Still learning the ropes

Being back to a normal existence minus doctors poking various types of needles into your arms and your morning alarm being the sound of heart monitors is so nice I've decided. Life has been good since my vacation at the GW hospital. I'm back to normal save for this gnarly bruise I have going on my right arm from all the blood work... it changes colors daily and causes people on the metro to stand a good distance away from me. It's nice, I don't have to worry about being pushed and shoved so much thanks to my green/blue/purple/reddish splotchy bruise in all its glory.

I spent the post emergency room weekend relaxing at my cousin's house in Arlington. I felt rather lazy and guilty as they spread 72 bags of mulch around their yard in 95 degree weather... while I remained horizontal on the couch sipping iced tea. But I didn't feel a single tinge of guilt when I got to help eat the homemade lasagna and chocolate chip pecan pie they cooked as their celebratory "we're DONE!!!" dinner. They delivered me back to my dorm on Sunday night and I immediately went out for a walk, seeing that the only physical activity I had taken part in for the past week was lifting a spoonful of ice cream from the bowl to my mouth or making an expedition downstairs to acquire more of cousin Rachael's magnificent superb delicious peanut butter bars. I think my body was thrown off from all the tests they did at the hospital or something, because all I wanted to eat for about five days straight was sugar and/or red meat... and for anyone who knows me even remotely well, you know that's pretty abnormal.

I returned to work on Monday morning. The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, everyone on the metro was smiling, the sky was blue!!! Well, not really... it was extremely overcast and quite chilly and everyone on the metro was extremely grumpy on a Monday morning per usual. But I didn't care. As I breezed past the oh so familiar hospital (which happens to be about 10 feet from the metro entrance... ), instead taking the escalator down to the metro, I couldn't help but smile.

I immediately hit the ground running back at work since we had four upcoming teacher workshops to finalize, one in Louisiana, one here in D.C., and two in Michigan. Thankfully I was able to pick right back up where I left off... but only after having to reassure pretty much everyone in my office that the bruise on my arm was nothing out of the ordinary and I was perfectly fine. (I opted to wear a long sleeved shirt the next day to solve that problem...)

Apart from a busy workweek, I also got a chance to actually get out and enjoy some of what D.C. has to offer. On Monday during work, I got a text from my roommate Kelly asking if I would be interested in attending an outdoor film festival in Crystal City with her and her friend from work, Jared. I of course accepted, and didn't even bother to ask what movie we would be seeing. Come 7:00, we all meet at the metro and I discover that I have signed myself up for an entire summer of Monday night Star Trek movies thanks to the Crystal City Summer 2010 Star Trek Movie Marathon. So basically, from here on out, each Monday night Jared, Kelly, and I will board the yellow line to Crystal City with a bag of candy and beach towels in tow to go lay on the grass and watch every single Star Trek movie ever made. Yup. I'm not joking. We're actually missing tonight's since both Jared and Kelly were busy for work. But never fear, tomorrow night we will reconvene at Jared's apartment to watch movie number two. Kelly and I will also be combining our cooking skills (she actually went to Johnston and Wales for a year with plans to become a pastry chef before she transferred to Georgia Tech) to craft a delectable (hopefully) meal and dessert to accompany the movie. So that should be an interesting evening.

Apart from Star Trek I also got a chance to do a little job hunting so I can finance this summer of mine in D.C. I had an interview on Thursday and got a job at Clyde's of Georgetown, a semi-upscale yet family friendly restaurant in Georgetown just about a fifteen minute walk from my dorm. I'll start that job in July after I complete training at the end of the month, so that'll be a great source of income to compensate for my tendency to spend way too much money on all the awesome ice cream and frozen yogurt shops they have in this city.

On Saturday my friend Jen came down from Baltimore to visit and stay the night. We went all touristy and wandered around the Eastern Market, saw an IMax movie at the Museum of Natural History, and then had sushi in Georgetown before seeing a movie. As much as I love exploring on my own, it was nice to have someone to wander around with and laugh at all the tourists taking pictures of squirrels and sporting American flag t-shirts and fanny packs. (And no I'm not joking about the squirrels, it really did happen).

So basically now that I am up and moving I am enjoying D.C. a whole lot more and have a pretty good routine going. I also finally bought myself a Smartrip card for the metro, so I've totally got it down pat. Now I sail on by the flustered tourists contemplating the metro fare card machines and tediously counting out their spare change (granted, I used to be exactly like them so I shouldn't talk too much). I've also mastered cooking in my little three foot wide kitchen with about 2 feet of countertop space. It's all about placement and utilizing all the available space... if you have to balance the cutting board on the edge of the sink and park a few ingredients on top of the coffee machine, no big deal. It's definitely not mom's home cooking, but it gets the job done.

That's all for now! I'm planning on heading to Baltimore to visit Jen if I survive this busy, busy, busy week at work, so I'll write more then I bet!

Question: Which is worse, a headache from ice cream brain freeze or a spinal tap??

