A First

Today started out like any other day. I woke up.... okay correction I woke up at 6 which is a little earlier than I normally wake up. My husband asked why I was up and I replied," I don't know I wasn't tired anymore and I just woke up... so I'm up." I got ready for work and went in a few hours early. Since it is Thanksgiving Eve my work was planning on closing at 4, which cut me short a few hours, we had lots of work to do to prevent us from coming in on Friday so i figured I would go in at 8. Okay so apparently my day didn't start out as usual but continuing on anyways.

I had just finished punching holes in some books so that they could be plastic coiled, like a spiral notebook but not metal. I'm going about my work, thinking about Christmas stuff. Just as I finished crimping a coil on a book BAM my elbow came in contact with a corner of the punching machine. Pain shot through my arm, probably the worst "funny bone" pain I have ever had. I set the book down and hold my elbow, straightened it and shook it out. My vision starts to go crazy and my head feels funny, like when you stand up too fast. I leaned over so that my arms rested on the table in front of me. Next thing I know I feel like I'm coming out of a dream after a good rem sleep. You know when you linger in half sleep stage but I hear a voice say, "open her mouth!" I open my eyes, and my mouth, and I see my co-workers around me. I am pretty confused because if I just had a heavy sleep why would I be waking up at work? I see Chris, our press guy, and Kim, my manager, over me and more people in the background. Kim is asking me if I am okay I tell her yes while thinking, why wouldn't I be I just took a nap at work apparently. She told me that I just passed out and hit my head. I was like WHAT!? I passed out? A little part inside of me was like FINALLY, I have a pass out story cause I feel like I am the only person I know that hasn't passed out. They had me sit up. I had hit my head on a machine that was directly behind me, no blood or wound. I just sat there, stunned. Then people started talking about what happened, because the sales people came out of their office to see what the big sound had been. I'm sitting there listening to them and all I can do is laugh and my eyes started leaking too. I felt bad for laughing because I know I scared the crap out of them and that passing out is serious and scary but I just couldn't stop laughing. Even now, thinking about it, I chuckle.

From what I gather, Kim saw me hunched over but my arms had fallen down, like I was reaching to touch my toes. And she was walking over to me and asking me if I was okay as I started leaning (probably more like tipping) back and she got to me just as I hit my head on the lower part of the machine. The press guy saw me going down and yelled "#*(%&!!" Once I was down my neck/head twitched a few times and the press guy thought I might be going into a seizure, which is why he was telling Kim to open my mouth to make sure I didn't swallow my tongue. That's when I woke up.

I tried to tough out the day but when I felt like I needed to stay seated, I realized I wasn't really helpful. Plus the head honcho boss strongly suggested I got to the doctor just to make sure everything is good... okay and my husband was ready to come get me and take me to the doc. I called my mom and she came to get me.

We called my regular doc's office and they said since it happened at work I needed to go through some process and get it taken care of that way. Instead we went to instacare and they said go to the ER now. Off to Riverton hospital we went. I was not excited to go to the ER cause there are sick people there and I didn't want to be around that right then but YAY no one was there. I had been drinking a lot of water because my hubby suggested to do so, by the time I got to the ER I was ready to pee my pants but the receptionist said hold it cause I will have to pee in a cup. She lied. I was escorted to an examination room asked questions about the incident and then other people got called in, a nurse, a tech and a physician, I'm thinking this is a lot of people, maybe this is worse than I thought. Anyway the questioner asked what my pain level was I said a 2 then she got talking to the nurse and then she said, " you stated your pain level was a 4?" I said no a 2. I don't like the # scale for pain, if you know Brian Regan and his skit on pain level you know my feelings, kind of. Anyway, my physician, Dr. Balls (yes, I snickered immaturely, in my head) basically confirmed my answers to the questions. Told me it was from the pain of whacking my elbow. Depending on the pain, it can send your body in to shock, I think he said serotonin gets released which makes your circulatory system dilate and you blood rushes to your extremities instead of your heart and brain. Your heart rate drops and you often feel like you might faint and in this case i did. This could be medically incorrect but cut me some slack he was talking fast and my head felt like it had a head cold so comprehending vast amounts of info at once wasn't happening. BUT fortunately they gave me a handout about it that I can read later.

