My First Aid Training Finally Pays Off

At the beginning of the summer, I took a CPR/First Aid class. A few days ago, I had the chance to use my mad first aid skills on none other but my husband, Dan.

I should first say that Dan never follows doctor's orders. It doesn't matter how many times he has been told not to stick Q-tips in his ears or not to pop or pick at his pimples. He does it anyway.

"But it keeps my ears from itching," or "But it makes my zits go away faster," he says because he obviously knows more than years and years of medical science and research.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was that Dan was my first subject.

"Okay, Ms. First Aid," said Dan, who had been outside mowing the lawn, "What do you for yellow jacket stings?"

I should also say that Dan was a Boy Scout and a lifeguard and had to take very extensive CPR/First Aid courses. Plus, he is a genius who remembers everything, so it is pretty improbable that he had forgotten how to take care of a bee sting.

But, like a caring spouse and a First Aid certified crazy person, I ran to the coat closet and grabbed the "Heartsaver Basics" cheat sheet out of my school bag.

"First, we need to check for a stinger."

No stinger.

"By the way, if there was a stinger, I would scrape it away with a credit card."

"Yeah, okay."

"Now you need to wash the sting with cool water."

Dan ran water over the sting  for a couple of seconds.

"You have to wash it with soap!" I commanded.

And he did. So far, he was taking my doctor's orders pretty well.

"Now, we need to put a bag of ice on the area for twenty minutes and watch for a severe allergic reaction for thirty minutes."

"But I have to finish mowing the lawn."

"Do you want to bring down the swelling or not?" I asked, pointing to the sting that was starting to puff up. "The venom could be spreading as we speak!"

"I'm fine."

"I guess you could check in about five minutes and see how it's doing," I conceded with a sigh.

About five minutes later, we realized the ice was starting to "burn" the sting, so I wrapped the pack in a wash rag.

"Five more minutes," I ordered, but he had already started watching TV. Five more minutes turned into twenty anyway.

The swelling did go down, and Dan finished mowing the lawn. But the next day, Dan came home from work with a patch of red on his forearm.

"Why is it so red?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Have you been scratching or picking at it at all today?"

"Maybe . . ." he said.

I gave him a disapproving look.

"It's itchy!"

"That means it's healing!" I said, but I really didn't know whether or not that was true. I was just regurgitating what my parents had always told me about itchy cuts and scrapes.

"I didn't scratch it that much."

"It seems like you disregard everything the medical professionals say about taking care of yourself."

"Not everything," Dan replied. "I just disregard whatever I feel like disregarding."

Despite my husband's lack of concern for his yellow jacket sting, it did, in fact, start to heal. Everyday he would come home from work, and I would inspect the sting with a nod of approval. Pretty soon, I quit the inspections.

Still, occasionally I would ask, "How's your bee sting? Is it red?"

"Only when I scratch it!" he would respond with a self-satisfied chuckle.

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Five Things That Made Me Happy on My Summer Vacation

My Summer Vacation: the British Columbia Edition

 1. Dragging Dan to Butchart Gardens

At Butchart Gardens, Dan changed into shorts in the car.

"If you're going to make me walk around a garden for several hours, I'm wearing shorts," he insisted.

"I hope you don't get arrested our first night in Canada for indecent exposure."

2. Dragging Dan to Miniature World

He actually admitted this was his favorite part of our visit to Victoria.

"It's more than just dollhouses," he said.

3. Not Seeing a Bear in Whistler

From the sound of it, we could have very easily seen several bears. In fact, the community prides itself on living in harmony with its bear population. While biking up a mountain trail, we overheard some hikers tell another hiker that their dogs had just chased two cubs up a tree and barked at the mother. And we continued our ride in that same direction - Dan's idea, not mine.

4. The Two French Canadians We Met at Stanley Park 

They not only loved our Fusion Hybrid, but they were equally impressed by Dan's ability to convert miles per gallon to liters per 100 kilometers. I have to say, so was I.


 5. Victoria Creams from Rogers Chocolates
 
Delicious discovery . . . and you can order them online!

  

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Olympic Fever

My husband, Dan, loves the Olympics. He defends the Olympics to the bitter end. He has chosen not to stand with progressives on this particular issue - that the Olympics have a negative impact on the hosting cities.

"You know, a lot of your liberal comrades don't like the Olympics because money is wasted on new infrastructure that ends up abandoned or unused and because the city is torn up and taken away from the people. And the people have to live under a sort of police state, not to mention that the poor and homeless are often displaced," I pointed out.

"It's good for the economy while it's there," Dan said. "Besides, I love the swimming races."

So it was settled. We would be spending four hours every night in front of the television and more on the weekends or if Dan had the day off. When the Olympics ended on NBC, he checked NBC Sports or MSNBC or CNBC or Bravo to see if those networks had any additional coverage.

