Medical Nonsense

Hi again, friends!

I'm not even going to apologize for not posting lately.  Holidays are always crazy and I've had a pretty full month since December 19th.

Christmas was so wonderful!  It was jam-packed full of people and fun!  I admit, I was not good at taking pictures, mainly because I get picture-taking-shy when other people with cameras are around, because I feel like they've got it covered and who wants another random family member with a camera in their face, right?  Well, maybe not, but that's how I feel.  I'm sure that attitude will change once we have children.  Anyway, Christmas was great and I didn't even have to work New Year's Eve this year!  However, I was still exhausted and fell asleep on the couch at like 10:30 p.m.  Hunter was playing video games right next to me on the couch and I happened to wake up at midnight and I said, "Well, Happy New Year, I guess..."  He gave me a quick smooch and I went and got in the bed.  Apparently he had lost track of time and so my first married New Year's Eve when I was at home, we didn't even watch the ball drop or anything.  Life fail.  But at least I slept.

Now, onto more pressing matters.  I have had what I thought was just allergies and serious nasal congestion for over a year.  Right after we got married and moved into our current apartment, I was very sneezy and congested and just felt awful for several weeks, so Hunter finally coerced me into going to the doctor in November of 2011, who told me to take over-the-counter Allegra for my allergies.  So I did and the problem seemed to get a little better.  Well, my congestion was pretty bad until like April, and then for several months it was cured!  Then again around October-November-ish, it popped back up, but mainly in my left nostril.  And it has been fairly non-stop since then.  My co-workers can attest to the nights that it was really bad and I'd bring my own tissue box with "CRUMLEY" written all over it.  Real tissues are hard to come by in a hospital setting, and I had to mark my territory.

Long story short, it got really bad one night while I was at work and so I went to good ole Wally World the next morning and got a Neti Pot, which some of my coworkers swear by.  So I tried it.  When I put the Neti Pot to my right nostril, the saline solution simply flew out the back of my throat.  When I put it to my left nostril, literally nothing happened.  I thought, "Maybe the congestion is just so thick that it needs some time to loosen up..."  So I tried it again.  And again.  And again.  So after several failed attempts at clearing out my sinuses, I used that miraculous wonder named "Google" and looked up something to the tune of "what could be wrong if the Neti Pot doesn't work?"  So this one guy who posted on a forum or something said he went to the doctor and had a bone spur on one side and nasal polyps on the other side.  

Soooooo I made an appointment with an ENT.  On December 19th (hence the busy month), the doctor listened to my saga, looked up my nostrils, and told me I have nasal polyps.  I went and got a CT scan later that morning and went back to the ENT the next day to have the results read.  Turns out, this girl has a pretty intense case of nasal polyps.

So looking at this right now, the left side is the right side and vice versa.  The right side of my face is perfectly normal - the picture of sinus health.  Black = air = what it's supposed to look like.  The left side of my face, however, is clearly a different story.  From what I understand, the polyps are just from a little above the curl of my nose down there, curving around my eye, and up to where the gray meets the black.  The lower gray is probably just fluid and mucous built up with no way to escape because of the polyps.

I was actually a little bit relieved to know what was actually wrong, but more stressed out at the fact that I have to have surgery to get them removed.  Usually the doctor would pump me full of steroids and see if they shrank, but since I'm diabetic, that's out.  The polyps extend back into my sphenoid sinus, which is right next to my brain (which is the main reason I called Hunter immediately after my appointment crying - when someone says brain, it seems like a really bad thing), and the local ENT didn't feel comfortable doing the surgery himself.  Praise the Lord for doctors who know their limitations (for real...I was really impressed).  So he sent me to a specialist at MUSC.  He performed an endoscopy (put a tube up my nostrils with a little camera on the end), and I got to see the freaky things that look like huge gray boogers that have apparently been blocking my breathing for quite some time.  Both doctors think the polyps are caused by what's called Allergic Fungal Sinusitis, feel free to google that if you want.  It's pretty crazy.

(Okay, so I haven't really made this long story short at all.  But I feel like I have to give it justice.)

