LindaBudz from
Just Like the Nut (
http://www.justlikethenut.blogspot.com/) has tagged me for my blog’s first ever meme!
The ground rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. I read her meme and one of them spurred something that I hadn't thought of in a long time, so here goes my meme:
1. When I was in 8th grade, living on the base at West Point, my father was a "medic" in the hospital. I would miss the school bus on purpose (even missed the late bus (the second bus) that ran) every once in a while, couldn't get away with it every day and take the public bus to the hospital and sit there and observe people coming into the emergency room (usually when my father was working and I knew when the last bus ran up the mountain to our house or my father could take a dinner break and take me home). One time, a young guy had come in; he had been in a fight and there were knives and probably other weaponry involved. Of course since he had been stabbed in the chest, they needed x-rays. There was a big commotion about the x-rays being reversed, the x-ray techs being incompetent, et cetera. After three sets of x-rays, it was determined that the man's insides were reversed, literally - his heart was on the right side and his lungs were turned around - it was like someone had flipped his innards. He was lucky this was the case because if he had been "normal", the knive would have probably punctured his heart or done more damage than it did. He walked out of the hospital, alive and patched up. (See Linda's embalming comment - don't know why her witnessing two embalmings triggered this -maybe it was Weird Occurrence in my lifetime thing).
2. The year my father was supposed to go to Vietnam, he received orders to stay in Germany (changing planes, handed new orders so a good thing - happened Thanksgiving day). When we first arrived in Germany, we had snow but that isn't the amazing thing (obviously in December there would be snow -lol). My grandmother from South Carolina came to visit us the following April (she loved to travel and would visit the families at some time during their stint at whatever base they were assigned). It snowed the night after she arrived, and the next morning we were doing the castle tour thing (must have been during spring break because I don't remember us missing school for her visit) and the temperatures had risen enough to melt most of the snow - although some places were out of the sun's reach. What we witnessed were women in bikinis on rooftops or other places that still had snow sunbathing (my grandmother wanted us to carry our heavy winter coats with us - which was yuck - 70+ degree weather and we had to tote the winter coats while women were out sunbathing).
3. I fell asleep at the wheel of my Taurus wagon once on a major highway and hit the guard rail and bounced back into traffic and pulled over to the side without much damage. I was more shaken than anything
4. I triggered an asthma attack by eating a half gallon of Mayfield's Moose Tracks ice cream - over a period of about 4-6 hours. Because I had been tested for food allergies a few years before this and had shown a positive to peanuts, the peanut butter cups triggered a similar reaction but not as severe as the allergic reaction to something I ate that prompted the testing.
5. My allergin testing for possible food triggers showed positive to almost every food I enjoyed and ate at the time. I still eat the foods I like except the nuts (almonds make my forehead and face itch - and that happened long before I got tested for allergies) and haven't had an attack quite like the first one.
6. I have worked in the same type of job for the past 20 years; and have worked at home for the past 7 of those.
7. I sprained my wrist on my first ever work study job. I worked in the cafeteria (at Montreat-Anderson College, now Montreat University I think) and my specific job was scooping ice cream. It was four days before I even knew my wrist was sprained - I had worked Friday dinner, Saturday lunch and dinner, Sunday lunch and dinner and Monday dinner and then started classes on Tuesday. My first class didn't have to write anything but my second class, Bible, we had to take notes and when I was attempting to write, I broke down in tears because the pain was too much. I looked at my wrist and it was very swollen.
8. I've had two anaphylactic reactions to aspirin (unrelated incidents) and one milder reaction. The wrist sprain led me to the first anaphylactic reaction to aspirin. I went to the school nurse and she wrapped my wrist and gave me some aspirin (had never had because my mother didn't keep it in the house, always telling us that if she ever got any aspirin in her system she'd have to have her stomach pumped - that's how severe her reactions are) because of the anti-inflammatory properties. I walked from the nurse's office down to the post office (all downhill), then back up the hill and up a flight of stairs to my French class. By the time I finished class, I couldn't breathe; it felt like my lungs were full of water and I was probably in a panic state. (I attributed my shortness of breath to the walking down the hill, up the hill and running up a flight of stairs to get to class before being late until the end of class when I was vaguely aware of what the instructor was asking me. It was a scary thing). Went straight to the nurse and she gave me some Benadryl and I slept the whole afternoon, sleeping off the aspirin reaction. Ended up having my wrist splinted for over three weeks, with a thumb spica (only half way up my thumb) the first time and then a full spica the second time - never was said it was a fracture (had tons of x-rays to check for it but I know I couldn't make a fist and it hurt like crazy).
The second incident happened about a week after the sprain and the reaction to the aspirin when I had my monthly and took some Midol for my cramps (apparently back then aspirin was a main ingredient in Midol; but the reaction wasn't nearly as bad as the first one - but similar - took some benadryl and slept it off)
The third incident happened when I was at a friend's house and her father was tuning my car or working on it and he had said something about feeling the radiator or something and I popped my finger in the fan (yes, dumb me - sticking my fingers on anything engine related while the car is running). It was the sensation that my finger had been cut off super quick but it only blood blistered in the end. They took me to military base emergency room and I must have been in shock because when they asked me if I was allergic to any medications, I told them no at first but then remembered before leaving telling them I was allergic to aspirin and had had two reactions to them. Whatever pain killer they prescribed to me, we think, must have had some aspirin in it. By the time we got back to my friend's house, I had watery eyes, was sneezing and going through the usual "hayfever allergy" symptoms. We all thought it was because of the cat but since it was happening outside and the cat was nowhere near me, we called the pharmacy back and they looked it up and sure enough there was such a minute trace of aspirin or a derivative of aspirin, that it triggered a simple allergy reaction. I was told to stop taking the medication immediately; I did and the symptoms resolved within a few hours.
And as you all can see from most of my items - I'm prolific at times. Guess that's what being a writer means, although there are times when the words don't flow as easily as these.
Now to tag 8 people --- hmmmm - who will be my victims, um friends to tag - lol - (the rules say I am supposed to say who I am tagging and then go to their blogs and let them know they've been tagged so my taggees will be Janelle, Chai, Kimberli, Writing Angel, Heather, Susan M., (that's six - maybe that will work) -
Enjoy - see you all in the postings - E :)
