Dogs are Stupid

Okay, not really. Ours is really smart. He can pull a pork chop off a service dish without leaving evidence. No joke. Lately, my parents have been out of town, so the dog sleeps me with me. He has to touch you. For those of you who know m, in general I don't like to be touched for long periods of time. And I'm a restless sleeper. Apprarently, when I shifted position, Kujo didn't like it and kicked me. Numorous times throughougt the next few nights this happened until I kicked him out of my bed because I was mad. And to compound the fact, he's a wanderer in the night and likes to sleep under the covers, so he had to wake you up to let him under the covers. It's a good thing this freaking monster sleeps with my parents because this wouldn't go on for long!

And did it help that every time he went on his nighttime ventures, he stepped on my injured foot which wasn't splinted because doesn't need to be fore night. I learned early on to put an ACE bandange on it. Stupid Dog.

THEN, to top it off, today my dad calls and they're having an open house at his work. This has happened 3 times in my life and he's pretty much worked there my entire life. They do top secret work and are sworn to not reveal anything even if they see it on the sci-fi channel. Cool, huh? So I get to go! Then we realize there is only my car available with keys because my sister hid the keys to my parents car so I wouldn't drive it under the influence. Did I mention I accidentally hit a parked car? Good think it was a Kia with a rubber bumber, so we just have some black skids on our car. And yes...I did leave a note. We were expecting a shipment from Seattle (The parental road trip) to help finish packing up my Grandma's house that was a framed painting my brother brought back from Korea. It arrived. Kujo doesn't like strangers. I tried to grab him by the collar and he lunged to the side. Wanna guess which side? THE WRONG SIDE! So now I'm icing my foot again and sincerely wishing for a couple percocet's to knock me out. But I can't take anything because evidently even Aleve makes me slur like I'm drunk and my family thinks I have a substance abuse problem. I could only wish. I'm too excited to go see my dad's work, so I'll power through the pain, people! Just for love of DAD!

IT NEVER FAILS!

Whenever my father goes out of town, the swamp cooler breaks. I'm afraid of heights and it really hasn't been too hot the past few days, so I've just been sucking it up, but today totally bites it. Especially with that totally fashionable air cast on my right foot! I'M HOT, PEOPLE, HOT!

Good News and Bad News!

The good news is that the foot isn't broken! The bad news is that it's a level 2 strain in two different areas, which isn't good. I get the privilege of wearing an air walking cast for the next 3-6 weeks. I must say mine is cooler looking than the picture I found.



I get the luxury of wearing this wonderful cast for the next 6 weeks with tennis shoes. Anytime I have a "load bearing" situation, I have to put this cast on with tennis shoes. What a pain in the tush because I usually walk about the house in bare feet. Guess I'll have to adjust.

Can I just say this doctor was the ultimate best. He explained that was going on, felt for where the pain was and laughed with me when I lauched off the exam table at an unexpected momen of pain. He then went and relooked at the x-rays and told me the good news was that I hadn't broken my foot. Hallelujah! I love good doctors, they're the best and hard and all get out to find! Too bad he's a sports medicine doctor or I would totally change to him! He was so cute because he was so country...even wore a bolo tie. Awwwww!

I asked him about a massage and he advised against it because the foot needs time to heal before a massage. Bummer. I need to go find some Arnica. Anybody know where I can find this stuff?

The adventures continue

Wednesday, my back started hurting, so I called my doctor on Thursday to make an appointment. She doesn't work on Thursdays in the office, so I got scheduled with another doctor who is the biggest hardass I've ever come across. My blood pressure was low when I went in, so he wouldn't give me any muscle relaxers to help with the back/ankle pain because they drop the blood pressure. Never mind that my blood pressure is normally borderline high "We have to treat you as you come in." were his words. He took a look at my ankle which is black and blue on all sides. Toes, black and blue...left side of ankle, black and blue spot, right side of ankle, black and blue the whole side. The ankle is still swollen but not twice the size of my good ankle anymore...thank goodness!

He then procedes to drill me about how I fell down the stairs, trying to get me to say I was dizzy and fell down the stairs because some of the medication I'm on has dizziness as a side effect. Too bad I hadn't taken ANY pills that night. He keep rew0rding the question like I'm stupid and might finally admit I was high on all the pills the doctor gave me and fell down the stairs. Wrong. Dumbass.

