I Saw The Sign (of Wheat Jesus)

Okay, I promise that in the future I will post more than once a month.  With my birthday weekend and the start of school, things have felt incredibly busy and by the end of most days I simply want to take off my pants, crawl up with a book and a beer and my journal and refresh.

But enough with excuses!  Now the long awaited roadtrip pictures -- which will be new to you only if you don't follow me and Judd on Instagram.

The days preceding my move were a little stressful.  After countless quotes and conversations and arrangements, I finally decided on my movers, I accepted negotiated a price... and then was told that they wouldn't be able to pick up my things until about a week after my first day of work  Which as you can imagine didn't cause me to panic.  At all.   But when you're on the cusp of making a huge life change, the biggest move of your life, you can tug at the heartstrings of the People In Charge.  Which is exactly what I did.

How thankful I was when the movers confirmed they could pick up my things on the day I had planned on skipping town.  Two very kind men arrived at 9:00, I supplied them lattes which enabled them to have the truck packed and loaded by 11:30.   Then I was on the road and saying goodbye to Fort Collins.  Beautiful, wonderful, incredible Fort Collins which I still miss every single day.

I am happy to report that I only cried a little bit.
But it could have also been caused by typical I-25 traffic.
Who's to say?

I called my parents and notified Judd I was en route.  I took a breath of sweet mountain air.  Breathed in the last moments of being a Fort Collins resident.  Of being a Colorado resident.  Of having a home in which I completely, utterly belonged.  Similar to a moment I had in Halong Bay a few months prior, I wanted to take a mental picture to look back upon for the rest of my life. I then took several real life pictures of the mountains for when my memory had failed.

Clinging to every second while waiting impatiently for the moment when I'd start feeling the excitement of a new life versus as opposed the deep heartbreak of losing a place, my home town.

I took a pit stop in Brighton where I picked up my travel companion and we hit to the road.  We shifted the items Tetris'd expertly into the back of my SUV, toasted with some root beer, and were on our way.

Great pic of Judd. Terrible one of me. Meh. Who cares?  IT'S HAPPENING/ Cheers!

We made it all the way to Hayes, Kansas and chatted the entire drive.  There were only a few pauses, in which Judd became acquainted with how many beverages I prefer to travel with (two Starbucks Double Shot energy drinks, a liter of Aquafina, a Coke Zero, in addition to a case of Coconut La Croix... all in addition to that toasting beverages I downed in the first hour).  What can I say?   I need choices.

The primary highlight of our trip wasn't the sub-par sandwiches we had at Oscars in Salida. (although a movie themed restaurant?  how apropos is that for two pals who started their friendship with movie nights?)  Rather, it was the much anticipated and possibly UNDER-hyped Wheat Jesus.  Which I had been talking about enthusiastically for at least three hours.  I pulled off to the side of the road, probably to great alarm to my companion, and we beheld the grandeur of such a nonsensical monument.  And still.... it was more majestic than I remembered and well worth nearly causing a fender-bender for.

Again, I. am. THRILLED. Go see it. It's worth the drive. #RoadTripJesus

I will say at this point in our trip, I realized that Judd and I would be phenomenal road trip companions.  Being one of my all time best friends, I knew he'd be the perfect fellow to accompany me in my escapades.  But I fretted that my natural extroversion might overwhelm his true introvert.  Fortunately, we managed to chat and gab our way all across the Great Plains without hesitation.  It was by far some of the best days of my life.

As mentioned, Juddzee and I paused after driving seven hours in good ol' Hayes, Kansas.  Let me tell you, for a place I've never heard of and still probably couldn't pinpoint on a map, Judd and I heard tons from folks who had been through the place.  If I weren't writing this down for eternal documentation, I'm sure I'd have forgotten the name within three months.

We checked into a surprisingly un-disgusting Motel 8 (or something).  For our viewing pleasure we enjoyed Andrew Zimmern chocking on some super gross buried fish from Iceland and promptly fell asleep.  I fell into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake me aside from hurricane-force winds.

Which is precisely what happened.

I woke up to what I thought was someone blasting our window with a pressure-washer but I discovered was a run of the mill midwestern storm.  At one point I got out of bed, peeked out the window, and worried about the paint job on my car.  Judd and I experienced a set of what-the-fuck giggles because if THIS was the type of storm that people encountered... damn.  I have a whole new appreciation for prairie folk.  And in 30 minutes it was over.

Judd got up and tried to do a touch of work in the "breakfast nook" while I tried to do what I do best -- grasp at the last straws of sleep before accepting defeat and shuffling to the nearest cup of coffee.  Eventually I got up, had plain buttered toast, and Judd and I figured out that the storm had knocked out the internet and phone lines to our hotel.  We were assured by the concierge that this was atypical and spent the first hour on the road marveling at the many downed roadsigns along I-70.

