Oops!

There were a lot of dreams last night, but the one I remember best was this: I had been at a gathering of friends and family and a bunch of other people. This gathering was at some sort of zoo or something like that. As I was getting ready to leave, someone was showing us a big bridge of some sort that they were working on. We stood there admiring it with them. I stood there with another friend and we were analyzing some of the buttons and gears that went with the bridge. It looked like there were tracks where the panels of the bridge would slide down and moved into place. Well, being the curious person that I am, I decided to push the button to see it all work. These big concrete slabs started sliding down the track (the slabs were kind of like the sound walls the line the freeways). The problem was, the tracks that hold them in place at the bottom were not there. Oops! All of these concrete slabs went piling into the ocean. Agh! I was quite traumatized by my blunder. These huge concrete slabs were rolling and tumbling over each other along the coast. Now, I really couldn’t figure out why they kept going. It seemed to me that they should be stopped by the sand on the coast line, but I was wrong. These slabs were somehow directed down some canals that went through the “zoo” (wherever we had met). I started walking through the “zoo” and saw them tumbling and rolling along. It just didn’t see possible to me that this was all happening. I was now expecting them to get caught up on each other in these little canals. I was so horrified that I had caused this mess! I wasn’t about to admit it to anyone though. The other interesting thing is that no one seemed particularly worried about this turn of events. When I arrived near the entrance of the “zoo” there was a special meeting where they were telling people about this wonderful material that the slabs are made of. They were not made of concrete, they were made of boron (yea, right). They had a bunch of samples to show us. They come in all sorts of colors and they are so soft and light. I wanted to see if I could get a sample to take home…….. Then I woke up…….

Doctor's Orders

Ok, so my body has moved on to another very strange problem. I've been very dizzy since Saturday. I've had vertigo problems in the past. My guess it is from calcium crystals in my inner ear coming loose and impinging on the nerves. This called Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. Now, I haven't had an official diagnosis, but my symptoms PERFECTLY match everything I have read about it. Also, my sister has the same problem and she has been diagnosed. I, personally, believe this gives me the right to diagnose myself! Ha ha! How's that for scientific thinking?!

Ok, so I've been having problems at night for a few weeks now (I've had this happen at least 5 or 6 other times in the past, so I wasn't really worrying about it). Come Saturday, I was feeling dizzy all day long as well as at night. Not very fun. Teaching classes has been a bit of a challenge this week as well. I've had people asking me if I'm OK every day. Today, while I was washing my hands in the bathroom at school, a girl I don't even know asked me if I was OK. Hmmmmm, I apparently look as great as I feel. I decided to call the doctor's office. When I talked to the doctor's assistant, I told her I would be terribly depressed if I came in only to be told it was a virus and to deal with it. She laughed, but said it would probably be best to come in and be seen, though she wouldn't promise that I wouldn't be told it was a virus and to deal with it. :)

So, the doctor asked me about my symptoms and all the usual stuff. He did some neurological tests to make sure I was ok in that area as well. I actually "failed" one, in my opinion. He asked me to put my left hand in my right hand and flip in over (alternating palm down and palm up). Well, first off, I couldn't figure out which hand was my left to put it in my right hand. Then when I went to turn it over, I put it under my right hand instead. I wasn't any good at that test! My doctor just chuckled at me (though I can't blame him). I felt pretty dumb.

Another test he did was to have me follow his fingers with my eyes, witout moving my head. Well, this process makes me dizzy (yes, a pain in the bum!). He was moving his finger around and when he got over to my right side he just held it there in the same place for quite a while. He watched as my eyes tracked back and forth, wiggling back and forth from the dizziness. He told me the name for it, but I don't remember what it is. He did the same test after having me lay down really fast. Laying down and turning my head to right made the eye movements much more pronounced.

Anyway, it's obviously an inner ear problem, though there really is no way to know if it is an infection (viral) or if the calcium crystals, or if there is just swelling within the utricle. He gave me a prescription for Meclizine (basically the type of meds a person takes for sea sickness). He then told me he was going to give me one more thing to do, which may (or may not) help. He said that he would NEVER "prescribe" this under normal circumstances and that this is the only situation when would suggest it...... He told me I need to go get potatoe chips and french fries and anything else that is nice and salty and EAT! He wants me to start retaining water. I guess sometimes the increased pressure due to water retention sometimes helps the problem. Now who can argue about trying something like that?! Ha! I don't know if it will work or not. We'll see.

As of now I still feel pretty dizzy. If I hold my head in a constant position and don't look around, then I'm fine! No problem, right?! I don't know why I am so good at getting such weird "illnesses" that have no solution to them. I have decided I should donate my body to science while I am still alive. I'm much more interesting now than I would be dead! :)

A New Brother? Sister?

I have forgotten to write down my dreams lately, but last nights dream was just a little too interesting to me. Here it is......

A new baby in the family! It first started out as a friend that was pregnant. She was due any minute and we were trying to find any thing we could do to speed the process along. It then changed that my mom was pregnant. We had a get together at someone else’s house so I headed on over. Apparently my dad helped deliver the baby on the way to the get together. When they arrived, they needed to clean up in the bathroom (apparently no need to go to a hospital!). I picked up the baby and he had my dad’s face – EXACTLY! It was kind of cool, but a bit weird at the same time. I was kind of excited about having a new baby brother! We were calling him John. A little later, after my parents cleaned the baby up, they had a bow in the baby’s hair. What?! Apparently they had somehow missed the fact that the baby was a girl. Well, so I was excited to have a new baby sister! She looked completely different now.

At this whole gathering, I realized that I was supposed to have a primary presidency meeting at my house that morning. I wasn’t there. I was stressed out about calling the rest of the presidency and telling them what had happened.