Well You Shouldn't Have Become A Teacher, But Unfortunately You Are

My year of Chinook had a couple of significant occurrences.  One thing that is really important is that I turned 18.  I was dating the same guy, so he was 19 at that point.  He was a huge drinker, and so I ended up going out with him and drinking every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  I was a lightweight, and was making a buttload of cash, so I could easily afford it.  Our main stomping grounds was the old Cowboys.  It's gone now (which makes me feel ridiculously old) after closing, reopening, and then closing again, so if you ever decide to take a tour of Kelli's life in Calgary, you'll have to skip that part.  I liked the ability to dress up and look cute, because it made me feel like everything that happened to me didn't matter and I was fitting in like everyone else.

Around the same time, I found myself losing my thought a lot.  By this I mean I would start driving home, would kind of space out, and then would come back a couple minutes later headed for Edmonton.  This happened a few times, and I'm still not sure why it happened, but oh well.  I didn't tell many people because I didn't want to freak anyone out.  I actually mentioned it to my boyfriend of the time, who told me not to tell him about it because he didn't want to know.  That was kind of a bad call (hindsight is 20/20). This problem will come back later, so sit tight!

Another thing that happened was I moved far enough away from my surgery that I was able to get a piercing!  One day, Mom was like 'let's get your nose pierced!' and I was like 'ummmmm' and she was like 'yeahhhh!' so we got in the car and went.  I was a little worried about it, because it's not every day you have a sharp metal rod punchered through your face (hopefully).  So we went into the shop in Kensington that looked super sterile, and jumped up on the bed to get it done.  Mom held my hand so I didn't start bawling, and she told me to shut my eyes.  She punched it through and it barely hurt at all, I guess because I had had and was having enough pain to minimize all other pain.  My eyes started watering like mad however, almost like I got punched in the nose.  It looked great though!  So we went home all happy.  That was on January 7, 2006.  I remember the date because it was mine and my boyfriend's one year anniversary, and I didn't tell him I got it.  He didn't notice until we were going up an elevator somewhere that night and was like 'whoa! What is that!'  It was awesome.

The second semester of Chinook started shortly after this.  I was in Math 31 and Physics 30.  I was worried about Physics 30 because I'd taken Physics 20 two years prior through a workbook only.  I, by chance, was in this class with the girl that had the chest tumour, and also with a guy who I'd started calling my 27 year old friend (I'm pretty sure he was 27 at the time), both of whom were in my Chem 30 class the previous semester.  The girl and I went up to the teacher shortly into the first week to tell her about our health problems because we would be away often, either from pain or from appointments.  She asked us what we wanted to do after, and we told her (engineer for me, something for the girl, maybe nursing?).  She gave us both a funny look, and then said 'you know, some people in life just can't do what they want to through no fault of their own'.  We both went 'um. Okay.'  It was so upsetting!  She had no right to say it.  We both decided to start hating her (because we were teenage girls).

Leading up to the end of the last semester at Chinook, Kyle and I discussed possibly getting tattoos together.  We had gotten quite close as a result of my health problems, and we wanted a way to symbolize it.  We chose the Red Cross because we had taken all of our lifeguarding courses.  We decided to do it, so we booked it, and on the fateful day Mom, Kyle and I got in the jeep and drove down to the Smilin' Buddha, a reputable tattoo shop in Marda Loop.  I got mine on the back of my neck, about a centimeter down from my scar, and Kyle got his on his left pec, right over his heart.  I had gotten freezing from the nurses from my infusions, so I couldn't even feel it.  They turned out great!  We got them covered and went to get some beers at the Regal Beagle.  A couple of days later, I was lifeguarding during lessons.  A teacher decided they weren't going to teach that day (douche), so we needed a lifeguard to teach for them.  Somehow, I was the lucky guard.  I was worried about my tattoo, but wore my wet suit so I thought it would be okay (that makes no sense).  Later that day, my family told me my tattoo faded terribly.  I realized I'd have to get it redone.  I went in a couple of weeks later, and he redid the entire tattoo for no extra cost.  I had no freezing on, however, so I got to feel the whole thing.  Though it was over my spine, it actually wasn't that bad.  To quote my mom, "It's not brain surgery."  It looked great after, and it's held it's colour beautifully, even now, 5 years later.