It was then that we decided to start our Road Trip Audiobook.  A superb gift provided by my mom a few weeks prior.  Deadly Embrace by the (slightly insane) Jackie Collins.

We lost count of how many times we had to pause the audio to recap who a character was.  So many peripheral characters, so many ways to describe women's bosoms.

The zebra stripes tell you everything.
Also -- took this while I was driving. Didn't cause for concern on Judd's end at all.

In case you missed it -- this gem from 1989 is a story about a Las Vegas couple's road to true love, their daughter being caught in a nonsensical holdup, and the tragic tale of a dead mother named Antonia or Juanita or something beautifully Italian. Oh, and a lot of uncomfortable descriptions of sexual assault masquerading as "mysterious sexiness.  It was downright intolerable towards disc 4 of 6 and exactly what you'd want a roadtrip novel to be.

Next up... crazed mannequins, the haunted Mississippi River, and our first few moments in Birmingham when things finally got ugly...

So much, so soon

I left for Bama nearly a month ago.
Road tripped for three days with my bestie.
Started work a few days later.

It feels like it's been way, way longer.

Let me rewind a quick second.

I have a congenital heart defect that requires I have an implanted cardiac defibrillator.  You know those paddle things hospitals use where everyone has to clear?  I have one inside of me because I run an elevated risk of going into cardiac arrest and I need protection.

Well, during the days after I left my last job.  The days of packing, goodbyes, and finalizing logistics with my movers, I began to hear a soft little noise.

5:40am.
11:40am.
5:40pm.
11:40 again.

Beep....beep....beep...

Every six hours, 17 soft little beeps, audible enough to be overheard  by anyone sitting close to me, would make itself knows.

I first noticed it on a Thursday evening and I wasn't sure if it was what I thought it was.  My device has only been inside me for five years, I was told that it should last about ten.  So it wasn't until the next night when I heard it again, this time in a different room, that I knew I had to get it checked out.

Problem #1: It was the weekend so I'd have to wait until Monday
Problem #2: I was set to leave for my new life that Tuesday

But it's my heart, right?  I knew I had to get it checked out and also knew that it was likely that I'd have to get my ICD replaced in a few months.  So on Monday afternoon, after packing my last box and running my last load to the thrift store, I popped by my cardiologist's office to have my device interrogated.  5 minutes, typically.  An in-and-out visit that would run me $300 but priceless in peace of mind.

The nurses were chatty.  I told them what I heard and they made the same assumption that I had.  The put the magnifying-glass looking receiver over my left breast and powered the monitor up.  A large yellow warning appeared on the screen and someone immediately left to get the supervisor on staff.

Turns out my ICD was 100% dead.  So much so, the monitor couldn't access the data in my device.  They could only read and print out one thing - the device wouldn't deliver a life-saving shock if my heart went into tachycardia.

They recommended surgery the next day.
You know, the day I was supposed to be setting off on a cross-country road trip to start a new life in the South.

I declined the surgery, much to the dismay of my health care team.  Mostly because it would throw off my entire moving timeline and I didn't have the time or capacity to calculate how far reaching the impact would be.  Partly because my COBRA paperwork hadn't come in.  Fractionally because I was incredibly frustrated and furious at the poor timing and it was easier to push pause and deal with it later.

So I promised my nurses to be little more than sedentary until I was able to meet with a cardiologist in Birmingham.  I set off on my trip as normal and had an appointment scheduled to meet with a highly regarded elctrophysiologist the day after my arrival.

Long story short(er): I underwent surgery a week after arriving in town where they discovered that my device was not only dead but the lead that attached the ICD to my heart was stripped of its protective sheath and severed in half.  Suddenly the little zaps I had been experiencing every few months for the past few years made sense -- I had just assumed that it was my nervous system malfunctioning when really it was the electricity of the wire ends coming together.

The doctors at UAB gave me a new lead, a new device, and a new discovery that I  am highly allergic to DermaBond.

Needless to say, my settling in didn't work out quite the way I had expected.  I was highly motivated to unpack my house within days of receiving the movers.  My mom came for a visit where we mostly stayed at home watching the first season of Pretty Little Liars but managed to have a few outings for meals and pedicures.

My blogging went by the wayside, although I'm certain a few percocet-fueled posts would have been good for a laugh.

Regardless, this is the reason for the delay in the posts I had promised.  Stay tuned for posts of mine and Juddzee's road trip as well as my (nearly) complete apartment and office.


Edit: thank you to everyone for expressing concern about my health.  Let me assure everyone that I'm feeling perfectly fine.  The procedure was successful and I didn't even need to spend the night in the hospital.  I'm healing fine aside from a strong external reaction to the glue they used to hold my incisions together.  No heavy lifting or exercise for several weeks but otherwise, I'm happy and healthy. :)