Stop Staring At Me And Answer My Questions!

So for the first time since I was 16, I was jobless.  I have to be honest with you, I don't like being jobless.  I was still in school at this point, so I was putting a lot of focus into that, but summer was quickly approaching and I had tuition to pay for the next year of school, along with rent for my new apartment, so I was starting to panic a little.  I decided to look on Joblink, an awesome site my University has that posts jobs.  I found a job that the University itself had posted for a web developer, developing in C#, a language that I was somewhat familiar in.  I figured it couldn't hurt to try.  I also applied at a job that my friend Ian worked at, because it would be awesome working with him.  To my surprise, I got an interview at both of them!  I hadn't had an interview for a long, long time, so I was terrified.  The interview for the job at Ian's place was a lot of fun, I mostly just talked to them.  They all seemed to really like me and they were all really nice people.    The only problem was I would have to be moving a lot of heavy equipment and with my shoulder that would obviously be a problem.  I had high hopes for it however.

The University interview was scary but awesome.  They had a test for me to take, and then they talked to me after.  The people there were so nice, and I remember thinking that I would give anything to get that job, though I really didn't think I did that well.  I didn't sleep much that night because I kept thinking about what I could have done better.  To my surprise, I got an email back saying that I didn't get chosen for that position, but I did look like a good fit for another position, a User Interface position, and they wanted me to come in and interview for that!  This was awesome for me, because I was really wanting to get into the Human Computer Interaction concentration in school, so it was more aligned to what I wanted to do in my future.  I was ecstatic!  I came in and interviewed, and my excitement towards the topic took over my nervousness this time.  I think I did pretty well!

I ended up getting offers for both jobs!  I was really surprised and excited, especially because this was the first time I'd tried getting a job in the Computer Science field!  I took the University job, not only because it had to do with UI and programming, but also because it was at the University, somewhere that has been one of the most amazing places in my life for almost the entirety of my life.  So far it has educated me, now it has employed me, and in the future it will also be a huge factor in helping my health.  But we'll get to that later.

So I started working at the University.  I met my coworkers, some of the most amazing and understanding people in the world, and got my desk (yeah, I have a desk!!), and got all settled in.  I told my bosses about my health stuff, and they were very accepting of it.  My job there was completely the opposite from the lifeguarding job in that no one would make me feel bad for things I couldn't control.  It was amazing!

The summer went by extremely quickly that year.  I focused on working at my new job and getting settled into our new apartment.  The one thing that happened that was interesting was I got a call that there was a donor available.  I said I couldn't take it because I had just gotten a new job and was on contract for the summer, and was no where near in a good position to get it.  In hindsight, I really should have gotten it.  But hindsight is 20/20.  They said that was fine and that donor was deferred.  The summer came just about to a close, and the fateful August 2010 rolled around.

Josh and I decided to go to the mall in about the second week of this month.  We were planning a trip to Mexico for the first week of September, so we had a couple things to get.  We were walking through the mall, when all of a sudden I felt a ridiculous pain in my right hip.  It was so bad that my entire body got covered with a layer of sweat.  It surprised me, so I took the weight off it and it went away.  Sometimes with my bone disease my joints will do weird things, so I sort of took a deep breath and kept going, because Josh didn't notice anything was wrong.  I took another step, and it happened again.  This time I squeezed his hand and took a deeper breath, so he stopped and looked at me and asked if I was okay with alarm in his voice.  Apparently I had gone white.  I said I was okay, because I seriously thought it was just my hip being weird.  He asked if he should bring the car around and I said no, I could walk.  I wanted to go in Bath & Body Works, so we went in.  About every 10 steps it happened again.  It got so bad that I decided we needed to go back to the car.  It took us about half an hour.  It was terrible.  When we got home I had to go straight to bed because it was so exhausting dealing with it.  It was a little scary, but I've had things like this kind of happen before and I thought I could probably just sleep it off.  Just a day in the life of Kelli in my eyes.  Josh was terrified because I normally didn't let him see things like this.  The most he'd seen was my shoulder surgery from before, so he was used to shoulder injuries.

When I woke up I thought it was better, so I went to work.  I drove there and walked to the office.  By the time I got to the office it was so sore it was ridiculous, so I rested it.  Dad came for lunch and we walked to Mac Hall, then back.  We had to go slow as heck, but I insisted I was fine.  After Dad left I got through about a half hour of work until I decided I was most definitely not fine, so I started trying to walk back to my car.  I made it only about half way before I laid down on the lawn and called Josh to come pick me up.  I wasn't as much scared as I was angry; I don't like things getting in my way of work or life, especially my health, and this was starting to look like it was going to.  Josh came and got me, but he had to work that night so I had to leave the Opaz there.  I wasn't happy about that (they're very strict about their towing here), but we worked it out and everyone started bugging me to call my rheumetologist.  Eventually I did, with a sort of embarrassed "something is wrong and I have no idea what" message.  Then I had to email my boss and tell him I wasn't going to be able to work for a few days.  I wasn't happy.

For the next couple of weeks, I was more or less stuck at home.  A couple of great things happened: 1) I got to be able to work from home, which was fantastic!, 2) I got a cane, so I could move around a little better, and 3) I got engaged to Josh.  It was really quick for the relationship, admittedly.  Oh well.

My rheumetologist got back to me in that time as well, and she got me to call my adult orthopaedic surgeon.  They had no idea what was going on with me, but they thought he would be able to help because it was obviously a "hardware problem" (as opposed to a software problem, apparently!), so I gave his office a call.  The call went like this.  "Hi, this is Kelli, I'm a patient of the doctor.  I can't walk.  You need to see me."  "Why can't you walk?" "...Seriously? This is why I'm calling? My hip hurts, I don't know why." "*sigh* Alright, how's three months from now.  He's really busy." "Not good, how's 10 minutes from now."  Eventually I managed to get in to see him right before we left for Mexico, literally two days before.  Dad came with me.

We rolled in (I was in a wheelchair at this point, courtesy of Josh's grandpa) and I got some X-Rays, then jumped up on one of the beds and waited to see the doctor.  I don't remember if Dad had met him before, but this guy, like all my other awesome doctors, is one of the best in Calgary.  He is extremely intellectual however, so you need to just let him think.  Dad didn't know this though.  So for me this appointment was kind of amusing.  The doctor came in and I told him what happened and my symptoms, and then he looked at my x-rays and just stared.  And then he didn't say a word.  Then he looked at me and stared.  Dad tried to ask a question, so he turned to Dad and stared.  I tried so hard to not giggle.  Then he turned around and got another doctor, brought him back, showed him the x-ray, said something, and then stared at him.  And the guy stared back.  Dad was getting angry at this point and I was trying extremely hard to not laugh.  It was just too much.  Then he said that I needed to get a bone density test and an MRI, and that he was going to actually refer me to this other orthopaedic surgeon, because he was pretty sure he knew what it was, but he was actually better to work on it.  After this was dealt with, I could choose between who I wanted as a surgeon, him or the other guy.  This surprised me; I really like this guy as a doctor, and I didn't think I was going to need more tests, I kind of thought it would be a "oh, you just need a shot of this magic medicine and you'll be fine!" because that's how life works for me.  But okay.  At least I didn't have to laugh now.  He also put a rush on it.  Gotta love it when a doctor puts rush on tests for you.

So it looked like after my vacation I was going to have some fun tests!  But I also had school coming up... or so I hoped.