nekosensei

This weekend has been just a whirl of activity. On Friday night,

doomsey and I went to James and Carrie's wedding. I'm sure

doomsey had a good time talking with friends, but I had a blast. There may have been a bit too much alcohol consumed and a lot of dancing.

Unfortunately, that night wasn't too pleasant. I was just starting to doze off when suddenly I awoke to stomach cramps and the runs. I have no idea whether it was an odd hang-over (I usually don't get bad hangovers) or whether something I ate at the wedding bothered my stomach and all the alcohol I imbibed made a small problem worse. I'm starting to think it was the latter, but who knows. Between stomach pain and insomnia (I was too wound up from the wedding and I was looking forward to the next day's activities) , I was up all damn night; I was lucky if I got an hour or two of sleep. I still managed to get up and drag myself to Pagan Pride in Oak Park even though my tummy was still a bit iffy. I wasn't up to eating my normal breakfast so I snacked on some Saltines and drank a fair amount of water. Although I was pretty damn tired, I still had an awesome time with friends. I even managed to convince

doomsey to go with me. It wasn't too hard because he said that he wanted to go to a ritual or a gathering because I was interested in it and he wanted to learn more. (Yes, dooms is awesome).

Pagan Pride itself turned out to be a combination of art fair / performances. I bought a cauldron, some charcoal, a sandalwood fan because it was hot, and Starhawk's The Pagan Book of Living and Dying. We also caught two performances. At the end of the day, I found out that I had won a beautiful pendant at their raffle. I'm definitely going to find a chain for it and wear it. Oh...and

doomsey finally got to see a ritual.

After Pagan Pride, we had dinner at Khyber Pass. I was afraid that Indian food was going to irritate my iffy stomach, but it turned out that I was more hungry from not eating than anything else. I ordered the buffet and was able to eat some of the more innocuous dishes. I didn't have any problems.

As soon as we got home, I got a call from my parents. My sister was in the hospital because she was having chest pains and tingling in her left arm. By the time the news got to me, they had managed to rule out both a heart attack and a blood clot. They kept her overnight for observation and to run more tests. This morning, I called my parents back to see if there had been any more developments and found out that she had been released from the hospital. The doctors believe that she had an anxiety attack of sorts (and she has been under a lot of stress lately). The doctors did order an echocardiogram, but I guess she's not going to get the results from that until tomorrow. I hope she follows up with her doctor and/or a cardiologist to make sure that it's just anxiety and not anything more worrying.

My sister apparently told my parents that she felt "foolish" over going to the hospital and finding out it was nothing, but honestly, it's better to get things checked out and have it turn out to be nothing than to have something wrong and not get it treated. When I woke up after having my embolism, I tried to tell

doomsey not to call the hospital and that we should wait a bit to see if the problem clears up. Yeah, I would have been in deep doo-doo if I had done that because I had another episode of sorts while I was in the ambulance and almost blacked out again. I think the only reasons I didn't faint again is because I was on oxygen and the paramedic told me how to breathe to avoid passing out. So...I plan to call up my sister plan to call up my sister later this afternoon and reassure her that she did do the right thing considering the fact that she has two little ones to look after.

To end things on a less pessimistic note...LINK DUMP!!!

-Hurr durr -- Dumbing down of American education anyone?

-If Historical Events had Facebook Statuses (Swiped from

cedarseed)

-This? Yeah...not a good idea.