SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T HELP BUT JUST LAUGH...

MORE HOOTIE

THEIR BACK! I saw Hootie and the Blowfish last September at the Anaheim House of Blues, which by FAR was the most amazing concert I've been to. After a 3 hour stage performance and 6 encores, I walked away wanting so much more. Nedless to say, I'm going back to see them on Friday, August 22, at 8pm as they rock the House of Blues in Anaheim.

ALL BETTER (FOR NOW)

A few weeks back I was teased for possibly having pink eye. In fact, it wasn’t pinkeye, but rater a reaction from allergies when I was housesitting in San Clemente for the 3 or so weeks prior that I never took care of. So, About 3 weeks or so ago, I went to see the doctor to get rid of the redness of my eyes. After being prescribed drops and an antibotic, needless to say I was back to normal by the following week, or so I thought.

A week ago last Friday my right leg started to become sore. I thought that I needed to be off it for a day, so I called in sick, thinking that I’d be back to normal the following day. However, the pain had worsened. By Monday evening the pain was soe severe I felt like crying and I could not sleep. I’ve had gout before, but the pain of gout had nothing on this.

At 1:45am Tuesday morning, l decided to drive to Saddleback Memorial Center and checked myself in to the ER shortly after 2am. I was taken to the back area, where 5 x-rays were taken of my left foot checking for fracture or breaks. After that, I had an ultra-sound performed on my left leg.

By 4am, the results were in and they couldn’t find anything thing wrong. They put a soft boot type cast on my left leg to stabalize my leg to help reduce the pain I was checked out by 4:30am and given a prescription for 800mg of Motrin and 5mg of Hydrodocone, or Norco (aka Vicoden). I was told to make an appointment with my doctor in 2 days and to return to the ER if the pain worsens. After waking up around 1pm that afternoon, I went and had my prescription filled.

Going into Wednesday afternoon, my leg was becoming more painful. I began to use crutches to get around. My foot was becoming a little more red than usual, however, I didn’t notice any swelling. After our usual dinner at Islands a few of us went over to the Wal*Mart at the other side of the shopping center. As I hobbled into the store (which I hate until now) the Indian guy with bad B/O felt bad for me and gave me a electric cart to use while in the store (that’s a whole other story in itself).



After finally getting home arounf 10:45pm Wednesday evening, the pain felt worse than the day before and so I went back to Saddleback’s ER. After talking to the doctor, he took me out of the brace/soft cast and prescribed me 5mg of Valium to help sleep through the pain. After leaving the ER shortly after 1am on Thursday morning, I went home and fell asleep. Until this day, I’d never taken Valium, but it is simply AMAZING!

Thursday morning I had my scheduled doctors appointment. The redness to my foot was there, but with minimal swelling. After the brief visit, a blood draw (WHICH I HATE AND ALWAYS PASS OUT TO) I was prescribed 0.6mg of Colchicine (DON’T TAKE IT IF YOU DON’T HAVE TO-I’ll tell you why in a minute) and another ultra-sound at the Radiology Department at Saddleback Hospital at 1:30pm and scheduled for another visit the following day.



Up until this point they had no idea what was wrong. Fitst thought was either a fracture, possible blood clot, or torn tendon or ligament, but the x-rays and untra-sound rulled those out. After the second ultra-sound they were still unable to find a cause.

Back to the Colchicine, the doctor through that I may have had a more severe form of gout. Previously, I’ve only had it in my big toe which hurts like a mother, but never in the ankle joint. Thinking that this might be the case my doctor prescribed me the Colchicine which should have knocked out the pain. However, the only side effect being the possibility of diarrhea. I was tld to take two pills for the first dose and one pill every hour. By the 6th pill I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. I went to bed only to wake up 3 times during the night, at which time I continued to take a pill each time I woke up.

Friday morning I returned to the doctors office feeling sick to my stomach, having chills, wanting to vomit, and so forth, apparently additional reactions to the Cochicine that I didn’t know about. My doctor took me off the Cochicine and prescribed me 2 additional prescriptions, 50mg of Indomethacin (an anti-inflammatory) and 500mg of Levaquin, something to treat a possible bacterial infection.

After leaving the doctors office and getting my prescriptions filled, I went home and took a Valium and fell asleep for most of the day, before waking up shortly before 5pm and throwing up. After that, I was already starting to feel better.

Saturday morning I was already beginning to feel a whole lot better, but still had a little pain to my left foot. I stayed indoors all day to rest my foot. When I woke up Sunday morning I noticed an even bigger difference in regards to the decrease to pain. I left the house to get my car washed and go to church and out to dinner. Freedom is just around the corner.

I have a doctors appointment Monday morning to be cleared to go back to work for this Tuesday. I don’t think I’ve been this happy to ever get back to work. I just need to stay off of it for another day or so then I should be back to normal. YIPPIE!

ACCEPTED

As many of you know I applied to The Art Institute about two months ago. Late last week I received my letter of acceptance from the school. "Congratulations! The Admissions Committee is very pleased to offer you admission to The Art Institute of California- Orange County.