When leaving the nurse said that if I should start vomiting, my speech goes weird or I start acting funny I should go back in cause those are signs of a concussion that don't always show right away. Based on that my mom and I decided I should go to her house rather than go home and be alone or go to work to get my car and drive home. So I am here at mommy daycare until my hubby is done with school =) One of my co-workers mentioned that if I had been standing straight up I probably would have hit my head on a part of the machine that would have hurt me a lot more, we're talking blood and stitches and shaving of hair to make stitches probably... I don't know if they would really have to do that but I'm grateful I said my prayers today and that the part about being safe came true. Yes I fainted BUT it could have been worse. I am grateful for my Heavenly Father that it looking out for me and for my mom who is taking care of me even though she is trying to get ready for Thanksgiving and I'm not really much use right now. Dr. Balls said to avoid alot of strenuous activity. Blast. there goes my run tomorrow anyway I am just rambling now. Love you guys and thanks for reading!

The work party

Last night we had our work Christmas party. Its a little weird having it this early in the year but I would rather get a work party over with and have plenty of time for family and friends closer to Christmas. In all my years working, since I was 17 so 8 years, I have never had such a cool Christmas party. The employees had to meet at a specified spot at 5pm and our spouse's or significant others would be meeting us later at 6. The boss handed each of us an envelope with our name on it. He said, "there are 2 things in this envelope. A list of rules and the other you have to spend. Here are the rules; You have an hour, you must buy from 2 or more stores, no group shopping or collaborating, save your recipes and there will be a prize for the one that gets the most items BUT they have to be different." Then the production manager pointed out that he missed the #1 rule which was you MUST spend what is in your envelope on YOURSELF!.... Then the boss yelled GO! and we went rushing towards the mall that we were near. Opening our envelopes we each found a single $100 bill. WHAT!? My boss is giving me a $100 to go shopping. It was probably the most stressful shopping trip of my life.

I started at a Precision Mountainwear found a beanie I liked but felt bad giving the guy a $100 bill for a $13 item. Instead I went to the Forever Young shoe store. Found cute shoes but not in my size that were decent priced. I finally found some cute black ones, which I really needed for work of all things. They ended up being about $24 I handed over my $100 bill. It was officially broken with about $76 left and minutes ticking away. I ran back to get my beanie only to find out it was actually only $5 BONUS.  Racking my brain of all the stores that were in the mall and thinking where I might get lots of things for fairly cheap. I went to Bath and Body works and got some lotion because I am almost out of really good kind. I was trying to buy lots of things but I also wanted to be practical by buying things I would actually use. I went to Victoria Secret cause a new bra would be useful and I was running out of time and I still had quite a bit of money. Well I went in walked around changed my mind and right outside of that store was a Hickory farms stand and they had peppermint snow mints! They looked delicious and they were 2 for $10. Afterwards I ventured to Claire's debated on getting a scarf or 2 but then I dashed over to Victoria Secret again. After VS I went to the Candy barrel and got $3 worth of Bob's Sweet Stripes (love those things). Following the Candy Barrel I completed my shopping spree at Claire's where I got 3 pairs of earrings for about $13 that left me with change. Then I shed my coat because I was DYING of heat after rushing through the mall and stress of shopping on a time limit. I walked as fast as I could across the parking lot back to Chili's where everyone else was waiting.

If I would have remembered to ask for a receipt from the candy store I probably could have won the prize of a $100 gas card. Regardless I had fun and I like the stuff I got. It was fun telling my husband all about it when I got home. I think all the girls but 1 went to VS but one bought a perfume thing and mints, another bought a blush brush, the third bought panties and I bought a bra. Oh did I mention we had to show everyone the stuff we got afterwards. People were shocked that I bought a bra knowing that. What it's underwear, every girl has at least one so I wasn't embarrassed by it. This was the best game ever. I am glad I went practical rather than just buying tons of stuff to win. The guy that one bought a lucky coin from the Asian gift store. I'm like really? I know its only a dollar but what are you going to do with that? Anyway. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving. =)