Two of my co-workers and I decided to travel to Southhaven, MS today to see one of the girls we are recruiting. She was performing in her senior play as Belle of Beauty and the Beast. She was so amazing and it was so fun to surprise her and her mom. They just could not believe we were there. All that to say, the show was amazing and I was glued from the first note.
At intermission, we were all talking and I realized my neck was really stiff. That is not too weird for me. My neck is always stiff!
That is where my body has collected stress since I was in high school. And, it is the side of the neck that I hurt when I went skiing in college. So needless to say, it was no big deal and nothing out of the ordinary to me. I thought I had been so engrossed in the show that I held my neck in a weird position.
I reached my left hand up to just grab my neck as I said: “Man, my neck hurts”. When I did I noticed that my neck was swollen. Well, there was a spot at the base of my neck that was swollen; it was raised. That was weird, the skin on my neck filled my hand like there was a tennis ball underneath it.
So I asked one of my friends I was with if it looked swollen and her eyes turned into silver dollars. (She is pregnant and due in July so it was a definite mother type response.) At this point, we are in line for the restroom. All the sweet tea I drank at dinner had arrived. When she said that my neck looked weird, I just started laughing. Which, if you know me was loud and we were in a school hallway.
The ladies in line around us, of course, turned when the Wicked Witch laugh came out. Then with my big mouth just talking, they knew what was going on. I had a cardigan sweater on, so it was not hard to be able to look at it. Finally, we made it into the restroom and I could see it for myself in the mirror.
She was right. There was a weird spot at the base of my neck that was swollen. It felt like something full of fluid or a swollen muscle. All I could do was laugh. Weird things always happen to me. Here I am in Southhaven, MS. Three hours from home. Half of a show to go. And, we are driving home when this is over. Also, I’m the boss out with two of my staff, so I have to be the big girl. And, since I am usually the hypochondriac, I am also trying to make it seem like not that big of a deal.
We laughed and made so many jokes on the way home. They wanted to stop in Memphis and take me to an Emergency room, but that seemed so silly to me. I mean, my boss is a doctor. If anyone is going to push on this thing and figure out what it is, he is the one that is going to do it. And, since we were leaving Southhaven after 10:30 pm, I knew it wasn’t going to be tonight.
I called mom and dad and tried to get some parental advice. It really is a hard thing to try to describe over the phone. You have to make as big a deal as you need to out of it, but when your parents are 7 hours away, you don’t want to make too big a deal out of it. Mom thought it was a colonel under my chin. My sister, got on the phone since she is trained in all this stuff and offered some advice. At this point, I’m chilling in the back seat with my Cherry coke and Tropical Mike ‘n Ike’s.
We made it a fun trip home, singing (and making up our own versions) all the songs from the show. We solved a lot of world problems. Laughed until my neck hurt…oh wait! And, we listened to the studio version of every favorite song from American Idol. We were tired when we got in a 1:30 am, and I promised them that I would find Dr. Kluck when I got into work the next day, which was an important day our office had been planning for a couple of months.
If this is your first time to my blog, let me invite you to check out my 10-year survivor story where I outline my whole journey in 2008.
