Well hello there!  It's been a few weeks since I've written and I know I've already failed on my promise to myself to write at least a few times a week.  Well I have a fairly decent excuse.  I had a bit of an accident on birthday and got a really bad concussion and neck injury.  Did I mention that this would be my 3rd concussion in a 2 year period?  Yah I'm a clutz!  I have told Jason that when I die to please donate my brain to that sports medicine study on brain damage caused by multiple concussions.

So in the spirit of "If it didn't happen to me, I would have never believed it," here is what happened:

A couple months before my birthday my wonderful cousin contacted me to let me know that Alabama was going to be in concert on my actual birthday and she would by us tickets to see them (long story short - we saw them together back in 1990/1991 before she left for college and it was my first country concert).  I of course said yes and the plan ended up being that she was able to get an entire suite at the Stockton Arena and so it was going to be a group of 16 of us going out. This was going to be an amazing 47th (ugghhh) birthday party.  I even bought new sparkly jeans the weekend before. Then on the Monday morning before Tina let me know that the concert was being cancelled (and maybe rescheduled for November). I was bummed not surprised because I had heard that one of the guys had recently let everyone know that he had Parkinson's Disease and this particular night was going to be his last concert, but apparently he got too bad).  So I send Jason a text at work to let him know that the concert is cancelled.  He immediately calls me to make sure that I wasn't joking and of course I wasn't.  Well as a surprise my amazing husband had booked a limo to pick us up, pick Taylor and Zach up and then pick up Tina and Rick up to take us to the concert and bring us back home.  This way we could have drinks and not worry about anything.  Poor guy!  He tries so hard to surprise me and the plans always get goofed up. 

So fast forward a day or so and I find out that he was able to cancel the limo and he had gotten a hold of family and friends to come over on Saturday evening for a surprise party for me. He had arranged for my best friend to come and kidnap for the day while he got everything ready. Him and Mike (my BFF's hubby) were doing the food and my mom was making a cake. Tina and Taylor couldn't make it because once the concert was cancelled some other plans were made for work to be done in advance of Taylor's wedding, so they were coming to kidnap me on Sunday morning to take me to get mani/Pedi's and go to lunch. He had planned a great big birthday weekend for me as a surprise. But then Mike suggested that it might not be a good surprise because if I didn't have the house how I wanted it for guests or I wasn't dressed appropriately I might get upset (that might have been a lesson learned in the past from Mike and Ondina - LOL). So Jason let me know about the surprise party, plus he knew he'd never be able to keep it a surprise from me anyways. So I told him we'll let everyone else think it was a surprise and so I made sure that the house was at least dusted, vacuumed, bathrooms were clean, etc. so I wouldn't be too freaked out.  Plus I took out all the serving bowls, utensils, plates, etc. because, well you know how it is with guys.  ;-)  The Friday before my birthday he had also arranged to have flowers delivered to me at work, but of course there was a mess up with them again (has happened for Valentine's Day a couple times) and they didn't make it. No big deal!

Saturday morning arrives and my bestie comes and gets me. The plan was to go do some thrift store shopping, get something to eat, go pick up Amy and Ashley and get some massages, and head back home. Well we did the first part and then we decide to go get Ashley and kidnap her early, then suddenly Amy can't afford to get massages and so we tell her to just meet us at my house around 4:00. We never did go get anything to eat. We end up going to the SuperWalmart to grab some last minute things for the party (because I'm the one that usually plans all of the stuff for parties and I don't like not having enough of everything).  Oops I forgot to grab the Corona and ice so we decide we'll stop by the Walmart Neighborhood Grocery in Elk Grove. Get those two things but they don't have the frozen drink pouches that Jason asked me to grab, so while Ondina is in line paying I walk across the parking lot to the other Walmart to grab them and they don't have them either.  So we stop by the Walmart closest to my house and woo hoo they have them! But it looks like they are discontinued and so they are on clearance.  I bought all of them they had (it was around 40 of them and I got some very weird looks).  Woo hoo! We're done and on our way back to the house to get ready for my surprise party.

Fast forward a bit and party is going great.  Everyone is having a nice time, eating all of the great food that Jason and Mike prepared, and I may have been enjoying a cocktail or two.  Time for cake and out comes my nephew Austin (who had moved down to southern California and I hadn't seen for over 6 months) carrying my cake.  My parents were thrilled because it was a surprise for them too.  Great times!  Feeling the love!