Sometime around now, I got my acceptance letter for early acceptance to the University of Calgary for Engineering in the mail.  I was ecstatic!  So was my family.  They actually called me at work when the letter came in the mail.  Kyle opened it and read me the whole thing, and the four of us were screaming and jumping up and down.  It was awesome!  I actually got in based on Extenuating Circumstances (or something... it was 5 years ago, give me a break).  I had to get two letters from teachers (one teacher form Chinook and one from my high school) saying that they thought I would do well in University despite my health problems.  I was pretty proud when I got in because I did it despite all my problems, and I saw it kind of as a middle finger to how my life had been so far.  It was great!

Is It Just Me, Or Is It Kind Of Warm In Here? Oh, Now It's Cold. Soooo Cold. Now It's Hot! Ahhh!

Finally, the date come for the two-month-after-surgery appointment with my orthopedic surgeon.  We were pretty sure I'd done well enough for him to know what I was going to be able to walk.  Instead of waiting in the office for three hours, my mom called about an hour before and asked how far behind they were.  Then we sat at home and kept busy until they caught up, which was about two hours.  Then we drove to the hospital and rolled into orthopedics.  We still had to wait a bit, but it wasn't super long, so it wasn't so bad.

We rolled into the examination room and parked me in the corner (facing out) by the bed.  The doctor came in.  He checked my most recent MRI's, and told me that I was going to be able to walk!  Then he asked if we brought the crutches, which we didn't.  So he said no problem, stand up!  This was terrifying.  I think Mom's exact words were "What! No! Ahhhhhhhh!"  So one parent stood at the other end of the room, and the doctor and the other parent stood beside me in case my hips suddenly shattered like your dreams when you parents told you that you can't live in their basement and play video games for the rest of you life.  So I put my hands on the arms of the chair, and used my now super built arms to push myself up.  You know when you work out and you take it past the last rep and your arm feels suddenly like it's never going to lift anything again?  That's how my legs felt.  I got to the maximum reach of my arms (four inches...well more like twoish feet) and went "oh my god" and sat down super heavily in my chair again.  I lost so much muscle in my legs!  I thought they actually weren't working.  He told me to try again though, and I got up and managed to waddle over to the person across the room, toddler style, and back again.  Then I sat down, exhausted.  He told me I could start crutching around when I got home.  I was so pumped!

So then we go into this one room where they usually cast kids, because he wanted to see the incisions, or something.  While we were in there and he was looking at them, I asked him how long it would take until I could get my nose pierced, and how long until I could get a tattoo.  He started ranting that I was too young for both, and then grabbed my transfer board and pretended to hit me.  It was hilarious.  He told me quite a while, because if either of them got infected, it would go straight to the rods in my hips, which would be terrible.

Then we went to physio.  They taught me how to walk with crutches (crutches first, then one foot, then the other), and also how to walk up stairs (foot one, foot two, crutches).  Then I went in my chair and we rolled back home, where I had a terrific, long nap.

There was still about a month left of school, but I didn't go back.  I'd pretty much finished my social 30 by this point I think (and was exempt from the diploma exams again, for medical reasons... I think I actually had only taken the Chem 30 diploma the year before by the time I graduated), and there was no need to go back for friends.  I missed a lot of stuff in regards to graduation stuff.  I went in one day with mom to drop stuff off, and I caught a glimpse of the graduating class board that had all of our pictures.  I saw that my name was spelt wrong, and I chuckled at it.  This guy who worked there was like 'what are you laughing at?' and I'm like 'oh, my name's just spelt wrong.' and he goes 'well you should have told us a long time ago!' and I was like 'well that was at the top of my priority list, so...'  I missed all the grad rehearsals.  I'd actually managed to get one in before my surgery, which involved me getting a massive panic attack (my first!) and bawling in the office until Kyle came and picked me up.  Apparently my friends all saw him come in and said hi, and he didn't even look at them.  So I spent this month healing at home, playing The Sims.

