And Then The School Year Started

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I got approved and educated in Farmington today. At my doc appointment, I got the okey-dokey to take my torso with me on vacation in a couple of weeks. It’s allowed to fly with me on an airplane. The little piece of my pancreas that’s left in me was so excited about being able to go that it clapped. Really, it did. I heard it and felt it. And I know what my Hanky Panky’s capable of, better than anyone else does. (I’ve gotta change Panky’s name since what’s left of it seems to be working sufficiently. Hmmm.)

I learned a new word while the doc was pushing and poking at my belly with his hands: “crepitus.” Doc said he was checking to see if he could feel or hear any of this crepitus thing. And then I said, “That word sounds captivating. What is it?” I so much wanted him to tell me I have crepitus, so I could tell everybody I have crepitus, so I could have an excuse to say crepitus over and over. Crepitus, crepitus, crepitus. And even after the doc defined “crepitus” and told me it isn’t something anyone wants to have, I still wished I had some of it.

Doc told me the short version. Crepitus is air bubbles under your skin or in subcutaneous tissues. It’s a sign of air leaking from/to somewhere it shouldn’t. (After surgery, it can occur on rare occasions.) What he said next is what made me want it. Apparently, the crepitus bubbles feel like Rice Krispies when you’re feeling around, and they sound like Rice Crispies doing their snap, crackle, pop. Sometimes the sound can be heard with the naked ear– or in my case, the naked hearing aid. No stethoscope necessary. Who in their daring, right mind wouldn’t want to be full of crepitation? Alas, I have no Rice Krispies traveling in my innards. Looking at and listening to a bowl of the cereal can’t be the same as having the things move around under your skin. Dang.

After being educated about this new word, I felt compelled to honor public education. To do it, I drove past Farmington High School on my way home. It is FHS’s inaugural year. Brand spanking new. Bow Tie and I stopped to snap a photo of the place, and I’m sure you can guess the reason. A pop-out, grab-ya color. Yellow-orange. Now that’s a building that says HERE I AM! COME IN AND LEARN!

I also drove past Canyon Creek Elementary, which is about a mile from FHS. Its colors are not pop-y in the least. The earthy colors are fine, but match-y. I almost didn’t include this second photo on the post because it didn’t look very interesting. But then I saw IT. And I knew you had to see IT too: my hair in the wind. I’m wearing Trump hair!

It’s your fault though. It’s because of your votes that I’m growing out my head hairs, and clearly my head hairs are now in their Trump phase of growth.

HERE’S A P.S. FROM THIS MORNING’S POST: The “allergy bee” stung me in my hand. My entire hand and forearm swelled up like Popeye’s. To ease the throbbing pain of the swelling, I had to keep my fingers pointed to the ceiling. The incident occurred on a Saturday, and I was scheduled to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting the next day. I couldn’t stand to let my arm hang down for even the few minutes of my talk. So there I stood pontificating at the podium, forearm pointed up. It appeared as if I was sustaining myself for ten minutes. Ward members didn’t act like anything weird was going on. I’m sure they thought I was just going through another one of my eccentricities.

Bees Gotta Be Who They Be

Before Bow Tie o’ the Day and I can wreak havoc on Davis County today, we’re jumping in the car to go visit my regular doctor. You see– I am in dire need of re-upping my EpiPen supply. In all the hub-bub of selling the Delta house last year, I didn’t take time to get my yearly EpiPen prescription. My current injectors expired months ago.

The irony of why I need to carry epipens is that I am allergic to bee stings, which is not the best allergy to have when your father is a beekeeper and the bee warehouse is basically in your backyard. Bees around your house make for some tense times. Oddly, my allergy didn’t kick in until I was 16. Getting stung was a somewhat regular occurrence in my childhood, with bees as my siblings. It was really no big deal. I even worked in the warehouse sometimes and hung around with Dad in bee yards.

But the summer I was 16, I was wrangling some hollyhocks growing up against our house, and I got stung by a bee who was enjoying the ‘hocks. A couple of minutes later, I couldn’t stop sneezing. I decided to settle my sneezing by lying down on the couch with a cold rag on my forehead. I had a hard time catching my breath, and when Mom saw me she asked why I was turning blue. That’s when I connected how I was feeling to the bee sting. I hadn’t even considered a sting being the cause of how I felt, because I’d been stung a thousand times before without any problems.

So off we went to the old Delta Hospital. I was not breathing well at all. My appendages were swelling up. My eyelids swelled up to the point I couldn’t open them. It was all EpiPens, all the time from that point on. But I did get four shoes– sort of– out of my bee sting hospital visit. Apparently, when I got into the ER, the nurses needed to take off my shoes. When they couldn’t get my Nike’s off my swollen feet, they cut them off me. Thus, two shoes became four partial shoes.

But at least I was excused from helping Dad in the warehouse or in bee yards ever again.