Find the Smelling Salts!

OMGeeeee.  I have many, many fun tales with which to regale you, and I'll do my best to catch you up a little bit. 

Latest piece of news:  My kids and I traveled to Idaho Falls for "nine fun-filled days." (Splash!)  So many things to tell you about it.  I promise would really like to promise to get to it, but....you know me.  What I usually do is this:  When I actually get a second to sit down and blog, I think of the very most recent piece of news or item of interest.  And I write about that.  Then I go and backlog other entries for things that happened before that.  If I can find time.  Sigh.

So the latest thing is that I fainted a few times a couple of nights ago.  I haven't fainted since I was like...13?  My dad was popping a pimple that was in my ear, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the bathroom floor.  He was looking at me really skeptically, like, "Did you just fake that???"  Yes, I was a drama queen, but I would never fake something that has the potential to hurt you, a.k.a. fainting.

So here's the story:  my kids and I (Ben hadn't gone for the nine fun-filled days to Idaho - he had to work, so I flew solo) were on our way home from Idaho Falls and stopped for the night at a hotel in Boise.  At midnight, I woke up feeling very nauseated, so I went and took care of business in the bathroom and went back to bed.  And then I had another intense feeling in my gut - you know the feeling.  Think Dumb and Dumber.  You get the idea.  So I get up to go to the bathroom again, and the next thing I know, I was waking up on the floor outside the bathroom, flat on my back. 

Whaaa?  Did I just faint?  That was weird.  But I still had those urgent evacuation feelings, so I scrambled up and opened the bathroom door.  And then it happened again!  I woke up on the floor of the bathroom, underneath the bathroom counter, pants and undies still down, and lying in...um, my Gross National Product.  You know what I'm talking about there, right?  I had intense pain on my left foot, my head, my shoulder, my hip, and my elbow.  I was like, duuuude.  And then I passed out again.

When I woke up, I was still in the same situation.  I imagine I looked something like this:

You didn't know that I dyed my hair blonde and got extensions on?  Weird. 

This time, I had presence of mind to clean the floor, soak my clothes, and take a bath (I didn't trust myself to try to stand in the shower).  Then I crawled over to my phone, and then rested for awhile on the carpet.  Then I called my sister-in-law, who, like a superhero, woke her son, and the two of them came over.  He watched my sleeping kiddos while she took me to the hospital.

The hospital did blood tests, urine tests, etc., but couldn't find anything specific.  They figure I just caught a bug, and as usual, it affected me more intensely than the normal person.  My oncologist did tell me that my white blood cell counts still aren't that spectacular. 

Anyways, they did replenish me with a couple of IV bags of fluid, which I appreciated, because it had been a violent few hours after the fainting episodes.  No amount of immodium could stop it.  I really hate when that happens.

Yesterday, after I came back from the hospital, I truly felt a lot better and thought I could drive the remaining 5 1/2 hours to Bend.

I was wrong.  So wrong.

It started up again, and I had to keep pulling over on the side of the road to relieve myself.  It was really horrible.  Finally, two hours from home, I called Ben, sobbing, and begged him to come get us.  Then I drove to a local park and had the kids play on the big toys while I lay prone on a blanket in the shade.  His coworker, Allyn (superhero #3 - Ben is superhero #2 of this story) drove him all the way to Burns, the city where we were, and then he drove us all the way home.  I slept the whole time, then immediately went up to my room and slept some more.

I feel better today, though weak.

But I want to go back to this fainting thing.  As I look back on it, I just keep thinking, "That is so INTERESTING!!"  I know it's weird.  But I just can't get over the fact that I hit my head and foot really hard as I fainted, then hurt the side of my body where I landed, and I didn't even feel it happening!!  I can feel the bruises and bumps now, but my body was traumatized, and I wasn't even aware of it.  It's really, really fascinating to me.  I'm not saying I want to take it up as a hobby, but...it's one of those mystifying things I'll talk about in years to come, just like I still talk about my son who was sleepwalking and fell and gashed his head open and didn't even wake up.  Just got to his feet and climbed back into bed.  So strange.

Well, I need to go get ready to feed the Sister Missionaries, but I will really try to tell you all about my trip soon.  Watch out for this nasty flu bug.  It's a dooooozy. (Groundhog Day)