So now several of us decide to do a shot of Fireball, and I can do one legally with Austin.  Feeling great now! We are all laughing and having a great time.  It's getting a little bit later and my parents and a couple other friends leave before it gets dark out because they are older and don't drive in the dark.  Say my goodbyes and everything is good.  Several of us decide to have another shot of Fireball and now the party is really starting!  And then another shot - woo hoo!  Jason gets our new karaoke machine going and we are all having fun picking songs, singing, laughing, dancing, . . . And then that is the last thing I remember.  I apparently fell back straight and hell broke loose!  I don't remember the fall, but they said I didn't lose consciousness. My friend Shannon, who is a nurse, said to call 911 and they got there fast.  They took me to the ER at Kaiser and did CT scans and gave me fluids, and said I was intoxicated (duh) and had a concussion but should be ok.  Jason got to ride in the ambulance with me (first time for him) and Ondina and Ashley followed in their truck. Our other friends put stuff away and locked the house up.  Ash and Ondina stayed at the hospital with us all night (I don't remember any of this, so I'm getting it from stories being told) and took us home (I have some fleeting memories of getting in her big truck). I have been told that at one point I had to pee really bad and so the nurse gave them a bedpan and told them to help me.  I have an amazing husband and friends who helped get me undressed and do the bedpan.  I'm just hoping that there are no photos or videos of that part (Ash was great about documenting a lot of it for me). 

Fast forward to late Sunday morning and I wake up with a pair of sweats on and I have the worse headache in the world because the entire back of my head is so sensitive to touch and I want to die, plus my neck is really hurting.  I'm like what the heck happened????  The headache didn't feel like a hangover type of headache. Jason starts to fill me in, and then later I hear from Ashley, Ondina, and others who were there and are checking on me.  It's nice how concerned they all were - not so great with them sending me videos of being on the gurney with the paramedics, but hey what are friends for right?  My day with Tina and Taylor had to be cancelled because I was hurting so bad and I was supposed to rest.  Boy this isn't turning out to be such a great birthday weekend after all!

I felt terrible Monday, Tuesday and felt a little bit better on Wednesday. My head and neck were killing me.  I couldn't touch anything on the back of my head and with my neck it made it difficult to get comfortable and all I wanted to do was sleep.  Let's just say I was miserable. On Thursday morning I decided that I had to go to work and I was just going to suck it up. It was Jason's day off so he drove me to work.  Or at least attempted to drive me to work.  We had stop and go traffic and my head hit the back of the seat a few times which hurt like crazy. I tried to text my staff to let them know I was on my way but delayed in traffic, but I started getting really sick.  Oh I forgot to mention that all these days I kept throwing up because my head hurt so bad.  At a point I was in so much pain, I couldn't stop heaving so I called my boss to say sorry and that Jason was taking me to the ER to get rechecked.  Get off the freeway and head to Kaiser ER. Given fluids and a headache cocktail, told that it is a bit more of a concussion than originally thought along with probably whiplash and that I needed to do complete brain rest for several days.  OOOOhhhhh isn't that fun??? I stayed off my phone as much as possible and stayed in the bedroom with it darkened and rested for days. 

I felt better on Sunday afternoon and did a load of laundry and I think I cooked something, or maybe I didn't, I can't remember (oh short term memory loss comes with concussions so I was always forgetting things). Jason was off work because of his back (a whole different story) so I talked him into driving me to work because I was feeling somewhat better and I didn't want to be gone any more. Let's just say that I made it to work and it was a very miserable day. Even my boss told me to go home early in the afternoon.  Jason picked me up around 3:00 and I went home and relaxed.  Tuesday Jason drove me to work and I was already heaving in the car, but I told him I would just deal with it at work.  He had a doctor appointment that he needed to get to.  I tried to suck it up but I was heaving into my garbage can and some of the girls at work heard me.  I made it for a few hours and for a meeting I needed to be at, but that was it.  I had Jason come and get me when he was done with his appointment and he ended up taking me back to the ER because it literally felt like my head was going to explode. Had to wait forever because the ER was very busy. Another IV of fluids and a new headache cocktail was given and I started feeling a little bit better later that afternoon so I got to go home.  Oh wait I forgot to say how hard it is to get veins for IV's so my arms and hands were rather bruised up and sore from all the attempts and visits.  The ER doctor gave me a new medication for the nausea but I ended up allergic to it, because well, of course, it's me.  I stayed home the rest of the week and rested my brain.

I finally returned to work last week and I won't say that it was great, but I was able to tolerate the neck pain and headaches.  Jason was off work so he drove and picked me up all week because he wasn't sure how I would do with driving.  That helped.  I also didn't do anything when I got home from work except basically try to eat something and go to bed and relax. I did a bit of housework last weekend and some laundry, trying to get back in the swing of things.  The head and neck are feeling better but there is one area of my head that is still sensitive and my neck stiffens up still but it's getting better.  Thank God because it's been 3 1/2 weeks!

We usually hold a really big Memorial Day weekend bbq/party, but we cancelled it because of how I'm still feeling.  We'll have a few friends over and they understand that it will not be a big production like we usually do. 

Oh and Fireball has been officially banned from our house!