My surgery is scheduled for February 14 (Happy Valentine's Day to me).  I won't know the exact time until a few days before the surgery.  Hopefully it'll be outpatient, unless the bone between my sphenoid sinus and my brain gets cracked and causes a fluid leak, in which case I'll have to stay in the hospital a couple days for observation.  It should take around 3 hours and I'll be under general anesthesia with a breathing tube and all that fun stuff.

Up until the past week or so, my condition has caused me no pain, just annoyance and a lot of mouth-breathing while sleeping.  Last Sunday after church, I had killer sinus pressure.  I'm fairly realistic about pain.  On the pain scale, my opinion of a 10 is being on fire, bouncing off of boulders while falling off of a cliff, with someone actively sawing my limbs off with no anesthesia, falling onto sharp jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliff into a pool of sharks who proceed to rip me apart.  I was at a solid 6/10, 7/10 when I moved my head too fast and what not.  I am on antibiotics for the superimposed sinus infection.  I've had good days and bad days with my sinus pressures.  Unfortunately more bad than good.  On Saturday, I was completely out of commission for 3 hours, laying on my back in the dark with my sweet gel mask warmed up on my face as well as my corn bag on top of that to add pressure because it felt better.  So prayer warriors, if you wanna lift up my sinus pressure, I would greatly appreciate it.  And if anyone has any non-pharmacological things they do that helps their sinus pressure, I would LOVE to hear them!

My sweet gel mask.  Hunter laughs at me and calls me it my superhero mask.  But it feels amazing.  This is NOT the day my pain was 7/10.  It was probably a 4/10 on this day.

So I'm the lucky one with diabetes, high cholesterol, borderline high blood pressure, and now the random case of nasal polyps which are very likely to return in the next 4-5 years.  It's medical nonsense!  But God has provided for me every step of the way, and He will continue to bless us beyond all measure.  I will keep you posted closer to the surgery as to what time it's going to be.  Prayers will be very much appreciated!

See ya later, Sami!

Why am I so horrible at consistently posting?  I apologize.

In late October, one of my favorite co-workers moved back home to (*gasp*) the North.  Sami is hilarious and brings so much fun and laughter to those around her, and I miss her terribly already.  We threw her a good-bye party, and I promised to put pictures up, so this is me putting pictures up (about a month late...).

Please notice my OCD - I had to put an apostrophe on the "E" flag of "WE'LL" and a comma after the "U" of "YOU".

Props to myself for an artsy picture of a cake.  Now that I type it out, it sounds kinda lame.

Apparently, hugs from Angela don't happen often.

A few of us girls who closed out the party.  And Baby Grayson.  And, being women, we took like 5 pictures and voted on which one we liked best, and this was my least favorite of me but everyone else's favorite of themselves.  In another one, Jonetta looked genuinely stoned.  I was very tempted to post that one, but obviously I didn't.  That's what makes me a good friend.

Baby Grayson looking especially angelic.

I just put these pics up to show there were actually more people there than just the few of us and Baby Grayson.

See?  Look at all these people who love and miss our Sami!!

We had a very fun time at the party and I didn't bawl like a baby, so I call it a success!  Although I will say it again, I miss Sami a ton.

In closing, a story of how an almost 2-year-old broke my heart the other day.  Jonetta's kids are some of my favorite children, probably because they're the ones I spend the most time with.  Ian, who will be 2 next month, was leaving the other day when Jonetta, Erica, and I were all together.  I said, "Ian, can I have a hug to say goodbye?"  He usually is quick to give me hugs and love, but he quickly said, "No" and when I tried to hug him anyway, he kinda freaked out.  So then Erica said, "Ian, can I have a hug goodbye?"  He said, "Yes", and went and hopped in her lap and gave her a big hug!  She said, "I love you, Ian".  He said, "I love youuu."  I was like, "WTF, mate?"  So Erica said, "Ian, you better give Leah a hug too or else she's going to be sad."  I said, "Ian, can I have a hug?"  He said, "Yes!" and proceeded to give me a hug and let me kiss his face before he left.  I was devastated for like 30 seconds.  But Erica made it better.  That child is a mess.

Beach vacation - 2013 edition

Usually, my husband's family and I go on a beach vacation in May.  His sister got married at the beginning of May this past year, and there was no way she was going to be able to get so much time off work.  So we bumped our vacation to the second week of September.  It was almost better for me that way because I had something to look forward to all summer.