The doctor decides to bypass the back pain like it doesn't matter and decided to give me a slight upgrade in pain medication for my foot, which doesn't hurt (Not what I was asking for, but he thought I was) and said if it's not better in 2 days, I need to take prednisone for 4 days. Now, I went with my dad to the spine doctor who says he never prescribes oral steroids for inflamation and/or pain because it doesn't do any good. When I addressed that with the doctor, he treated me like I was stupid, said he had read all the literature and that he's the doctor and I should do what he says. Say what?! For those of you who know me...if there is medical proof that something doesn't work any better than a placebo...I'm not doing it. I don't care if you're a doctor or not.

So I was sent to the hospital for x-rays because he thinks my foot might be broken even though it doesn't hurt when I walk on it...only when I move it side to side and up and down. I still have yet to hear the results which were supposed to be in today. Great. Meanwhile, my back is killing me. I'm calling the doctor's office tomorrow to see if they have the results of the x-ray.

The only thing he was good for was giving me samples of migraine pills. Explain to me why it's okay to give me a bag full of migraine medication, but not listen to what is wrong with me?!

Biffed it hard

Evidently, walking down the stairs early in the morning is hard! Recently, my dad had injured his back, so we'd been watching him and he's slowly recovering due to a cortisone shot in his back. He's still weak, but too stubborn to stop and recover.

I went and saw my doctor last Friday because I've been having insane anxiety. Well, she decided to try me out on a new fibromyalgia pill. So I'm tapering off my generic anti-depressant and stepping up on the new pill that isn't an anti-depressant but acts in similar ways. Last night, I woke up with a pretty bad anxiety attack and think I might have been hallucinating because I ended up waking up my parents saying something bad was in my bedroom. I've had nighttime visitors, but have always been able to tell them to go away without any problems. Not so last night. So they (my parents) humored me (and slightly ticked me off because I thought they were pooh-poohing me when this was real, dangit!) and I moved into the other bed in the computer room for the rest of the night. After a few hours, common sense returned and I moved back into my bedroom. About 6:00 this morning, I woke up starving and thirsty, so I decided to go downstairs. Dad was in the upstairs bathroom, which is a unique experience.

Well, the first step down, I slipped and fell all the way down the stairs. The dog fought his way free of the covers and came barking, then sniffed my head. My dad opened the bathroom door and asked if I hurt my back (Why my back, I'm not sure, but I guess it made sense to him). I thought for a minute or two that I had broken my ankle, but it's just good and damaged. It's swollen to about twice it's normal size and my knee is slightly damaged, too. This family is just one big walking disaster right now!

Recovery

Slowly but surely, the hair is getting better. The elasticity is getting back to normal and it doesn't tangle as much when I brush it. Hooray!

Downer: My hair will not curl. I hate to straighten my hair. It's a pain and it's short in the back, so it's hard to get the hair to lay right in the back because the growth pattern back there goes sideways.

I tried to wear my hair curly this week to no avail. It turned out to be just a fuzzy kinda kinked look. It's (the hair) trying to curl, but I think I broke the curl structure in the hair by using so much bleach. I've been avoiding straightening my hair because it takes forever to dry due to the porosity and the hair wouldn't comb.

Today, my parents and I were planning on driving up to my brother's house to witness my niece's baptism (I'm LDS or Mormon, whichever you recognize...it's the same religion), so I got up and showered. I'm using silicones in my Redken Extreme line products I purchased to try and repair the damage I've done, so I mixed some shampoo with conditioner in a hair color applicator bottle and mixed it, then applied it to my scalp and scrubbed. This seems to help my hair keep the moisture it desperately needs while allowing me to get the silicones out of my hair. Anyway, back on task. I got in the shower, washed, put some Redken Extreme CAT Reconstructor and let it sit while I shaved one leg. After rinsing that out, I applied some Biolage Conditioning Balm with some KBB Nectar mixed in and let it sit while I shaved the other leg and washed my body. I rinsed, applied some Redken Extreme Anti-Snap leave-in and put it up in a towel (I knew it had to be straightened, so I was trying to get as much water out as I could). I left it up in the towel turban, then switched the sides of the towel and put it up in the towel turban again while I got dressed.

After taking it out of the towel turban, I put some Paul Mitchell Super Skinny Balm, combed it through, then began to dry it. I'm kind of a freak of nature when it comes to straightening my hair. I like to dry it upside down with the nozzle just blowing the hair everywhere until it's slightly damp, then I start to use the round brushes or paddle brush, depending on how long my hair is. Right now it's a round brush. To my surprise, the hair would actually do what I wanted and dried smooth (and pretty fast) and doesn't look fuzzy on the ends anymore. The best part is that it actually moves now! Before, it was in such bad shape that when I straightened it, it just stayed put and wouldn't move in the breeze or when I moved my head. I hate that. Hair should move. Period.