If you're intrigued by the title of this blog, just keep reading. If you asked me to list off some of the things I thought I would have done by the end of my second week on my own in D.C... a trip to the George Washington University Emergency Room definitely would not have made it onto the list. But that is precisely where I was for the better part of this week. Allow me to explain, in retrospect it's actually quite a funny story.

So I spent the weekend with a high fever, chills, stiff, achy joints and muscles, and just generally feeling pretty crummy overall. I was spending the weekend dog sitting out in Mclean, Virginia and basically all I was doing with myself was lying on the couch resting and watching the French Open, so I didn't think too much of it and figured it would pass. However... I woke up on Tuesday morning and was greeted in the bathroom mirror by a face the color of a tomato and my entire body covered in a lovely red rash. So I figured there might be something a little bit more going on there. Nevertheless, it's my second week of work, so not wanting to be the dramatic girl who calls in sick I headed off to the office per usual. I felt alright I guess, other than the fact that I itched all over and couldn't stop shaking in the intense air conditioning we have in our office. (Seriously, it feels like the inside of an igloo down there! Cardigans just aren't cutting it... I might have to spring for bringing my NorthFace to work or something. And a thermos of hot cocoa and those hand warmers you use when you go snow skiing.)

Throughout the morning I received several concerned questions from my colleagues: "Katie, did you go out in the sun this weekend? You are SO RED!"Or "What on earth happened to your face?" Things along those lines. After lunch I gave in and called my dad to let him in on what was going on. He says I started off the conversation with something like, "Hey Daddy, I don't want to alarm you but I just had a question. What do you think I could do about this red rash all over my body?" In retrospect, I think I probably would have been quite concerned as a parent if my kid called me up with that inquiry as well. So I guess I should have let him in on it without nearly inducing a mild heart attack in the process. Anyways, after lunch I had a meeting with my supervisor, who has a daughter just about my age. After we had gone over our to do lists and discussed several of the up coming programs, I casually asked if she knew of an Urgent Care center in the area that I could visit after work since I wasn't feeling well. She immediately switched into mom mode and sent me straight to get medical attention. Which brings me to the start of my lovely stay at the GW hospital.

I managed to get my red, itchy, feverish self back on the metro (definitely received some stares during that ride seeing that I matched my red sweater at that point), home to my dorm to grab my medications and change into comfy clothes, and then I hoofed it back up to the hospital and checked myself into the ER around 3:30. Four and half hours and several crosswords later I was admitted to a room in the back. Honestly I figured I would be home by 10pm or so... I had no idea what to expect. Instead, the fun began almost immediately. A very concerned nice young doctor came in and told me they were all very alarmed by my bloodwork, seeing that my white blood count was at 1.79 (the normal range begins somewhere around 4.5). They told me that, given the symptoms I had listed off, they were worried that I might possibly have bacterial meningitis so they wanted to perform a spinal tap, a CAT scan, and a chest x-ray and then keep me overnight to monitor me. So all visions of going home and being back at work the next day disappeared at that point. The spinal tap was probably the weirdest medical procedure I've ever undergone. I wont' go too much into detail for those reading who might be a little squeamish, but basically they had me hunch over, they gave me a numbing shot in my back, and then they poked a needle into the ligament of my spinal cord and extracted some of my spinal fluid to to check it for bacteria. It was the strangest feeling ever when they would hit a nerve... they told me at the beginning to just say left or right as they were "walking the needle in". I asked how I would know, and they just said, "Oh, you'll know!" And I most CERTAINLY did! The first time they hit a nerve ending it was on my left side, so I felt this intense shooting pain/weird sensation down my entire left leg and I just was like, "LEFT LEFT LEFT!!" It was kind of like when you hit your funny bone or the doctor checks your reflexes but time 1,000,000 or so since they're actually in your spine probing your nerves. Eesh. Well, they finished that and then I just had to lay flat for three hours or so... at this point I'm getting pretty freaked out. Especially since all the nurses and doctors keep asking if I'm all by myself, and each time I just nod my head and think "I want my mommy!!!" (I know, I'm like 5 years old).

At this point, Patrick comes to the rescue via his older brother Stephen who lives in D.C. I am quite certain that a 26 year old guy has a number of better things to do on a Tuesday night than trek down to the hospital to visit his little brother's girlfriend. But regardless, that is just what he did. With a bag of grapes in town nonetheless. :) I was incredibly glad to see him and that made the time pass much, much faster and took my mind off the test results I was waiting. Thankfully around 2am, Dr. Collins came in to let me know the test results were negative and I had no signs of bacterial meningitis. Instead, he just held up my bottle of sulfa pills, which I had recently been prescribed for acne by my dermatologist, looked at me and said "Never, ever take this again in your life, and you will be just fine!" I was like, it's a PROMISE!

