Fried chicken is hazardous to my health.

This weekend, Justin and I decided to take a break from the craziness of the last several weeks.  I used some vacation time and stayed home from work on Friday.  We intended to go to the beach on Hunting Island, but ended up sleeping instead.  Apparently, we were both quite tired.

So we went to the beach on Saturday.  We threw our swim suits in the car in case it was warm enough to jump in the water, but also grabbed books and video games and a camera, in case we just wanted to sit on the sand.  We stopped at Publix (grocery store) for a picnic lunch of fried chicken, and drove out to our favorite ocean-side view.

It was wonderful.  We sat and relaxed, we waded in the water (I thought it was much too chilly for swimming, though Justin wasn’t convinced), I took pictures (that I haven’t uploaded to my computer yet), and we even ran barefoot a short distance through the surf.  It was fantastic!

We finally made our way back home when I started to get too cold (and Justin was getting bored) and we settled back at the house to relax.  I ate a little bit more of the chicken when I got hungry, and that was apparently a really bad idea.  Because about an hour later, I got this stabbing pain in my stomach like something very sharp was in my stomach and scratching up my insides.  Something like, oh, a chicken bone.

That’s the best we can figure, anyway.  It hurt.  A lot.  So I lay on the bed and tried not to move.  Justin got me the hot pack and some Advil and water and looked up what we should do.  And pretty much the best we could figure was that as long as it didn’t get too painful and I didn’t start having other symptoms, then I just had to wait it out.

Yesterday when I woke up, the pain was lower down in my system, but everything still ached and I felt awful.  We stayed home from church and I lay in bed with the hot pack on my stomach, drinking water, eating crackers, and being bored out of my mind.  I poked at the internet, I read my book, I watched TV.  Now and then, I’d wander into Justin’s office to see what he was doing.  He’d wander in to the bedroom now and then to check on how I was doing.  We took a couple minutes late in the afternoon to do a little fall decorating, but only a couple minutes because I got tired again and had to go lie down.

It was really not very fun at all.  I’m feeling better today, though not all the way recovered.  It hurts to pull in my abs.  Everything in that area is still a little swollen.  But I got up for work and put on proper clothes, so that’s an improvement over the last couple days.

And part of that whole story, other than letting you know what’s going on and to warn you about the dangers of fried chicken (I have no idea how I managed to swallow a bone), is to say that my phone sat in my purse downstairs from the time we got back from the beach until last night at about 10:30 when I went to bed.  And then I saw that I’d missed a text message from Dad, a phone call from Luke, and two calls from Mom.  It’s kind of amazing, really.  Nobody calls me for weeks and weeks, and then when I’m lying in bed clutching my insides because they hurt, half of my family calls.  And I completely miss their calls because my phone is too far away!  How frustrating is that?

Anyway, I’ll try to get back on here again in the next couple days to talk about what’s been up the last couple weeks (I’ve been busy, but it hasn’t been terribly interesting).  And I’ll try to get on the phone with a bunch of you over the next several days, too, because I feel awful about missing you when you called.  But that’s what’s been going on the last couple days!

I hope you’re all doing better than me.