Tuesday, August 29, 2017

It Won't Make You Cry. That's the best title I can come up with other than #TentacleHand

I have crazy dreams and nightmares on a pretty regular basis, it’s possible a slight factor into why I sleep so little. Typically my nightmares involves… you know what, not sharing that, I’m going to limit my Holly is here to amuse you material to one story, today!

A little back story because I feel both of these play a factor in last nights sleep disturbance (it wasn’t really a nightmare but it scared me enough to wake me so… not really a dream either, I guess).

About 6 weeks ago, after being punctured by the claw of a cat I was playing with I developed a Pyogenic Granulomas. I had no idea what it was at first other than this funky growth on the palm of my hand that oozed and bled all day. Being me, maybe my backwoods country raising that led to my increased curiosity, one day while sitting at my desk working I took the pocket knife from my desk drawer (Oh come on! I know you have a pocket knife in your desk drawer next to your pens and highlighters, too!) and sliced it off. I mean, really, why not? What was the worst that could happen? (

It bled, a ton, for about 5 minutes. Not enough to stop me from working, lol, I MacGyver’ed a bandage out of Kleenex and scotch tape and kept on working while peeking at it periodically to see if the bleeding had stopped. When it was just barely a slightly bloody ooze, I removed the awesome homemade bandage and took a look at this spot. What happened next shocked me. Right before my eyes, it grew back. I kid you not! I was fascinated and freaked out all at once. But mostly, disappointed that it was still there. A few days later, when it was really annoying me, I took the toenail clippers and clipped it right off again - you know because, why not. This time, holding direct pressure on it to prevent it from returning. Yes, failing completely. After a few minutes, I removed the pressure and watched it again grow back.

A quick trip to convenient care on a Saturday morning after a bee/wasp/spider-something sting/bite took over my arm, I showed the medical person working my hand. She was completely freaked out. You know what always makes you feel awesome? When you freak out medical personnel with an object growing from you hand that they don’t even want to touch and quickly tell you they’ve “never seen anything like it” and have “no idea what it is” before telling you to visit your regular doctor.

That, however, led me to the internet to do some research on this spot that my daughter had now nicknamed “the alien” since it would so quickly grow back, sprouting from my hand like… well, an alien. And that is how I discovered it was a Pyogenic Granulomas, apparently common in pregnant women – something I am not. Pregnant. Still a woman, just not a pregnant one. And a quick call to my Dr. who knew exactly what it was and burned that baby right off! (FYI numbing shots in your hand hurt like a b#tch!)

My hand is still healing.

That’s the first part.

The 2nd part takes much less background. I looked at the eclipse without protective eyewear disappointing practically everyone who knows me yet not at all surprising those who know me best. I didn’t stare at it, I just glanced a couple times out of disappointment through the great cloud cover that it didn’t get dark out like I thought it would 😊

These two quirks of my life I am sure played a significant role in my sleep disturbance but just for fun and your entertainment because it amused me, I’m going to share the dream with you because I know so many of my friends love to analyze dreams... and it's amusing. 

So, here we go… in my dream I was at a family function on with my mom’s side of the family, I’m not sure where we were but it was familiar, maybe the basement of the Lutheran church back home where we have held gatherings… anyway… my hand was bothering me and the spot where the PG was removed. It looked very swelled up and being me I decided to squeeze it to see what happened. What happened next (this was a dream, mind you for those with short attention spans – this was not real life) was bizarre! 

Out of my hand what looked like the tentacles of an octopus were being squeezed out!! (maybe Squidward’s legs is a better visual, Parker has had me watching a lot of Spongebob lately with him)



Flesh colored tentacles with fleshy/clear-ish suction cup sucker things and red berry looking like things on them. The more I squeezed, the longer they got/more that came out.

Somewhere between a state of embarrassed / mortified / fascinated I grabbed the attention of my cousin, Kelly, and motioned for her to head to the bathroom with me. *this should be a sign that something crazy would happen. Not that *we* would ever do anything crazy together but not that we wouldn’t either. As I ran it under water and tried to shake it off, Kelly grabbed some scissors and cut the tentacle things off my hand which caused it to bleed a ton but we felt like we succeeded. Until… they started to grow back. This time, they fell off when I shook my hand really hard making a mess on the floor which Kelly covered up with a rug. *genius*

We knew we had to tell someone as they just kept growing out of my hand so we went to my mom to ask her what the heck was going on. Because my mom is a nurse and knows EVERYTHING. Really. She does. I envy her medical knowledge sometimes. Amazingly up to this point, Kelly and I were completely calm and, well, incredibly amused.

When I got to my mom, I took the towel off of my hand, dangling these tentacle things in front of her face asking her what the heck was going on with my hand.

Very calmly she said, “It’s nothing, Holly. It’s just a sign that you are going blind.” And then returned to talking to my grandma.

I was like… Whhhhhhaaaaaaaaatttttttttttt?!?!!

Which is when I woke up, slightly panicked but still with vision.

NOW, to add a twist into this… when I work up this morning, an hour or so after this – and this is real life, not the dream – I go into the bathroom and look into the mirror, thinking wow, my right eye is kinda hurting… and notice that my the right half of my right eye is completely bloodshot! Seriously. It’s so hot. *eye roll*

So, there you have it, folks. Real life, dream, real life. Welcome to the world of Holly πŸ˜‰ At least no one can say this entry made them cry!

If you can't laugh at yourself... you shouldn't be laughing, right?


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