So then I was admitted upstairs and got to spend a super fun two days hanging out in the hospital. My white blood cell count continued to drop on Wednesday, so naturally mom and dad flipped out and drove like maniacs to get up here. But I have never been happier to see them and I actually could not have gotten through the rest of that without them. But by this morning my count was going back up, so I was allowed to go home! I was a little sad to say goodbye to all the amazing doctors and nurses (not too sad of course). :) But every single person I came into contact with while I was there was incredibly kind and I give that hospital a big thumbs up. However... I probably won't miss my roommate too much. She snored pretty badly and enjoyed staying up until 3 am watching Sex and the City re-runs with the volume turned up really loud.

So I left the hospital, got an extra large ice cream, and now I'm just laying in bed at my cousin Racheal's house in Arlington. So that's that. No more sulfa. Ever. Guess I learned that the hard way! But at least now my body has returned to it's normal hue, my fever is gone and I no longer need 10 blankets on top of me to keep warm and stop shaking. So things are definitely looking up. :) Week three better include only run of the mill, incredibly boring occurrences. Seriously, I want the most exciting/dangerous thing that happens to me to be getting off on the wrong metro stop or something.

But that's my week in a nutshell. Wish I could have written about something else, but I guess I can now say that I was treated at the hospital where the president goes!

One week down!

Whew! With the first week of my D.C. experience under my belt, I have decided it would be fun to create a blog just like I did for Spain last summer. So much has happened since leaving Davidson, it's hard to believe that was just two weeks ago today.

After finishing exams and somehow managing to pack up my dorm room and drive back to Wilmington with all my stuff in tow (and about a 1x1 foot hole of visibility out of the back of my car), I got to enjoy home for a week. After my week of relaxation was up, I made sense of my messy room, carried most everything back out to my car, and left for D.C. with mom and dad. After spending the night in Fredericksburg, VA so we could wake up and visit the Fredericksburg Battlefield per dad's request, we drove the final hour to D.C. and got our first glimpse of the Washington monument as we crossed the Memorial Bridge. Then it was on to locating a parking spot on the George Washington University campus (no easy task, let me tell you), braving the registration line to obtain my room key and dorm access card, and finally seeing my room!!!! I was very happy to find myself living in a great space, complete with a spacious bedroom, walk in closet, bathroom, and my very own kitchen (even though it's so narrow that my roommate and I can't even stand in there at the same. Regardless, we've already turned out some pretty good meals from that little space, so we're happy with it.)

After making one final Harris Teeter run with the parents, we dropped my car at its summer home at cousin Rachael's house in Arlington, VA, and I said goodbye and wished them well on their 7 hour drive home. Then I returned to a dorm now inhabited by probably the most amazing roommate I could have possibly ended up with. Her name is Kelly and she just graduated from Georgia Tech as a computer science and economics major (sheesh, way over my head, but sounds really cool!) Basically, the Davidson Myers Briggs personality test system couldn't have matched me up with a better roomie. We both are addicted to coffee, love running, obsessed with cooking and the Food Network, tend to talk way to fast and go off on random tangents at the drop of a hat, and love nothing more than to go to bed early every night. So it's a match made in heaven. She is interning with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security this summer, so it's also very interesting to hear about what she does each day.

Now for the actual reason I am spending my summer in the big city. My internship. Although I usually work 9-5, I started work Monday morning at the leisurely hour of 10:00 since I didn't yet have my official Smithsonian ID badge and couldn't enter my office building before it opened to the public. Being the metro newbie that I am, I left my dorm at 9 just to make sure I wasn't late... and ended up awkwardly wandering around the mall for about 30 minutes. But oh well, I'm getting a system down now and it was better to be safe than sorry :)

I was relieved to have any visions of spending my lunch hours eating by myself dispelled when I met the three other friendly new interns, Maggie, Alexa, and Erica. We were introduced to our program coordinator and then began our orientation, which lasted the majority of the first day. We learned all the in's and out's of being an intern at the Smithsonian, received an official tour, filled out lots and lots of paperwork, and then had a chance to meet our individual department supervisors. Thankfully, one of the interns from my department, Smithsonian National Education Outreach, who had been there since January was around for the whole first week to show me the ropes. So this week was definitely a whirlwind of diving right in to all the projects we're currently working on. We have several teacher workshops coming up the second week of June so we are currently hard at work to finalize all the details of those programs.

But that's my first week in a nutshell! A few random highlights that didn't make it in there:

- Going for a run and passing the White House

- Choosing to get off a few metro stops early and walk home from work when the metro broke down... wearing long pants... in 90 degree weather

- Visiting the zoo and the National Cathedral

- Exploring Georgetown and making my first ever trip to Whole Foods!!!

- Receiving my official Smithsonian ID and finding out about all the sweet discounts I get

- Eating lunch at the swanky Native American Museum Café with the other interns

- Walking probably around 25 miles total throughout the course of the week

- Forgetting to transfer from the blue to orange metro line at Rossyln station... and realizing it once I got to the Pentagon. Fun stuff.

Well that's it for now! More to come once some more stuff actually happens to me :)