Broken Bones

The morning started out like any other. I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed, made myself some Peppermint tea, and talked with my sister about the day's activities. I was to be at work for a few hours and then I would walk home, as I usually did, and then spend the day watching the puppies and catching up on some reading I had been wanting to do.
I walked to the truck, tea in hand and right as I was headed down the driveway to get in, I slipped and fell, heard a crack, and then began writhing in pain, tears immediately springing to my eyes. I'm pretty sure this was the most excruciating pain I'd ever experienced. My sister acted fast took my shoe off, grabbed some frozen corn and instructed me to stay calm and call mom. I called my work, to let them know what happened, well what I thought happened, and then called mom and began the quest for the insurance numbers. We found a place in town that would accept my insurance, but it didn't open until 8...it was only about 7:25. We sat in the driveway and in between bursts of sobs, we laughed about what the neighbors would think of us. I was sitting with my legs all crossed up, butt in the air, and she was sitting next to me on the phone.
My sister, the wonderfully smart person she is thought of a plan to go an get doughnuts while waiting for the doctor's office to open, and then sit in the parking lot and wait.
She helped me get to my feet...or foot...and then into the truck. I knew something was terribly wrong when I couldn't move my toes without shots of pain hitting each little pig. I eventually got into the back seat and my sister set the corn around my ankle. At this point it wasn't super swollen, but i could feel it getting tighter.
We went to the grocery store and got the doughnuts, well she did while I sat in the car and cried. I also called the missionaries to come and give me a blessing later today.
At this point I was still thinking it could have been a sprain, but my hope was wearing thin.
We got to the doctor's office right as they opened and my sister found a wheelchair to get me around in. I waited a few minutes in the lobby, and then went back in. As soon as we were in a room the nurse took one look at my foot and asked why we hadn't gone straight to the hospital.
DUH.
I hadn't even thought of going to the ER, except when I had wanted an ambulance with hot paramedics to come pick me up off of my driveway. She then wheeled me back out while my sister grabbed the car, and off to the ER we went.
Between fits of tears I thanked my sister and apologized about a million times. Luckily she was feeling forgiving and just told me to calm down and eat my doughnut.
When we got to the hospital, I was taken back to an exam room and put on a gurney. several nurses came in and out asking me what happened, and apologizing that my Monday had started out like this. I finally made it X-rays, which was an adventure in and of it's self. The nurse felt so bad she didn't make me move, and just brought the machine to my gurney. She was a saint. they took shots from a few different angles and then wheeled me back to my room. I finally got some heavy pain meds and a cool bracelet.
When the doctor came back in he brought a copy of my X-ray and showed me where my "Lateral Malleolus" was fractured.
I started to cry again when he showed me, not because of pain, but because the Loritab was probably making me coo-coo and I was stressed. He referred me to an orthopedic doctor, and told me I would be on crutches and in a boot for a good month. The doctor next week is supposed to tell me if I'll be needing surgery to put a plate in for healing.
The nice nurses came in again with a prescription and a boot. One of them helped me into it while the other measured me for crutches. After tracking down the last pair of crutches in the entire hospital, I was given a little goody bag of information and sent on my way.
My sister and I stopped to get my prescription filled, and here I am, laying in bed with my foot elevated.
I don't get to go to work for a good week, and I have to stay off my feet as much as possible.
I would appreciate it if you all would pray, or send out positive vibes, whatever suits you, so that I don't have to have surgery. It would be a lot of time and money that I can't afford to spend on something like this.
Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. I'll be back up and going in no time, I'm sure:)

Here are some pictures...

Have a happy day.

Best Friends Forever

Best friends. Well, I have a few of those. But, it is one of my very best friend's birthday today. We've been friends for almost twenty years now....pretty much my enitre life.
When I think about how long I've known her, I realize that she's moved past the best friend stage and entered the sister phase. We've been friends for so long now, and gone through so much that I couldn't imagine my life without her. We've never gotten in a fight, and sometimes I'm amazed that both of our stubborn personalities haven't butt heads at all.
We have so many memories, but I would like to share a few of them here.