Let me preface this post with the fact that I love sandpipers.  Like I really love them.  I really really love them.  I absolutely love the way their little legs move while they're running around looking for food.  I feel like the sound effect that their legs make should be "dinky dinky dinky dinky dinky dinky" (said in a high pitched voice), so I always make that sound in my head when I see them running. They tickle me to no end.  So on this beach vacation, I probably took around 85 pictures of sandpipers, and about 15 of humans, if that's any indication about how much I love these birds.

The sandpiper on the left was chasing the one on the right!  It was one of the most adorable things I've ever seen.  Eventually the one being chased got frustrated and flew off.

One day a whole freaking FLOCK of them showed up.  There had to have been at least 20 of them.  It was a great moment in my life.

I just can't express how much I love these birds.

Where we vacationed had a lot of awesome wildlife.  I never fed any of them, because my friend Jackie told me that it's really bad to feed them because they get accustomed to people and then will venture in the road and stuff to get food from the people and get hit by cars.  That made me really upset.  So I didn't feed any of them on this trip, but I did take a lot of pictures!

Doesn't this guy look like he's smiling for the camera??

I took this picture from the back porch of the house we rented for the week.  It was amazing.

We also had some good beach time.  I read 3 books during that week.  And one of them was a Game of Thrones book, which is not an easy read for me.  One of the days was super windy and Hunter and his dad decided to come to the beach with us since it'd be hard to fish from the boat with all the wind.

The guys did some surf fishing and I caught this cool picture of Hunter with the building storm clouds.

Eventually, I gave up trying to be on the beach because the wind was whipping the sand around and stinging when I tried to lay on my stomach to read.  So Hunter's mom and I ended up by the pool.

It was overall a great vacation!  I look forward to it every year!

Here's my ending random conversation that I'm sure no one will think is funny unless you were there and incredibly sleep-deprived like we were.

At work, Jonetta stands up to go into the bathroom...

Jonetta: "Do you think I should wash my hands before I go to the bathroom, or can I pull my pants down with one hand?"

Me:  "Why would you wash your hands before you pee?"

Jonetta:  (raising a clenched left fist and inclining her head in its direction) "My hand is dirty."
Me:  "What's wrong with your hand?"

Jonetta:  "It's wetness...from my mouth."

Me:  "I'm sorry, what??"

Jonetta:  "...I sneezed."

I laughed for approximately 3 minutes straight.  It was awesome.  That's all for now.

Crafty Crafty

This post is gonna be pretty picture heavy, so I apologize.

I also am terrible at regularly posting.  A friend told me yesterday, and I quote, "Leah, it has been 2 months and 2 days since you last posted on the Crumley Chronicles!!"  So I promised her a post yesterday or today.  And there's still a little under an hour left in today, so I'm still good!

A few months ago, we bought a new table for our entryway.  This set off a chain of kind of sprucing up the apartment.  We eventually got a new TV stand and coffee table.  After that I got a little Pinterest-inspired.  We had these old stools and I saw a pin where someone had painted a nice light green chevron on the top of the stool.  So I wanted to do that!

I took Painter's tape and taped up the stools in a chevron pattern.  But my OCD would not allow the patterns to not be facing the same direction so...

... I fixed it.

Then I sponge painted some acrylic paint over them.

After 3 coats of paint had dried, this was the end result!  I also put a coat of matte Mod Podge over the top of it to keep it protected.  It turned out a little brighter than I wanted, but it still livens things up.

We also have a bookcase that Hunter has had since college.  It's kinda one of those cheapy bookcases, but it serves its purpose.  Since we had a lot of large cardboard pieces left over from the boxes that our TV stand and coffee table came in, I decided to measure the spaces between the shelves on the bookcase, cut pieces of cardboard to fit the spaces, and covered them with fabric.

Our Walmart didn't have an awesome selection of fabric to choose from.  I didn't want anything too bright or geometric (my OCD wouldn't like it if I messed up), so I went with a paisley-ish beige fabric.

Which turned our ordinary bookcase...

...into a less ordinary bookcase!

My first project was a little too bright, and my second project wasn't quite bold enough.  But all in all, I think it was a very successful day!

I also have a story about my sweet brown boy and several pictures to share, but that one may have to wait since I've already bogged this post down with several "snapshots", as Erica likes to say.

