Today has been a day of absolute extremes. To begin to explain this, I’ll start with the frightening and upsetting extreme, that way I’ll end up on the happy side and we’ll all go to bed with warm fuzzies. Sound good to you?
I had three different appointments at Walter Reed hospital today – first, acupuncture as usual. Second, I needed to have a cast of my foot made for an orthotic insert for my shoe. Third, two MRIs needed to be taken care of; one for my head, one for my upper arm.
Acupuncture went fine. I told the doctor that the headaches have been worse this past week, that I was out of percocet, and asked if there were any specific acupuncture points for stress. He asked what was wrong and so I told him about the wild and frightening events of this past week, about the after effects I’ll have to deal with for the next few weeks, and just how shaken up I am. The acupuncturist was really sweet about it all. He suggested I learn how to fire a handgun, and then he gave me some extra acupuncture needles to take home with me. He gave me a little lesson in two basic acupuncture points that would help my head if the stress continued to make the headaches worse. Even though he gave me the percocet again, he doesn’t want me using it unless I absolutely have to. Frankly, I agree with him – I hate that stuff.
So that was actually not that bad today. I was so distracted and my head hurt badly enough that the needles didn’t bother me today. Plus, I think he went easy on me today. No extra needles at all or anything.
The orthotic process went well enough. I had to wait for a while for it, but I was fine with that. There was a very nice man waiting with me there and we got to talking. He was very chatty, but also let me ramble on about The Daily Prophet, my quandry over college. It actually made me feel a lot better. It was nice to voice all that stress, the plans, the anxiety, all to a perfect stranger. I ended up giving him my business card and now we’re emailing each other back and forth. He may even end up helping out with the Daily Prophet a bit, and hopefully I’ll be able to tutor his son as soon as I get the site going again. Cool, huh?
The extreme came around 3:00 in the afternoon, when I had my MRIs. The first one wasn’t bad, it was just a twenty minute study of the flow of fluids from my spinal cord to my brain. That one was incredibly important, though, because it could provide an answer about my headaches – if the flow of spinal fluid is restricted, then that will prove that the Chiari Malformation of my brainstem is the culprit after all. Have a definitive diagnosis would be great, but the stinky part of that deal is that there’s no treatment for it. Oh well.
Like I said, the first twenty minutes was fine. Normally I actually kind of like being in that MRI tube. I don’t like the loud noises, of course, but the small white tube, the calm time to think, the soft lighting. It’s soothing somehow. After the flow study, though, I had to have an MRI done of my upper arm. You see, they’ve found another tumor, and this one’s really worrying me. It’s hurting a lot, it makes my arm go numb at times, and it’s growing rapidly. In order to have it scanned I had to lay on this tough foam board thing, which then rapped around my head very awkwardly with a cord. That cord then connected to another tough foam board thingie that had to be strapped around my chest. Basically, I was the middle of a foam board sandwich, and it hurt.
Not only that, because it was my left arm, I had to squish myself up onto the right side of the tube, with all this stuff strapped onto me. I thought I’d be fine, but about ten minutes into the scan, something snapped. Suddenly my chest felt like it was baking, I broke out into a sweat. The foam boards felt as if they were being heated like some kind of electric stove, burning their way into my chest. My stomach started to churn, I wanted to throw up. It seemed as if my hospital gown had wound its way around my neck, trying desperately to gag me. I couldn’t see straight, my head was pounding, all I could think about was climbing out of that tube and never going back in.
It felt like I had been in there for ages. Finally, in between scanning cycles, I asked if I was done yet. No one answered. I asked again. Still no one. Then the cycle started back up again, the pounding noises came back, and I started to gag. I tried as hard as I could to hold perfectly still, knowing if I messed this one up I’d only have to do it over again.
The cycle ended again. I asked to get out again. No one was there. The pounding started again. Trying desperately to distract myself, I tried to think about anything else at all, but all I could think about was how I’d possibly get out of that tube if I were in trouble, if I’d been forgotten, if the building were on fire, if suddenly Godzilla attacked the building right then and there. Anything. It all seems so ridiculous now, but it seemed real at the time (except the Godzilla bit, I never thought about that one.) The cycle ended again, and I said, “I want to get out now, please let me out.” Finally, someone responded, telling me I only had one scan left, just another five minutes.
Those five minutes felt like ages. When I finally got out of the tube it was hard to sit up. I finally pulled myself together and went into the little changing area. But when I took my hospital gown off I saw that my chest was bright red, worse than if I had a horrible sun burn. And it wasn’t going away. The skin felt hot to the touch. I quickly pulled my clothes back on and stumbled out into the waiting room. My Mom saw my face and immediately thought maybe I’d had an allergic reaction, because apparently my face was beat red too. No, Mom, I just freaked out in the MRI tube for the first time in my life.
I was kind of embarassed, but I didn’t really care right then. I felt miserable and I didn’t care if the world saw my cherry red face right then. Mom and I went out to the car and decided to head for home. About halfway there, once my stomach had calmed down, I realized just how hungry I was. Especially considering I’d only had one meal that day and it was seven hours before. Mom took me to Sweetwater to get some protein in my system. That seemed to help quite a bit; it gave me enough energy to stop by Target on the way home to pick up a few things.
I’m really glad we decided to go, because here’s where the other extreme comes in. I walked into Target and immediately had to visit the little girl’s room – I was still a bit woozy and my stomach was acting up again. While I was there, though, I remembered how about two weeks ago I went to Target and asked if they’d like to donate a few items to be sent to some troops in Afghanistan. My friend Myles has a friend there who’s extremely bored, because no one in his platoon has anything to do during their downtime. I felt horrible for this men and women, serving such a rough area, dealing with so much hardship, and not having any way to release, to escape, to just get away from it mentally and emotionally for a while.
