, I landed on the grass. But BUMMER, I heard a loud pop in my ankle, then shooting pain.

I stood up, and limped over to Jennie, trying oh so hard to just play it cool. It was claustrophobic on the field, and I was getting pushed around, stepped on, and sweated on. And also, kicked in the head by Jordan Wynn as he was getting crowd surfed. We ended up being pushed out into the exit after singing the fight song (I mumbled as I am pretty sure I was going into shock). I limped over to my sister and friends waiting outside the portal with Jennie, and gave a kind of "Whoops" shrug as I saw their faces light up with concern. I limped the 18 miles (or so it seemed) to the car, still playing it very cool. We ended up going to dinner as I continued to proclaim "No, it's fine, this happens all the time....." We ate at Cafe Rio where I tried to assess my ankle. It could not be done because I was wearing three layers of pants, and 2 pairs of socks. Plus the couple next to me seemed pretty grossed out with my taking my shoes and socks off in a restaurant. The nerve, huh? So Anne and I got dropped off at our house, and our friends came inside to hang out/make sure I was okay/eat stale Red Vines. We got my sock off and I was a little confused because I didn't remember anyone sewing an egg into the side of my ankle! Yeah, it was pretty bad. And Anne and I didn't have our (dad's) insurance card to go to the hospital, so we waited it out. Rachel, a dear girl I've known since birth, helped me ice and elevate my foot until my mom got home (Anne watched TV). We decided to wait until the next day to worry about it. However, I was scheduled to work the next morning at 6:30 am. So I texted Jennie, and lucky for me, her guilt persuaded her to take my shift!!

Enter, the next day (bored yet?). My mom was concerned I had ruptured something, so we decided to brave the fierce snowy conditions and skip church. We walked and hobbled into the emergency room and were briskly wheelchaired to a room. Only 1 of the 3 people I had told my story to laughed, the others just gave me dissapproving looks. Awfully judemental for a hospital wouldn't you say? Anyhow, the doctor didn't think I needed an x-ray, but my mom did, so we got one. After an hour, and lots of Beatles trivia, we found out no break, just a sprain, and I got this very lovely splint to wear. I was told to take a few days off, which I was only too happy to do. I got the next day off work, and spent the rest of the week louging about with my leg elevated and iced. I did have to go to school, but I made it a brisk visit. I am kind of embarassed to tell people what happened because 95% of people start laughing when I tell them what happened. The immense amounts of swelling have gone down, leaving only horrible bruising and strained muscles in my legs from having to walk funny. But it could have been MUCH worse. I could have broken it, broken something else, or lost the foot altogether. So really, a ruptured/torn ligament isn't that bad. And I've been getting incredible amounts of sympathy, which is very nice!

Anyhow, that's all for now. I've got to try and figure out how to force this splinty ankle into church shoes.