I realized I was going to have to start thinking about work.  At this point I'd been lifeguarding since October (this was May), and I obviously was still going to need time to heal before I could guard or teach lessons.  My boyfriend at the time worked at a Ford dealership as the receptionist as he went to Mt. Royal in business or something, and for the summer he was going to move to the service department, so he got me a job as one of the part time receptionists.  I remember them asking me how long I was going to be on crutches, kind of in an annoyed tone.  It bothered me, because it's not like my weak legs were going to somehow stop me from answering phones and paging people.  Except for those times that I answered phones with my feet, but that was pretty rare.  However, I told them that when I started (in a couple of weeks), I was going to be up and walking, so they were happy.

At this point, my rheumatologist decided I was going to go on a new drug, Pamidronate.  The point of it was to get my body to stop eating the dead bone in my joints to try to give my body a chance to revascularize it.  It wasn't very widely used, and actually was mostly used in cancer patients.  I would get it over three days every three months for eight hours a day.  Before I could take it, I needed to go in for an EKG.  We went into the children's again to get it.  I've always liked the EKG tests, because they put a ton of sticky things on  you and then just start the test up, there's no effort involved by the patient whatsoever.  This test, as with all the blood pressure tests I get, still made me freak out a little (I'm always waiting for an "Oh my god, what is wrong with your heart!!!!"), so I controlled my breathing (in for four, out for eight).  And, as usual, they asked if I was athletic, because I had a really low heart rate.  I'm not.  In fact, the first time I was asked this, Mom laughed her head off.  The EKG came back good, so I was a go for the Pamidronate infusions.

I'm not sure why, but during this time people always asked me how the blood transfusions were going, which would make me have to explain all of it all over again.  I'm not sure what people were thinking, because as far as I know, I didn't and don't need blood transfusions.  So remember: Pamidronate Infusions, not blood transfusions.

We went into the day surgery ward to get this infusion, at the time it was ward T.  I was warned that I was probably going to get a fever from this, nausea and slight discomfort too.  Then I was hooked up to the drug and settled in to watch TV for the next 8 hours.  Then the fever started to hit.  Throughout the day, my temperature went from normal (37 degrees Celsius), to 39.6 degrees Celsius (103.28 degrees Fahrenheit).  Not only that, but my veins really started to hurt.  At the end of the eight hours, they put me in a wheelchair because my arms hurts too much to use crutches, and we rolled me back to the Jeep.  We actually have a picture of me sitting in my wheelchair in our driveway with my blue downfeld blanket wrapped all around me so you can only see my angry eyes because my fever was making me so cold.

That night, my arms started getting red streaks from my wrist to my shoulders.  I was holding both arms up, holding on to the other shoulder, to try to keep them elevated (at some time throughout the day they'd changed the IV from one arm to the other), and they were both hurting a lot.  My parents kept asking if I wanted to go to the emergency room, and I kept saying that I could wait it out until the morning, when we'd be going back for more infusions.  Finally, at about 11pm, I said that yes, we should go to emerg.  We got into the jeep and went back home, oh I mean to the hospital.  We went into emerg, and got into a room right away again.  They said that though it's likely inflammation (phlebitis, they called it), it's impossible to tell the difference between inflammation and infection, so they were going to have to pump an antibiotic into me intravenously, through the already super painful veins.  This was when I started getting IV's in my wrist.  There's a few IV scars on the front, and they're all from this trip.  That was the only vein that would take the IV without just rejecting the drug altogether.  They put a bit in me, and then told me I'd have to go back in a few hours when the infectious disease clinic opened.  We did as we were told, and when we came back we were put into the orthopedic unit, which doubled as an infectious disease clinic on the weekends.  I got to lay on an all-to-familiar bed, and I got more antibiotics pumped into me.  Then, when we were done, we got to go back to get more infusion.  After all this, besides being extremely hydrated, I was questioning whether or not this drug was worth it.  We were assured they were, however, and I was told that in the future, I was going to be doing one day a month for about 13 hours a day, because if the drug went in any faster, my veins would get mad again.

Coming up to the end of my crutch time, I was feeling a lot better and was looking forward to my upcoming graduation.  This was in May of 2005.