Also, as Dan informed me, "They are streaming it live on the Internet, so you can watch it in real time, in the middle of the night even! It's kind of weird though because there's no announcer."

Last Saturday, I came home from the closing of Willy Wonka, Jr., a youth musical I had been music directing for the summer.

"I've been lazy," Dan confessed, "watching the Olympics all day."

The rowing competition was on at that moment, and Dan had absorbed all sorts of fun facts about the sport such as:

"The women on the rowing team eat 5000 calories a day. It's one of the Olympics' most strenuous sports. The track athletes told the rowers, 'You're in the wrong sport,' because it's such a hard event."

"You really would watch any Olympic event twenty-four hours a day if you could, wouldn't you?"

Later in the day, I overheard Dan as he read an advertisement on Facebook.

"'Is the Olympics inspiring you to get healthy?'" He answered the ad with, "No, it's inspiring me to sit on the couch."

At first, Dan was reluctant to even go on vacation. Unfortunately, the only time we could get away was right in the middle of the Olympics

"We were out of town during the Olympics four years ago," Dan lamented. Then he added with an sigh, "Swimming is the first week though."  

Of course, Dan is not the only Olympic maniac in my family.

"This will be a tough two weeks of avoiding Olympic results," my brother posted the other day. "I will have to avoid Facebook, avoid turning on ESPN and seeing the scroll at the bottom, and even avoid making eye contact with my wife because she will already know all the results too!"

This makes my brother sound very busy, like he is someone who works so hard he has to record the Olympics and watch it in his spare time.

But as my sister-in-law explained, "He wants to avoid the results because London is nine hours ahead of us, so people can find out who won before it is televised."

Although four hours of television a night is not my idea of a good time, I let Dan be the attentive Olympic viewer while I blog or read or check Facebook . . . until women's gymnastics. Don't even think about interrupting my women's gymnastics.

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Yet Another Hiking Story

NOTE: In Jill's Words is taking a break this weekend. This blog post was originally published in September 2011. Please feel free to take pleasure in my humiliation. 

 
I thought I would say my final farewell to summer with one more hiking story. You might have guessed from my previous hiking anecdote that adventure ensues wherever my foot treads.

This time, my husband and I hiked to Mill Lake. In fact, we had originally planned to hike the Mill Lake trail in July but decided instead to venture to Norton Lakes when we saw the high water in Prairie Creek. (Prairie Creek crosses the Mill Lake trail.) Of course, that was a brilliant choice, considering the water was so low at Norton Lakes. (Did I mention my last hiking blog post was entitled In Which I Discover the Perils of Hiking During a High Water Year?) After fording the creeks and trekking across snow on the Norton Lakes trail, I was no longer allowed to use "too much water" as an excuse to turn around and head back to the car.

There were three creek crossings on the Mill Lake trail. The first crossing was at the trailhead, and as I found myself suspended on a log a quarter of the way across the creek, I thought about telling my husband, Dan, "Too bad. Change of plans. I don't feel like hiking today after all."

I was about to tell him this - very loudly - when Dan took out the camera. The last time Dan "took out the camera," he ended up recording one of my most notorious acrophobia meltdowns. (See Exhibit A.)

"STOP!" I shouted. Dan was already across the creek. “When I giggle, and I’m frozen on a log suspended over water, it doesn’t necessarily mean 'He, he, he, I’m so happy to be here with my witty, funny husband.' It actually means that I’m scared to death. I giggle when I'm nervous. It's the way I deal with anxiety.”

"And you talk a lot too," Dan added.

He put away the camera, mostly because he knew if he didn't come help me across the log, I might stay there all day.
On the way up the mountain, Dan had to escort me across each creek crossing while I whimpered things like:

"I can't move. I need help."

"I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it."

"Why do you always make me do this?!"

After the final crossing, I exclaimed, probably louder than usual, “'Creek' is not a good description for this body of water. How about we say it's a whitewater rapid-ish sea of foamy waves cresting at 70 feet -- ”

"There are people up ahead, Becky," Dan interrupted my eloquent oration. "It's time to dial back the crazy.”
Luckily, we were out of earshot of other hikers when we came upon a pile of fresh (extremely fresh) horse manure on the trail. Flies covered it, resting like frogs on lily pads. This sight even grossed out Dan - invincible, outdoorsy, superhero Dan. We hesitated, trying to ascertain the least disgusting way of getting around it.

“RUN!” I yelled.

We ran across the trail, screaming and flailing our arms (actually, the screaming and flailing was just me) as flies swarmed around us like some B-grade horror movie.

On our way back down the mountain, I was able to cross the creeks without much help from Dan. I even made it across one of the creeks completely solo . . . while hanging onto an adjacent log and crawling on all fours.

“I did it all by myself!" I said with pride as my feet touched dry land. "That was good, huh? It’s okay I had to go on all fours, right?”

Dan paused.

“It wasn't very graceful,” he finally said.

“I wasn’t going for graceful. I was going for survival.”

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