Fridays at the ER

Hello & sorry I've been avoiding the blog! I've been sick for the past week.  Last week I missed about 4 days of work. Yep. I posted in my weekend summary that I wasn't feeling to peppy & it started last Saturday night. Well that nasty hacking & sore throat I had took over my life for the next week. Fun stuff. The last solid span of sleep I've had since I got sick was last Monday night/Tuesday morning. I guess I can be thankful for those glorious 10 hours of sleep because I haven't seen it since then & I desperately miss it. I stayed home Tuesday & Wednesday & finally got into the Dr. Thursday morning to be diagnosed with bronchitis & got some drugs. Antibiotics & cough syrup w/ hydrocodone. I stayed home & "rested" for the remainder of the day. Since the coughing becomes violently worse the minute my head hits the pillow, resting isn't really what I'd call it.


I managed to make it to work for a few hours on Friday only to be told to go home because I sounded like I was dying. I tried the whole resting thing again but failed. I thought I'd see if the pharmacy had anything just to help my cough because certainly the pharmacist is smarter than my Dr. By now I was a walking zombie & could fall asleep no problem, I just needed the coughing to STOP! I wasted my money on useless medicine. Husband came home & we watched some TV. By this point, I had taken my allergy medicine (makes me sleepy), melatonin & double dose of cough syrup. Needless to say I could barely keep my eyes open. I went to bed & covered my nose & chest with Vix & smelled lovely. I propped my pillows up to try & trick my body to think I was still standing up. I gave it an hour but by 10:30 I was developing shooting pains in my ribs every time I coughed...so like every 5 seconds. Not to mention I was starting to have problems breathing.

I took my pitiful self out to Husband & told him I've had it, take me to the damn ER! The next 2 hours were uneventful. I got admitted surprisingly fast & had my vitals taken. Then later had a chest x-ray & I got to see my really long lungs (that's what the tech told me anyway). And then waited another hour. The Dr. said it was a good idea to come in because if I had waited until Monday to see my regular Dr., this crap could've developed into pneumonia.

My pretty bracelet from the ER

The really sweet nurse gave me an Rx for some pills to help with the pain in my ribs, an inhaler that had wonderful steroids in it & MORE cough syrup with hydrocodone & some other nonsense. We drove to a CVS that was not close & by now it's like 2am. Luckily not much happens in CVS at 2am so I got my meds fast. Got home & put the inhaler to work and chugged the syrup. I definitely slept. Not fantastic but I slept enough to have some relief. I can use my inhaler ever 4 hours & that I do. And by now I'm coming to the conclusion that me & hydrocodone aren't friends. I think I'm immune to it because that stuff just does nothing for me.

I was pretty much a lump on Saturday & only managed to go to the grocery store. Sunday was productive. I got all my food ready for the week as usual & had a double workout. I did power yoga & yoga abs, took about an hour break & then did legs & back. Fergie & I also did lots of walking even though it was a gloomy day & sprinkling out. I still don't sleep much at night. I've finished my antibiotics & just really hope some relief comes soon.

So there ya have it, my fun ER experience. I promise to have some workout postings soon as I've changed my schedule up a bit. Have a great day!

Vegas Part 1

Our flight for Vegas was early in the morning on Thursday so in order to avoid the traffic, we left nice & early.  We got to the airport in plenty of time for some of this:

Never too early for vacation beer

We flew Spirit airlines & I wouldn't recommend that on anyone.  It's awful.  The seats have no cushion, no room for your legs & even water costs money.  Not to mention you have to pay an arm & a leg to check a bag.

We got to Vegas & waited in the line for a taxi.  This was the longest never ending line I've ever been in.  Luckily the weather was fantastic & felt great outside. 

We got to our hotel which was off the strip next to the Convention Center.  It was packed.  Lots of the competitors & vendors were checking in the same time we were & I kept hearing people complain that rooms weren't ready.  We made our way to the receptionist & yay our room was ready.  At the last minute I upgraded to a resort room.  This meant we had access to a fabulous little lounge that had food from 6am to 8pm and also unlimited amounts of water & alcohol!  Score.  And we could use the fitness center.  We got to our room & it was very nice & had everything we needed.  We did a little tour of the hotel & checked out our main spots (fitness center, club lounge, restaurants, etc.). 

The only thing we had planned for Thursday was to meet up with my very old friend I've known since kindergarten later that evening so we had time to fill until then.  We headed to the strip via the monorail system.  This thing was fantastic.  We paid for a 3 day pass & rode as much as we wanted.  They have stops all along the strip & it's much cheaper than a taxi.  We used the hell out of our pass.  We did some sight seeing & made it to the Bellagio in time for the fountain show.  It was breathtaking!  It's so loud!