You have been admitted to the Bachelor Degree program in Graphic Design beginning 2008, Fall"...yada yada yada...

I'm extremely excited about this, but at the same time too I have to ask myself if this is really something that I want to do. When all is said and done I am looking at just under $80,000 between tuition (alone is $76,663), books, and other supplies. I know its a great school, however, I really don't know if I really want to put myself into that much debt.

Ehhh, if this is where I am supposed to be then I know that God will open all the doors and everything will work out. Then again, I can always hit up the "cougar bars" in Newport Beach and see how that goes ;)

ANOTHER REASON TO "SAY NO TO DRUGS!"

If you didn't see American Idol on Tuesday night, then you missed Paula's best performer critiques.

Watch it here

WHAT IF

As a church, Saddleback finished their 4-week series One Month to Live, based on the book, One Month To Live. The authors Kerry and Chris Shook concluded the series with an amazing life story and background of their book. To be completely honest, I really was not looking forward to this series at Saddleback Church; however, it was something that I was going to commit to reading and attending the services listening to Doug Fields talk on the series.

Honestly, the last half of 2007 (basically June-December) weren’t the best months of my life. I was dealing with a lot of personal “issues” (guys have issues and girls just have problems) and dealing with a lot of confidence and insecurity issues. Even into the beginning of this year, I was still struggling with some of those issues. On top of that, I my work schedule was constantly changing. I was working 6-10 day workweeks from the last week of February until just a week ago, working over 60 hours of “volun-told” overtime that I didn’t want.

However, during this time God was setting a lot of that time aside for me to be alone with Him. I was dealing with two very important issues in my life. For almost three months I knew that I’ve needed to tend to some unfinished business, but it was something that I had been procrastinating on since late January. After the second weeks message, we were challenged to love like I’m forgiven. The ending of that message was the last push of encouragement and motivation that I needed, to go forward in faith and do something that God had kept on my heart for so long. It wasn’t easy, nor was it something that I wanted to do, but I knew it had to be done.

This morning, as I sat in church at Yorba Linda Friends I was listening to Pastor Matthew Cork finish his series, Life In Balance: Simplicity. To summarize his sermon:

Simplicity is not:
- a checklist of do’s and don’ts
- just a change in lifestyles or habits
- necessarily the opposite to complexity
Simplicity is:
- a call to a life of focus, not simply a plan of action (Matthew 6:33)
- an inward reality that changes our outward lifestyle (Matthew 22:37-39)
- a freedom from self, and a willingness to surrender our rights for the good of others.

In the message Matthew made two comments that I really took to heart. First, “You will only love God as much as you love the person whom you least like.” Being that I basically ended a friendship due to several circumstances (which I will not go into), it was definitely encouraging hearing that. I believe that you can completely forgive someone for all the hurts and pains that they may have caused with out wanting to restore any type of friendship.

Also, I am a person who loves my space, my comfort zone, and for the most part I am usually not a huge risk taker. I’m the type of person that will evaluate, research, and calculate the pros and cons before jumping into a decision. With that said, Matthew brought up a point of having visible “warning indicators” in our lives for decisions that we face. If that actually existed, believe me, I’d be the first one to get one. I like knowing what I’m about to get involved in. I don’t like going into any situation blind, nevertheless unprepared.

Sometimes I feel that I live a lot of my life on the safe side, especially when it comes to relationships and friendships. There are reasons why I don’t put myself into compromising situations, or try to go a little further that what I know would be pleasing to God. I’ll be the first to admit that I have hurt a lot of people close to me, but mostly not on purpose. A lot of times it was done out of ignorance. For those of you who really know me, I am probably one of the most respectful, honest, open, and down to earth people that you know. Yes, I know I do have a little of a cynical side to me, but for those of you who know the “real me,” you know that I have a ton of positive attributes that I try to uphold on a daily basis. Bare with me, I’m going somewhere with this…really, I am.

Back to tonight…as I mentioned earlier, we finished the series, One Month To Live. From the four key points of the series, live passionately, live completely, live humble, and live boldly, we were challenged to do three things on a regular basis with the people closest in our lives:

- say what you mean now (tell them that you love them, encourage them, and admonish them on a regular basis),
- show them how you feel be following through with actions, and
- share it now…don’t wait.

As of last week, I am completely comfortable knowing that if I died tomorrow that I would have no regrets. I’ve made my peace with God, I know I am saved, my friendships and relationships have been restored, and I am confident in knowing that in every deep and personal friendship and relationship that I’ve been in, I’ve left each and every one of them in a better and healthier place than when I first met them. We’ve all grown and walked through several valleys together. Am I saying that my life is perfect? Not at all. Now that everything is completely restored I can use the remainder time here to deepen and strengthen the ones that I already have.

So, if tomorrow I was told that I only had one month to live what would I do? I’d embrace those closest to me and spend every moment making memories for the future.

OH SWEET DEER

Tonight at work I BBQ’d up some Venison. Being that I have never eaten Deer before I was a little sketchy and hesitant to try it, however, after the first bite it was quite tasteful. Needless to say I will be defrosting another batch of Venison for a near future meal.