So I decided they needed some XBox games, or board games, or CDs, or DVDs, or something. I went to Target on a Friday as my Good Friday Join Me deed. Target’s manager seemed quite keen, but said legally they couldn’t donate because I couldn’t provide them with a tax ID to show that I was legitimate and, more importantly, tax deductible. They said to come back as soon as I had a number and they’d be happy to help. I wasn’t too bothered because, after all, some time in the next month The Daily Prophet should have a tax ID of its own, and that’d be a suitable cause to associate with the DP.
But while at the hospital today, Mom went and talked to the Red Cross office. According to the Red Cross, all I needed to tell Target was that I was sending it to the troops through the Red Cross and it’d be okay. So, as I rested myself in the bathroom, trying to calm my nerves again, I was struck with the impression that I needed to go talk to the manager about this *now*. It couldn’t wait until I felt better, it couldn’t wait until I looked more decent, it had to happen now.
I’ve learned from my experience with the WWII Memorial application – I’m not denying my gut anymore. I went straight to the Guest Services desk, asked to talk to the manager, and explained what I wanted to do and what the Red Cross had told my Mother. The manager really wanted to help, but wasn’t sure what to do. She took down my address so that she could talk to one of the other managers about how we could make this happen, then she went off for a minute to get her business card for me.
That’s when a lady tapped me on the shoulder. She was returning something at the guest service desk and heard everything I’d said to the manager. She explained that she heard that Target just donated over $1 million worth of stuff to the Red Cross, but that was for disaster relief. I responded by saying that yeah, Target’s great like that, and I thought they might like to participate in my idea too. That’s when she asked what Red Cross office I’d talked to. I told her, and she smiled, “Ooh, the Aafees office. You see, I work for the Red Cross at the headquarters in DC.”
Okay, hold the phone, what are the odds of *that*?! Only one other person at the Guest Service desk, it’s 8:30 at night, and she works at Red Cross HQ! She leaned over and whispered to me, “I was at that meeting with Target this morning – I can get you the tax ID number you need.” She pulled out her wallet, gave me her business card, and told me to email her and she’d get it to me as soon as possible.
Just then, the manager came back, I told her that I’d have the tax ID number by the end of the week, and she said, “Great! Just bring it back then and we’ll work out the details.” How cool is this?! The timing seriously couldn’t have been better. What if I hadn’t listened to that instinct? What if I had gone off to look at the clearance racks like I had planned to? I would have missed this remarkable opportunity, and those soldiers in Afghanistan might not have gotten their games. I’m really thrilled. I was bouncing by the time I came out of Target, despite the fact I still felt like crap physically. But emotionally, I was on cloud nine. Psh, forget that, cloud nineteen!
So now I’m wondering if I can’t get more stuff for even more soldiers. This is only one platoon I know about, but surely there must be others that are bored to tears and need a way to escape emotionally for a while. That’s why I’m posting this really, really important request:
Do you know any soldiers from any allied country serving in Afghanistan or Iraq?
If so, please email me immediately. The Red Cross told me that I can’t just send packages to platoons, I have to have specific names for individual soldiers in order for the packages to be accepted. Target seems really keen to donate stuff, and I’m sure I could get other area Targets to do the same. Maybe even Best Buy or other stores like that. I want to see just how much stuff I can collect, and then send it out to as many soldiers and units as possible.
The way it works is, if we have a specific contact with an individual soldier in a platoon or unit, we can address the box in such a way that shows the box is really for every soldier in the unit. It’s just an extra measure of security for the military, so it really makes sense, but I want to send out as much as I can. If you can help in any way, please email me and I’ll try to send some toys, games, books, whatever I can get, to your friends, sons, siblings – anyone you know that’s serving in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Isn’t this exciting? I’m so glad this is working out! I seriously think this is important stuff – for a coincidence like that to have happened, to have ended up standing next to a top official from the Red Cross like that, that’s no coincidence. This started out just as a way to send one soldier something to keep him occupied, but now I think I can do more. Anyway, email me if you can help. I’d really appreciate it. 🙂 Also, if you have any ideas about how I can raise money to ship all this stuff, I’d be grateful for that too. Or, heck, if you have some old DVDs, movies, CDs, books, XBox games, or Ps2 games you wouldn’t mind parting with, you could go ahead and mail them to me if you like:
The Daily Prophet
PO Box 3114
Sterling, VA 20167-3114
It’s all for a good cause. Regardless of your political views of the war, these young men and women are risking their lives for us, and for perfect strangers in a foreign land. I’ve seen so many soldiers at Walter Reed, back from Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ve given up so much. Today I saw at least five different twenty-something year old men, missing their legs, their arms. I’ve been dying to do something for them, and I think this is it. I can do something for the men and women still there. Then maybe I’ll come up with something to do for the amputees later. Every time I see an amputee there I feel like throwing my arms around them, then pulling off my shoe, and saying, “See? You’re not alone.” I know it’s stupid – a toe just doesn’t compare to that – but it’s something, I guess.
But now my happy mixed up self needs to get into bed. I have to go to the dentist tomorrow to have my wisdom teeth checked. I think I’m going to have to have them taken out. I’m not looking forward to that at all. But hey, maybe if I have a really stinky doctor visit day tomorrow, something else really good will happen! Wish me luck. 🙂