Halloween 2016: Broken Foot & Surgery, Pumpkinman 5k on 10/22/16, Uship Mini Trip, Everything 80's Party, Fetish & Fantasy Halloween Ball, etc!

Broken Foot:

Monday night, 10/17/16, I was in my backyard in the dark and ended up falling into my empty swimming pool towards the shallow end. I landed on and broke the 5th metatarsal on my left foot. It hurt like hell when it happened and immediately swelled up and began bruising like crazy on both the top and bottom of my foot. The pain dissipated fairly quickly, however. I couldn't walk on my foot because it all felt wrong and extremely painful when I tried but I'd had something similar happen when I'd played football with Sean, Liz's Kyle, and a couple of other guys earlier in the year. The only differences were that the football injury didn't cause bruising on the bottom of my foot and the pain was a bit less sharp. Still, I hoped this was a sprain and waited it out for a day to try and figure out one way or another for myself. I realized the next night that I probably needed to have it looked at and went into the UMC Quick Care on Nellis to discover the frustrating truth. They x-rayed my foot. My bone was snapped in half and sticking upward. They wrapped my foot up in a soft cast, gave me crutches, and referred me elsewhere for surgery, which was apparently important if I wanted short recovery time and to be sure it healed properly.

A lot of hassle followed that. I was given the run around and forced to deal with a week of insurance issues, constantly calling one number after another just to find a way to get my foot fixed without spending an arm and a leg to do it. (Lol) Quick care had written me a referral for podiatry, which my insurance doesn't cover, so I had to go back in and get a referral to see an orthopedic doctor instead. Later, I got a call from Urgent Care saying they'd given me the original copy and forgotten to take a copy for themselves. I had to scan and email them a copy. I was then, after a couple of days and countless phone calls, referred to someone who wouldn't even be back in Vegas til mid November. I had to make more phone calls to sort that out only to be told that my only other option was to see an orthopedic surgeon who the quick care had gotten to agree to give me a free consult but who could not accept my insurance if he found that I required surgery. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went online to research orthopedic surgeons who took my insurance and found EIGHTY results. I began calling numbers but struggled to get past voice mails and hold lines to speak with an actual person. When I finally did, I was told that, although they accepted my insurance, they could not accept ME. Their reason: my referral was written by the wrong place and, according to them, I could not have a new one written anywhere else. I was told that orthopedic doctors required, without exception, referrals from primary care doctors prior to seeing patients. Unfortunately, these referrals  could only be written by the particular primary care doctor that an orthopedic doctor had some sort of agreement with and the one I'd visited didn't have that sort of agreement with any orthopedic doctors who accepted my insurance and were available. Additionally, I was told that after having my foot looked at by one primary care facility, I wouldn't be able to have it seen elsewhere to get the appropriate referral to be seen by someone who might actually be available to help me and who would accept my insurance. I spent some time feeling frustrated and defeated before it occurred to me to call my insurance directly. By that point, they were closed for the weekend so it wasn't until the following Monday that I was able to get through to anyone. Once I did though, it was less than half an hour til I had an appointment booked to be seen by an orthopedic doctor the following day! I went in and spent a few hours getting x-rays (which looked exactly the same as those from the week prior) done, doing all the paperwork and other preliminary bits, and finally setting up an appointment for surgery the following Monday, Oct 31st (Halloween morning), two weeks after the date I'd first broken my foot. I was actually in favor of just getting a cast or doing something that seemed less drastic than surgery but the doctor who saw me, Dr. Watson, advised otherwise. He said that when he first started as a doctor, he didn't always used to do surgeries on breaks like mine but that the broken bones didn't always heal correctly and took 6 months to heal when they did heal. Now, he always opts to give his patients surgery in cases like mine since, according to him, the surgery only takes 20 minutes and the bones heal much more quickly and more reliably correctly. Anyway, they gave me a funny, protective boot to wear in place of a shoe on my foot and got my surgery scheduled for Halloween day. The boot would've cost me $434. Luckily, insurance covered it but still...that's a ridiculous price and such a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I had to do a lot of running around in preparation for my surgery. I had to get bloodwork done, pick up prescriptions for things I'd need starting right after surgery, go to my pre-op appointment, do lots of paperwork, make a few calls,..but it was worth it! My upcoming, month long Eurotrip complicated things a bit, especially because of the increased risk of blood clots while flying at all, let alone transatlantic. I was adamant about keeping my trip as scheduled though. (I'd paid a lot of money and spent TONS of time arranging it.) Accordingly, the doctor prescribed me blood thinners in addition to antibiotics and pain killers and told me to make sure I didn't sit still for more than an hour during flights.

