My close (and not so close) shaves with death:
1. Growing up, there were frequent bomb threats made on my elementary school. In fact, we had bomb drills instead of fire drills. No, I did not grow up in an inner city.
2. I grew up watching the Donny and Marie Show.
3. Our house was broken into 3 times so we had a guard posted out front and bars put on the windows. My mom slept with a billy club - looking back I think she was incredibly brave.
4. I wore a shirt with ruffles on it. In junior high.
5. A particularly awful stomach flu hit me at a high school dance. The ER docs thought it was an ectopic pregnancy - talk about awkward mom moments. I insisted I wasn't, but they still did a pregnancy test. Seriously, I don't think I'd even kissed anyone at that point. Two days later my best friend came down with the same bug and had to hospitalized for dehydration.
6. As a high schooler, I was in a nasty car accident. A teen-ager, who'd just gotten her driver's license that day, hit us with her brand new black Nissan Sentra. She hit us so hard that a passenger in her car left an imprint of her face on the rear of the driver's headrest. Anytime I've had an MRI the reading radiologist freaks out about the degenerative damage in my spine. Apparently, my neck is a walking time bomb.
7. I went skiing in Levis once, and the only instruction I received was to point myself downhill.
8. I was attacked by a serial rapist the fall before I married Mister O. I fought like a crazy woman and got away. Mr. O bought me a stun gun in case I ever came across Mr. Serial's sorry self again. The thing kept discharging in my purse, and I never got to use it. Which is actually a good thing.
9. I've eaten dried squid AND beets. As Lauren would say - sicknast.
10. My first pregnancy was ectopic (what are the odds?) and progressed to 11 weeks. It hurt worse than anything I can describe - even breastfeeding. Luckily, I didn't lose a tube or an ovary because the tissue fell into my abdominal cavity and attached to the outside of my uterus. Tricky bugger, no wonder it took so long for them to figure out what was going on.
11. I contracted food poisoning from the Hard Disc Cafe when I was 6 months pregnant - hoped to die then. I didn't. I still like Chinese food.
12. I used to walk 5-7 miles every morning at the sadistic hour of 4:30. One morning a small pickup truck came careening around the corner and pulled to a screeching stop behind my walking partner and me. The driver jumped out and proceeded to scream obscenities at us and informed us he was going to kill us. It happened the same day as this and I'm pretty sure it was the same guy. We got away. Shortest walk of my life.
13. I've had thyroid cancer. But since it's the "good cancer" (an oxymoron for sure), it's hardly worth mentioning. Next scan is this June - may it be the last one.
Tell me, have you had any close shaves?