We walked for a few hours & then came back to the hotel to change.  The temps had started dropping & it was actually chilly!  So we changed into warmer clothes & made a pit stop at the lounge to take advantage of our beers.  We totally got our moneys worth just with the alcohol.

My friend is a Sirens dancer at Treasure Island on the boats outside the hotel.  We made it to her 7pm show & she's awesome!  I mean really awesome & we totally enjoyed the show.  We met up with her in between shows at Starbucks inside the hotel.  We only had about 45 minutes to chat & it was like no time had passed when we saw each other.  So great to catch up with her & I could've talked with her for hours.  It was hard to get good pictures of the show but here are a few.

Random dude in my photo

After that we had planned on going to Fremont St. as this was the only free night we had but opted to just stay on the strip & walk our way down to the MGM.  And walking we did...a lot!  And drinking made it's way in there too.  I love walking the strip with a beer in my hand!  We made it a fairly early night since it was really 2 hours later for us & we wanted to get up early to work out.
(I'm not the best picture taker but trying to get photos while walking the strip is not easy.  It's so crowded.)

Caught the end of the fountain show at night. 

We woke up around 7am & got dressed to work out.  The fitness center was nice & I got my HIIT workout in on the treadmill.  Then we went to our lounge for a light breakfast, showered & made our way to Mr. Olympia.  It was soooo fun.  We stayed for about 4 hours & my arms were dying from carrying our swag bag & all the free stuff that was piled in it.

It's The Hulk!

The place was packed.  I was surprised how many people came to this expo.  I knew it was popular but I just had no idea.

After our legs had turned to jello we went back to the hotel.  Husband had a few friends that were arriving that evening & we were going to meet up with them for some after parties.  We grabbed some lunch & went back to the room to relax & shower.  Then we waited in the lounge while staying hydrated.

We went to a small party at the Renaissance Hotel next to the Convention Center.  We were only there for maybe 20 minutes & then on to the next party at the Encore Beach Club.  Everyone decided it was close enough to walk.  WALK!  Let me say it was not close.  Not close at all.  We walked forever.  I felt like it was miles but I'm sure it wasn't.  Then we couldn't find the damn beach club & actually passed it once.   We then waited in line for about 30 minutes since we were the first ones to arrive.  We like being prompt.  After we got in it was really cool.  We had our own cabana with bottle service.  Even though I was worn out from our long hike to the hotel it was a fun night.

Part 2 will be posted soon!

Still Here!

I'm back!  Vegas was fantastic!  But it's hard coming back from vacation & I've been playing catch up at work.  Therefore the blog was put on the back burner until I had some extra time.  Vegas posts will be coming shortly.  I have pictures to upload so something to look forward to!  We had a blast but it was great to come home.  Fergie was of course excited but judging by the pictures & videos I got from our neighbors, she didn't seem to miss us too much!

Weekend re-cap...Friday was quiet as usual.  Husband & I stayed in & watched our Netflix movie - Star Trek Into the Darkness.  It was awesome & we both agreed it was better than the first.  We ended up going to bed before 10pm, heaven!!  I got over 8 hours of sleep!  I felt very well rested the next morning & took Ferg on a long walk after the rain stopped.  Workout time followed.  I did P90X leg & back workout & it was great thanks to my energy drink I took before (got an endless amount of samples from Mr. Olympia).  Then I went to get my hair done which is always exciting, on to the grocery store & back home for more walking with Ferg.  She loves her walks & never seems to get tired.  Even though it was overcast & chilly most of the day we didn't care.  I've been waiting for this weather all summer!  Unfortunately, this drastic change in weather has made me sick.  Like literally.  First the coughing started late Saturday morning, followed by an increasingly sore throat & now I can barely talk or swallow without wincing in pain.  We went over to our friend's house on Saturday night & hung out at the fire pit so I'm sure that didn't help much.  By the end of the night, I was feeling terrible & we stayed up way past my normal bed time.  Lack of sleep + mega sore throat = miserable crappiness.   

I was so tired Sunday I ended up going back to sleep after Ferg's breakfast walk until after 10!  But it didn't stop me from having a productive day.  I cleaned the house, did some laundry, power yoga workout & then ran 3 miles outside.  Yep, even if I'm sick I'm still going to work out!

Oh yeah...I'm sad to say I am no longer following my vegan diet.  That diet is sooooo freaking hard.  If I enjoyed cooking & had the time to really experiment, I think I could've gotten used to it.  But lets be honest, I can't cook.  I can cook chicken & pasta but that's about as much as I can handle.  However, I am only buying cage free organic chicken & eggs so there's a point for me.  I'll get more into my diet with some pictures in later posts.  Mr. Olympia lit a spark up my butt to get into better shape & really focus on my diet.  I've made quite a few changes to my eating & working out.  Stay posted...good stuff to come!