So I'd broken my foot the same night I was looking into races to do in Europe. I was going to register us the following night to run 4 or 5 of them but after breaking my foot I figured I'd needed to wait to see how long it'd be til I could run again. I managed to get surgery scheduled for Halloween morning, Oct 31st. I won't be able to walk on or put any pressure on my foot for 6 weeks. I left to Europe on Nov 3rd and will be gone for about 5 weeks so pretty much the entire time I can't walk is while I'm in Europe. I'll be going to England, Scotland, Athens, Milan, Venice. Our entire Venice trip is scheduled on foot as there are no roads or cars in Venice and the only transit is by boat or foot. Well, this should be super fun. On the bright side, at least my foot will get better!

Pumpkinman 5k - 10/22/16:

As soon as I got home from the doctor the first night, Tuesday, I sent an email to BBSC about their upcoming Pumpkinman race on Saturday. I'd booked Sean and me to run the race 6 months prior, Sean in the 10k and me in the 5k, but I was obviously no longer in any condition to run on Saturday. They replied unfavorably, however. They informed me that, per their refund policy, they could not refund me, allow me transfer my entry to the same race the following year or any other race, or allow anyone else to run in my place despite the extenuating circumstances.

Race day finally arrived and I spent over 2 hours getting ready. After seeing the Suicide Squad movie months prior, there was no question what I was going to be. Enchantress was such a badass! So dark and creepy. I love The Joker and Harley Quinn and either of them would be my normal choice but I had to go with Enchantress this time. I'd spent a little time maybe a week prior to today making my own little version of an Enchantress costume and today was the day to debut it!

Sean had opted to be a banana this time and slipped into the banana costume we had once we were ready to go.

Danny had offered to join me and keep me company during my 5k. So sweet!

Around 7am, we were all ready and driving to Boulder City for the race. We found some parking and made our way to the race start. (Honestly, not an easy feat tor me by any means.) I had a lot of comments from people who were shocked but encouraging when they realized I was "racing" on crutches. I think "inspiring" was the word I heard most. It was definitely flattering and appreciated but I wondered if knowing that my main motivation was being to cheap to skip out on nom-refundale race entry would've changed their perspective at all. Lol

Anyway, the race got started and Sean ran off in the 10k. 5k started at the same time and it wasn't long before everyone from both races had vanished into the distance ahead of Danny and me. He stayed with me, chatting with me, keeping me company, and making sure I was okay for an entire 1.5 hours til I made it back to the finish! Since the out and back race had quite a few distances and events, including sprint and Olympic triathlon distances, there were people coming and going and passing and coming back continuously and, luckily, it meant that everyone wasn't just sitting around waiting for me to finish.

We'd run into JJ and Jenn (his girlfriend) with their dogs before the start of the race. JJ was there to run the 10k and Jenn was there to cheer him on. During the race, JJ was unsurprisingly the first 10k runner coming back from the turnaround. He greeted us and then ran on to win the race. We saw Sean in his banana suit not too long after. He ran on to finish the race, placing 2nd in his age group, and then came back to join Danny and me as I finished up my 5k. It was tough as hell and took an absolute lifetime but it all paid off in the end. Everyone cheered me through the finish as I hobbled down the home stretch til I was rewarded with a medal, beverages, and other treats! They even had free snacks, food, and beer for us! We fattened and recouped a bit but soon it was time for awards and the costume contest. Obviously, I hadn't won any place awards. I'd meant for this to be one of my most special races of the year. I'd meant to train hard and beast it and, from the looks of it, I would've had a great chance of placing. (I didn't check the results but Sean and I saw the 5k runners and had a good idea of where I would've come in.) Sean got a nice certificate for placing 2nd in his age group though and we both got costume contest prizes! Honestly, only 3 of us dressed up for the contest - Sean in a banana costume, a girl in a some Halloween get up (maybe shirt and hat and other bits?), and me dressed as Enchantress. When it came to a crowd vote, I got the most cheers by far but I'm pretty sure it was just the handicap vote. Lol When the announcer asked a kid who he'd pick though, he chose Sean. I don't blame him! I'd put in wayyyy too much effort and, though my costume was cool, Sean was hilarious in his banana costume. It was so simple but so good! Regardless, they rewarded all 3 of us with identical goody bags. Yay!

Sean and I entered a raffle to win free entry to a New Years race called the Resolution Run. Sean won! I got him all registered at home later. I wanted to register myself as well but I wasn't sure my foot would be fixed in time for the race. Guess we'll see!

Not everything at the race was about the so-called swag, however. Before leaving, Sean and I decided to try a pull-up challenge taking place there on some thin pvc piping. We each got just under half the current record for our gender but I'm happy enough with that!