1. One of my first memories of Megan, was when we would have play dates at eachother's house. Play dates at her house were always the best becuase her mom had white bread and let us play computer games. (I know we're hard to please.) First we would play dress-up and sing and dance to Phantom of The Opera. I ALWAYS got to wear the blue dress, because I was taller and it was the only one that fit me, and of course I would argue that I got to be Christine, because Megan OBVIOUSLY had to play the part of Meg. I mean c'mon, the names matched! So we would twirl around and sing at the top of our lungs. I'm sure it was a lovely sound. (Sorry Dona!) Then, we would have a snack or something. Probably play outside on the trailer that we weren't supposed to play on, whilst eating divine otter pops. But then, the real fun would start. We would play Candy Land the computer game. It was always at the end of our playdates and we NEVER finished a game. My mom ALWAYS showed up right as we were about to get to Candy Castle. I'm not sure why we never planned ahead and tried playing it first, but alas, the game is still unfinished. I'm pretty sure we tried playing it later, when we were much older, but the computer we had was too new for the disk. Oh well, it's a memory.

2. HIM
Megan knows EXACTLY what this is, but I will share it with the rest of you. At some point in our early lives, Megan's family moved into our school district and actually got to come to my school. She was a grade younger than I was, but that didn't matter, we got those blessed 15 minutes for lunch-time recess where we got to frolick in the grass and play imaginative games.
That is exactly what we were...imaginative...or psychotic, but either way, we found ways to entertain ourselves. We had one game in particular we liked to play. The short story was that Megan, Natasha (Our third amigo) sometimes Brenna (the neighbor girl...hi if you're reading this!) and Julia, the other friend from school pretended that we were secret agents, on a mission to save the world from HIM. We had a boss who lived on Mars, and a red telephone (a complete figment of our imaginations) that would ring and blink as soon as we were needed. We would inevitabley freeze in our bodies on the playground (in the far back right corner of the field by the trees) and our....essence?...would rush up to Mars and meet THE BOSS for a meeting on how we would yet again save the world from HIM.
I'm pretty sure HIM looked strangely like Lord Voldemort, and had a wife or girlfriend named HER. (yeah, we were real creative.) I know that HIM and HER's names showed up a few times in the woods by my house and on Megan's back fence, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence ;)
We took our missions seriously however, and I haven't heard from HIM in quite sometime.

3. Garrett and Cyndi's house.
Megan and Natasha (Who no memory is complete without) would often find themselves at my house on the weekends I spent on visitation with my dad. More often than not our sleepovers would include a Walk to the Store...unless I was feeling lazy and then I would come up with some reason why we shouldn't go and work harder to convice Megan that we should stay at home, than it would have been to just go to the freaking store....Sorry Meggie.
"The Store" was a litte convenience store about a mile from my house that held a plethora of wonderful candies and goodies. I remember our best find was caffeine gum. We decided we had to have it for our sleepovers, as we rarely slept at these functions anyway.
My favorite trip to the store was the time we dressed up as "gothics". We dressed in all black and put on tones of make-up and lots of tasteful jewelery from Claire's (another one of our favorite places). We walked to the store feeling on top of the world decked out in our chains and safety pins...don't ask. I'm pretty sure we had planned to go in all white like little angels to test if there was a difference in service, but I'm sure that was pushed off because of my lazier habits, or because of our fear of running into the woman in the white car. I still get freaked when white cars pass me on the road.
Another favorite memory from one of our various sleepovers was the Crack Salsa and Mona Lisa Smile...oh and the Jello Jolly Ranchers, and of course don't forget the time I almost choked to death on lemonade concentrate that we did shots with. (You know the gothic rebels we were)
Needless to say, sleepovers were never boring events.

4. 10 Ways to Kill Megan and What Not To Do On a First Date feature films, starring Megan Connor, Tasha Liden, and Yours Truely.

There was a phase of our lives that we were really into making our own movies. My favorite, and unfortunately the one that got taped over, was 10 Ways to Kill Megan. Pretty much the three of us brainstormed how to kill Megan and then taped versions of that. It was HILARIOUS. I'm pretty sure Natasha "ate" her, we sang so atrociously while wearing 80s bridesmaid dresses that she keeled over dead, we pushed her off the balcony, and I think we ran her over too...moral of the story? We had issues. But, the image of Natasha, face covered in BBQ sauce, hands covered in chicken guts, crying out for her best friend, is an image I will never forget.
The Date Movie unfortunately survived, and here is a link to it. I don't have much to explain about this one, I'll let it speak for it's self.

