5/2/16. The post where I add a p.s. to yesterday's post.

5/2/16: p.s. within two hours after my post yesterday, an unexpected rainstorm hit and the temperature dropped 20 degrees.  So my flare up made sense after all. I guess RSD is predictable (at least sometimes), but only in hindsight.  While it doesn't make my feet feel any better, it's somehow comforting to know.

5/1/16. The post where I tell you a funny story.

5/1/16: since the last few weeks have been filled with rain and illness, I've had HAL going at full strength as a precaution.  And my plan worked pretty well. But as I've mentioned before, I can only take HAL at full strength for so long, and yesterday it officially started driving me to distraction.  So I turned it down last night when I went to bed and I paid the price today.  And it wasn't just my right foot - both feet are flaring up today, with no good explanation. The weather is lovely, I've had a wonderful, stress-free weekend with my patient, long-suffering husband, and I've been wearing comfy sandals.  The unpredictability is what is so insidious about RSD.  But I don't want to talk about that.  I'd rather tell you a funny (and maybe slightly inappropriate) story.  So humor me, please.

As I mentioned in my last post, I made a trip to the emergency room while I was sick.  Not of my own volition.  While I was at my doctor's office trying to get a handle on my respiratory virus, I inadvertently answered "yes" to too many of their sneaky "maybe you are having a heart attack" questions. And once I hit the magic number, there was nothing I could say or do to keep them from sending me to the emergency room.  I knew without a doubt I was not having a heart attack...unfortunately, I couldn't convince anyone in my doctor's office (or the emergency room) to agree that the idea was ridiculous.  So I spent several hours in the ER being poked, prodded, and tested.  (Don't worry, this is not the funny part.)

Once it finally became fairly obvious to the ER doctor that I was not, in fact, having a heart attack, she turned her attention to my respiratory virus and ordered a chest x-ray.  They brought a portable x-ray machine into my room and took an image.  Hey, I'm an actress. I'm always happy to pose for a camera, so I gave them my best Norma Desmond look.  A few minutes later, the radiology technician came back in and sheepishly explained that they needed another image.  (Spoiler alert: if you are uncomfortable talking about ladies' undergarments, this might be a good time to quit reading.) It wasn't because the lighting wasn't right or my makeup was smudged.  It was because I was wearing an underwire bra.  So sue me - I did not wake up that morning expecting to be in the emergency room having x-rays.  He said he would leave the room and asked me to call out for him when I had removed my bra.

No problem.  The ladies who are reading are nodding in agreement.  For you gentlemen who are brave enough to be reading still, here's how it works.  Both arms go inside your shirt, you unhook the bra, pull the straps down over your arms, put your arms back through your shirt sleeves, pull the bra out from under your shirt, and voilà!  Ready for x-rays.  At least in theory, that's how it works.  However, I failed to take a few things into account - EKG wires, a blood pressure cuff, and a recent dose of hydrocodone.  Unfortunately, I was half-way through my maneuver before I made this discovery, which resulted in a tangled mess of wires and bra parts.  And did I mention my blood pressure cuff arm was caught halfway inside my shirt? I spent a few minutes trying to resolve it on my own, which only made matters worse, then another few minutes laughing at my predicament.  When I finally called the radiology technician in, he was surprised to find out it wasn't because I was ready for my close-up. It was because I needed his help untangling myself from the mess I had made and couldn't stop laughing hysterically. (Which then caused me to cough uncontrollably - I was in the ER for a reason, after all.)  He was very helpful and acted like it was no big deal, although I fear I was the star of his social media post later that day. He finally got a good image and I got a diagnosis.  

So, to recap...I had a two-week period where a major wardrobe malfunction was the best (and funniest) thing that happened to me.  Maybe you had to be there, but in my weakened state, it seemed hysterical.  And I eventually got my close-up.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NxG1x0Yq8sU