So, I'm starting to think this can work until my hair grows out into curls again. Hallelujah, I say!

Sorry for the boringness (I know that probably isn't a word, but I liked it anyway), but maybe it'll give someone else some hope if they did what I did to my hair.

So, ta-ta for now!

Hair Repair Journey

As you may remember from a couple posts ago, I completely and utterly obliterated my hair's healthy status by trying to bleach out henna. For those of you who don't know, henna is a vegetable dye that is beyond permanent. It took me 4 bleach sessions to get most of it out. Then I recolored. Bad news. My hair wouldn't dry, felt spongy (like cotton candy to the person who ultimately cut inches off in a bid to get it workable) and stretched for miles (okay inches). Hair that is healthy and has the right moisture/protein balance is supposed to stretch (I believe) 20% then return to normal. My hair, I'm not kidding, stretched 5 inches. I'm not even sure my hair is 5 inches long anymore!

I have to straighten, but that was another subject on another post, so we won't rehash my woes of destroying my curls along with my hair.

My sister has two friends who are cosmetologists and I figured I would talk to them to see what I might be able to do to rehabilitate my hair and/or return my curls to a semblance of their former glory. They recommended Joico KPak Reconstructor. I had already tried it. Little to no change. Then they suggested a reconstructor in a little glass vial from a beauty supply (I looked at the ingredients and didn't see any protein, but it promised to have it). It was obviously written in a different language first and had a poor translator. I instructed readers to apply the liquid (really thin like water, but kind of chemical smelling) to the double ends (took me a while, so I'll save you the pain...they meant split ends) first and friction (rub) the liquid in, then start applying up the hair. I did and just let it dry on my hair, though I think technically you're supposed to leave on for like 20 minutes then rinse out. When I next washed my hair, it was feeling better, but still not great.

So then I turned to my beloved people from www.naturallycurly.com. Seriously, I don't know why I bother elsewhere, though I admit the cosmetology consult was probably a good idea in theory. Too bad my hair is beyond the restorative properties of mainstream beauty lines. I posted a question on how to try and repair the hair until it grows out, stop the breakage and stop the horrendous dry time as well as the stretch factor. Wonderful people! I love you! It was suggested (I believe by RedCelticCurls) that I try the Aphogee protein treatment from Sally's.

There are a few of these treatments. There is the 2 minute protein treatment, and what I call the long-term protein treatment. I jumped. I purchased two packets of the treatment with following moisture treatment, washed my hair, conditioned, towel dried, then applied the protein treatment. The instructions tell you to use heat (I had my trusty soft bonnet dryer handy next to the computer) and warn you that your hair will dry hard. I sat with my soft bonnet on for approximately 45 minutes because I was so absorbed in what I was doing. My hair might have been dry at 30, I can't remember.

Taking the bonnet off was a challenge because my hair really was rock hard. Like someone had put epoxy glue in my hair. Usually when the hair is hard, you can work with the hair and break it up a little...not this stuff! I was afraid if I manipulated the hair, it would break off, that's how hard this stuff dried!

I'm a lazy person by nature lately, so I dinked around the house with my helmut head before heading up to shower, rinse off the helmut, etc. I got in the shower and spent a good 10 minutes working the treatment out of my hair. I used a mixture of a slight bit of shampoo and conditioner to "cleanse" the extra protein hardness out of my hair, then followed with the moisture treatment attached in the packet. I must say...I'm none too impressed with it. I would have preferred my Biolage Conditioning Balm. I washed, shaved my legs, rinsed, then rinsed out my hair. I squoze (probably not a word, but who cares?) out the excess water, put my hair up in a towel to soak up the extra water and dried off. I got dressed, took down my hair, applied some Redken Extreme Anti-Snap leave-in and combed through, then left it to air dry again.

It's still a long way from being okay, but the body seems to be coming back and hopefully in time the curls will, too. I gave up the protein for the next shower session in lieu of Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose conditioner mixed with some Biolage Conditioning Balm. Again, I let it air dry because I'm not going anywhere and don't have anybody to impress. The ends are still frizzy and like cotton candy, but it's on it's way. Hopefully after a few more treatments and lots of TLC, the hair might recover a might!