5. Puking Brothers and Men in Black
Megan had the BEST house for sleepovers. When she lived next door to me and Tasha, we would congegrate at her house and gather junk food, or whatever food we could find, rummage through the movies, and then fight over who got the corner seat in the couch. This wasn't just a battle for the movie. If you didn't get the corner seat for the movie, you didn't get it all night. This corner seat was the coveted place in the house. The best spot for movies and the most comfortable for sleeping.
But on to the title of this memory. One night I was sleeping over at Megan's house and her brother got super sick in front of her room. I have a very sensitive gag reflex and so I couldn't bring myself to sleep in the room where the puking had taken place, so Megan and I slept in the living room on the couch and fell asleep to Men in Black. It was a surreal experience and I'm pretty sure I kicked her a few times thinking she was an alien.

6. Honky-Tonk-Badonk-A-Donk.
One day I showed up and Megans house and she and Tasha had prepared a dance routine for me. Unfortunately I didn't have the resources to tape it, otherwise you would be laughing as I hard as I am, while I remember that blessed dance. just imagine Daisy Duke shorts and cowgirl hats completed the hip-shakin-booty-poppin routine, while I sat on the floor and laughed until my sides hurt. Those two always know how to light up my life.

7. BRATZ or Barbie games.
Megan and I played with Barbies or Bratz until an embarassingly late age. Tasha never joined us for this, but Megan and I had our games down pat. We had families and high school students. We had a specific way we played and no one else understood. For the sake of saving face, I'll leave the memory at that. But I'll just say, it was good, and we could have aspired to be screenwriters. We done good.

8. The Camping Trip.
I almost forgot about this gem. One summer Garrett and Cyndi decided to go camping, and they told me that I could bring a friend. Of course my first choice would have been to bring Megan AND Tasha, but for some reason only Megan came. We spent a weekend in the woods drinking Vanilla Diet Coke (We felt so cool) and eating our body weight in green grapes. We swam, and I'm pretty sure the parental units forced us to go Kyaking...something I detest. The worst part? I didn't get to share a kayak with Megan. That was a great trip and it was fun to spend some time with the bestie out in the wild mountain air. I'm pretty sure she got car-sick on the way home, but alas it was a memory nonetheless.

There were other camping trips in our history as well. First, Megan's Family and My family went camping together one summer, and it was a blast. We had a camp spot right on the water, and would swim until dark and then we would raist marshmellows and sings songs....okay I don't actually remember much about the trip, other than the fact that we pretended to be mermaids and probably looked like idiots thrashing the lower half of our badies in the water in an effort to mimic Ariel. Sometimes I wonder about our mental state of mind....

Also, Tasha's family took us to Cushman a few times. We went cliff jumping and ate lots of junk food while we talked about how we'd be friends forever, and tried to avoid sibling watch duty. 

9. EFY
Megan and I went to EFY together one year. It was after she had moved to Japan and I was so excited to have her with me. I remember that she bought me an "I love Mormon Boys" T-shirt, and we were roommates. It was so fun to have my best friend there with me.I'm pretty sure we intimidated the other members of our company, but we had fun doing it. Megan patiently sat through all of my boy-talk, as I worked my way through crushing on all of the boys in the company, and was ready and willing for anything. I remember that trip was the first time I'd heard her bear her testimony and that experience is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. It was so touching for so many reasons.

10. Secret Boyfriends
Yeah. I had a secret Boyfriend in Junior High and Megan knew  all about him. He was a gem. She used to walk to the park to sit and watch him play basket ball with me, because I wasn't old enough to actually have him over. Oh and by the way he was secret as in, not known to my parents...not like secret as in he had no idea. I promise it was a mutual agreement....but I'm pretty sure we both had a few of the imagined boyfriends too. Just the fact that Megan was willing to go with me to see him and helped me hide it from my parents was the best thing a best friend could do.


Pretty much, Megan is my oldest and best friend. She's seen me at my very worst, and I've been blessed enough to have her in my life through the good times too. Natasha is a natural fit for our little threesome, and it was hard to think of memories without her. We've all been best friends for so long and it has been the best relationship ever. I mean come on people, we have photoshoots together. We joke about how we are the only people we love enough to keep a long distance relationship alive, but it's entirely true. Even though we are so far apart, whenever we get together it's like nothing has changed and we go right back to being the silly, and sometimes psychotic girls that we are. I look forward to another 20 years with her in my life, and I can only imagine the shenanigans we'll get into as life brings us new adventures.

Happy Birthday Pretty Girl. I LOVE YOU!!

p.s. I still have our Friendship Necklaces... :)