All done at the race, we drove over to the Hoover Dam Lodge for our last freebie: a beer each at the bar! Then we got some Panda Express, drove home, and watched movies while eating til Sean and I passed out on the couch.

From my prior post about the race:

Hardest 5k ever but I managed to hobble my way to the finish! Thanks to freakin everyone for cheering me on and keeping me going!! Thanks so much to Danny for coming out to walk with me and keep me company for the whole race and to Sean for coming back to walk with me after placing 2nd in his age group in the 10k!! <3 Sean and I got costume contest prizes too. Got free finish line beers and treats and even did a fun pull-up contest. :D 1st and hopefully last race I'll ever do on crutches but definitely made the most of it!

Uship Roadtrip ~Riverside to Tonopah:

We were soooo busy with Halloween stuff, my broken foot, and getting ready for our Eurotrip but we still had to make some money so I got us a couple of Uship bookings and went to pick them up in southern California. It was a quick trip, lots of driving but not much time for stopping. We got to see a couple of things though. First, we picked up some letters, presumably for a store front, from a residence in Fontana, CA. Then, we picked up a wardrobe or armoire from a residence in Riverside, CA. We drove both back to Vegas, got a good night's sleep at home, and went to deliver the letters to a car dealership on the northeast side of Vegas. Next stop was Tonopah, NV. We drove the armoire there, dropped it off, and then finally had a bit of a breather for brief sightseeing. We looked around the town a bit, visited the graveyard near the Clown Motel there, and started homeward. We saw lots of donkeys grazing in nearby fields on the way and detoured a few miles when we got to Beatty, NV to have a peek at Rhyolite. There wasn't much to see of the ghost town, especially as we'd arrived in the pitch black of night and there was no light in sight other than that from our car. The ruins of a few old buildings were plenty to offer us a few pre-Halloween chills though. Would be an amazingly creepy place to try and spend the night at sometime!

Everything 80's Party 10/28/16:

Sean and I had bought tickets to the Fetish and Fantasy Halloween Ball months back. Just a few days ago, we received emails saying that not only would our tickets get us entry to the ball and the associated Lifestyles Expo but that the organizers had arranged for us to get free entry to ANOTHER Halloween party called the Everything 80's Party tonight 10/28/16 at Vanity nightclub at Hard Rock Casino. SO, we dressed up - Sean as a bottle of Jose Cuervo and me as a vampire - and headed over! In addition to free admission, we all got a free with entry. Then Sean and I spent the night dancing to the best and worst 80's music and enjoying the crazy costumes we saw everyone in. They had a costume contest at one point. We weren't up for getting competitive with it this year as contest - winning costumes tend to consume the night and I was having a hard enough time with my broken foot. It was awesome to watch the contest though and laugh at all the funny costumes. There was a Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump giant head duo, Chewbacca, Medusa, the MTV astronaut,.. So may great costumes! The real highlight of the night, other than spending it with my favorite husband :p, was the music! Complete with music videos, they played pretty much every awful song I ever heard in my 4.5 years or so working at Moneytree but they also played tons of incredibly epic songs like Come On Feel the Noise by Quiet Riot, Billy Idol (can't remember which song(s)), and, most importantly, You Got It (the Right Stuff) by NKOTB!!! I absolutely freaked, squealing my head off and scaring half the people in the building, when NKOTB came on! I couldn't help myself. Definitely my first time dancing to NKOTB - my all-time favorite band - in a nightclub! Wow.. By the end of the night, I'm pretty sure we'd danced off every drop off alcohol we'd had during the night. Time to grab some Del Taco and head home to party even harder the next night!

Lifestyles Expo & Fetish and Fantasy 10/29/16:

Today was a day I'd been waiting for a lot of years now - a day Sean and I had decided to finally make happen this year and had paid a total of $130 for. (That was actually the early bird price we got them for about 3 months prior.) Today, we were going to attend the Fetish and Fantasy Halloween Ball for the first time!..Info here: http://www.fetishandfantasyhalloweenball.com 

But, before the ball, it was time for the Lifestyles Expo! Included in the price of our Fetish & Fantasy tickets and also at the Hard Rock, the lifestyles expo was an adult convention where dildos, bondage gear, costumes, whips, and other naughty and even quite unique things were offered for sale. Taking place in one small (for the event type) room with only one or two scantily clad people present, it was SO much smaller and more innocent than I'd anticipated but still had just as many neat things as I'd expected. The best of these was were not necessarily adults items. They were hats! Amazingly whimsical, fantastic, unique, incredible hats! Other things I found particularly worth mentioning were male chastity "belts"/devices and a big, X-shaped, bondage cross primarily made of wood. (Sean promised to make the latter of these for me at home one day.) There were lots of other neat things I'm forgetting or failing to mention here but as there were probably under 30 - perhaps even just 20 - stalls, Sean and I were finished looking around within about half an hour.