And I know there was an either racist or vulgar quote of Jonetta's that I threatened to post at the end of this, but now I've forgotten what it was.  Sorry folks.  Until next time...

Don't go ninjin' nobody 't don't need ninjin'

First of all, if you read this thing regularly then you may notice that I changed the way the blog looks. I am loving it. The font of "The Crumley Chronicles" is called something like "freshly baked apple". I thought it was appropriate because it's cute and I love apples. Just a fun fact for you kids. Back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

I LOVE birthdays. Growing up, my family would go all out decorating our dining room for birthdays. I mean there was the "Happy Birthday" table cloth, streamers, balloons, confetti, the whole nine yards. So it's a special time to me. I've kinda backed down on the decorations over the years, but I still try to make it meaningful. Hunter and I were born 5 days apart, which I think is cool. We kinda share it, but we try to make it special for each of us. We do, however, share whatever goodies we get, which recently has been cupcakes. 

On Hunter's birthday, I went down to the local cupcake place, wanting to get at least 4-6 of our favorite Oreo cupcakes. They are phenomenal. The cupcake place has been generally empty when I go to get cupcakes, but of course on this day, there was a group of 4 people at the counter, another group of 2 waiting, and a young lady and her daughter waiting as well. When I walked in the young lady told me that I could go ahead and get what I wanted because they were all waiting on the red velvet cupcakes to cool and be iced. But I didn't want to jump in front of anyone, so I waited my turn. I guess the cupcake place had been hoppin that day, because there were slim pickins left. There was only 1 Oreo cupcake left (dun dun DUUUN), 1 carrot cake cupcake, 2 peanut butter banana cupcakes, and other ones that we hadn't tried before and other ones that didn't sound too favorable to my taste buds. So the group of 4 got their red velvet cupcakes and left. Then the group of 2 got their red velvet cupcakes and left. Then the young lady and her daughter went up to the counter and began to list the cupcakes that they wanted. As luck would have it, she told the woman behind the counter that she wanted the Oreo cupcake, the carrot cake cupcake, and other random ones. My heart was a little crushed. I felt so bad about not having Hunter's favorite cupcake for his birthday! So the young lady and her daughter got their cupcakes and left. I was the only one left in the store. Full of hope, I asked if perchance they had some more Oreo cupcakes in the back, and she told me no. Hope dashed. She offered to bake more, but I didn't want her to have to bake a whole batch just because I'm a Fatty McFatterson. Plus, it just gave me an excuse to go back the next day and get a whole half dozen of Oreo cupcakes!! Which is precisely what happened. All was well. And Hunter was still a happy guy on his birthday... 

...even without Oreo cupcakes. 

We went to Hunter's parents' lake house the weekend after our birthdays.  We hung out with extended family on the 4th, took a trip to Clemson and shopped around, and the next day we went out on the boat.  The weather was fairly rainy the whole time, but we still had a great time!

So you know how everything is exponentially more funny when you're incredibly sleepy? Well, we were playing Spades the night before we left the lake house. I'm not particularly good at Spades because you have to be a little sneaky and sometimes malicious while playing Spades. I was borderline not willing to play because I was so tired. But about halfway through the game I started getting really giddy. Out of nowhere, Hunter flings his arm towards me and says, "JUDY CHOP", from this little gem of a youtube video:

   

I was silent for a second, then the hilarity of it just hit me, and I giggled for like 2 minutes straight, taking breaks for breathing and that was about it. So of course, he keeps on saying it every few minutes just to get me tickled again. Even thinking about it now makes me chuckle. The weather was very rainy over the weekend and we lost at Spades, but I still call the weekend a success. There was really no point to that story, and you most likely won't think it's as funny as I do. But just like Diemon Dave says, "sometimes it don't always work for a ninjer, but a practice makes a perfect." So good news, it can only go up from here. And don't complain about it, because I might have to perform a "Ninji Whoompin Action".

Celebrate good times

Come on!!  (I still love that song...)  There have been SO many things going on lately!  This is just a quick recap of all the events that have taken place in the ummmm... 2 months since I've posted...  Sorry 'bout that.  This post is also pretty photo heavy.  Sorry 'bout that as well.

Tracy (a friend from the workplace) is expecting her second child this Fall, but she was moving away so my friend Erica and I threw her a going-away/baby presents party.  I fully tried to convince Hunter that it was NOT a baby shower, so I refuse to use that term to describe this get-together.  And by "Erica and I", I mean Erica decided what to do and chose the theme/location/decor, and I made the lists.  I guess I also baked some cupcakes and made the oreo bites (with help from Sami and Angela... so it wasn't a huge feat...), however Erica decorated them and made them adorable.  I'm quite proud of our accomplishments, so feast your eyes on our homemade goodies.

Like I said, I can't take a lot of credit, but aren't they so CUTE??  Plus they were delish.

The hostesses with the most-est-es and the soon-to-be mother of 2.

Next up, we had some coworkers who were graduating from their BSN program!  I am quite upset at the quality of my photos, and I had to tweak this one to get it to look presentable, but here it is nonetheless...

This was taken while they were reciting the Florence Nightingale Pledge.

Then Hunter's sister got married!!  It was SUCH a fun weekend!  Despite the weather, we had a blast!  The bride did SO much work to make the wedding and reception personal and beautiful, and it was absolutely breathtaking.  It was a really cool wedding.  P.S. - I did a HORRIBLE job taking pictures this weekend.  I'm fairly disappointed in myself.

3 generations of Crumley women before the youngest one changed her last name!  This was at the bridal luncheon.  The place where it was held had the most AMAZING sweet potato cake.  It sounds like it would be weird, but it's totally not.  It's fantastic in every sense of the word.

Up to bat next was another coworker's pinning ceremony.  It's always exciting getting to watch a new nurse receive her nursing pin!  Congrats!!

A few weekends later, it was one of my best nursing school friend's bachelorette party!  It was also a lot of fun!  Having a girls' weekend is so nice, and celebrating Jennifer's upcoming nuptials was a perfect reason to have a girly getaway.  (...And don't worry ladies, I'll post more pictures on facebook later.  But I've found that posting pictures to facebook exhausts me.  It will get done.)

Yesterday, said friend Jennifer married her now husband Chris!  I enjoyed pretty much everything about this wedding weekend!  All of the bridesmaids were amazing women who were fun to be around, and their wedding was a perfect reminder of what God intended when he created the institution of marriage.  Plus, it was really great getting to see friends I haven't seen in a long time and catching up!

Congratulations, Chris and Jennifer!!  I hope you're having the most AWESOME time on your tropical honeymoon!

I have one more commitment for the month and I'm reeeeeally hoping the sun will decide to show its face again so I don't lose this tan I've got goin on.  But that's about all I have to say for now, homies.  It's been real, it's been fun, it's been real fun.  Until next time.

I can ride my bike with no handlebars

...Not really.  I can barely stay upright and not crash into things even using both handlebars.  I just sing that song in my head sometimes when bike-riding.

We live in an absolutely beautiful place.  I wasn't too keen on moving here at first, but it's really grown on me.  It really hits me when people come to visit us and dote on how beautiful the landscape is, because sadly people get used to the beauty when we see it every day.  We've decided to take advantage of our surroundings.  We've been going to more local restaurants, enjoying the outdoors (I have been going to the pool, Hunter - not so much), and we plan on going to the beach often once the upcoming weddings in which we're involved are finished.

I mentioned our bike ride a few weekends ago.  Here are some pictures from our outing.

A whole lot of driftwood on a "beach" that Hunter claims is actually a beach when the tide is low.

Hunter enjoying the "beach".

So this is one of the first pictures I took when we got to the "beach", and I didn't really look at it.  Then I saw the water crashing around this big piece of wood and I really wanted a picture of it.  So I took like 10 more pictures trying to get a good one, and when we got home and I was looking over my pictures, I saw that this one was the best, and the first one I took.

Our rides!

The path leading up to the bridge over the lagoon.

Since Hunter posted that picture of me sleeping after I posted his quote about Aerosmith, I figured I'd repay the favor.  This is most likely going to open up a HUGE can of worms, or just a lot of sneaky sleeping picture-taking.  This is Hunter finishing his "shoulder workout" to fix his bum shoulder.  Apparently it was exhausting.

I love you, honey!  Please don't hate me!