Back home, Sean and I used our day in a number of ways til it was finally time to prepare for the long-awaited ball. I spent a couple of hours trying to perfect my Enchantress look for the night and Sean got ready in a funny hat and towel costume with bonus marker drawings on his chest in a matter of minutes. LOL He's such a goof! Once we were all dressed up, we went to the ball with some rum to keep our bodies warm and spirits high!

I think it was around midnight when we arrived at the 10:30pm-4am ball. There was a long line from the event entry all the way to the parking lot but it was moving quickly and some fun, foreign girls ahead of us gave me tacos while I waited! (Yes, actual tacos. They'd bought some to eat on the way in but got full and gave me the rest. Lucky me!)

Like the expo earlier, the ball was a lot more wholesome than I'd anticipated. Though a majority were scarier, funnier, and/or more Halloween themed, they were really no more revealing or sexy than anything you'd see at EDC. There was a stage called Zoo where women in g-strings, pasties, and body paint pranced around a guy in a flap and body paint. Other than that, the naughtiest thing there was the bondage, spanking stage. They had quite a few of the crosses we'd seen at the expo earlier on this stage and they'd employed people to spank you with whips and torture and tease anyone who was game in similar ways all night. There was a long, slow, ongoing line for this that Sean and I joined at one point. We waited, grabbing a few candies from a stage-adjacent plastic cauldron and dancing together almost the whole time to pass the time waiting. At one point though, another foreign girl, I think she was, with her group of friends in line near us started complimenting my costume and my looks and flirting with me hardcore. It's all kind of a blur now but I vaguely remember quite enthusiastically making out with her for some minutes before it was my turn on stage. Then I was escorted up the stairs to the stage and to one of the crosses by a guy who went by Sir Pent. He then proceeded to tie me up to the cross, one limb extended down each leg of the "X", before whipping me til I had bruises on my butt. Descending from the stage after my session, I got to watch Sean receive his punishment from a lady just as rough as Sir Pent had been before coming to join me.

Exploring the place, Sean and I found a few separate rooms to dance and party in. One room was VIP only but it looked small and honestly no more fun than the other two rooms and the rest of the place was fair game! We wandered between the other rooms and the upstairs area of one of the rooms, dancing the night away, boot grinding and getting down! Lol The music started pretty good but got progressively more mediocre as the night progressed but I'd say it was pretty average by the end of the night. Could've been worse!

I got a lot of compliments on my costume throughout the night, had a lot of people recognize it, got a few winks while I was dancing with Sean, and had a couple of people show me pictures they'd taken of me while I was getting spanked. Lol Honestly though, I was just another face in the big crowd and there were a lot more exciting costumes than mine getting a lot more attention. I didn't really think about any of that at all til waking up the next day though. At the time, I was just in the moment, dancing with my sexy husband and making sure he didn't get stolen from me! I can't speak for him but, despite all the sexy costumes we saw, there was no one I wanted more than him there that night. I spent a good long while feverously making out with him as if it were our first week together all over again. It was crazy but amazing! Despite the whole event being more tame than I'd planned for, I had just as much fun as I'd hoped for and ended up going home with the best looking guy in the place! :D

Surgery & Halloween 10/31/16:

I had my foot surgery with Dr. Watson this morning. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink even a tiny sip of water after midnight the night prior, I had to remove all jewelry and piercings (though I couldn't remove EVERYTHING), other stuff. So much prep! My appointment was at 8am for 10:15am surgery. There was a lot they needed to do once I was there but they made a start pretty much right away and before I knew it I was kissing Sean goodbye as he wished me luck on my way into surgery. What felt like moments later, I was regaining consciousness, though feeling pretty woozy, in recovery. I'd put plastic piercing retainers in a few of my piercing holes but found, once I woke up post surgery, the ones in my tongue and nipples had been removed during surgery. The tongue ring had apparently been because I'd ended up choking on it when the anesthesiologist had put a tube down my throat - a misunderstanding as I'd been made to believe I was only supposed to remove all metals and didn't realize anything would be stuck down my throat. Not sure why the nipple piercing retainers had been tampered with and others hadn't but I assume it's to do with other, various things they had to put on or do with my body to keep me safe during surgery. When I awoke in recovery, I was really out of it at first and some of my interactions with the nurses are a bit hazy but I remember I was in a fair deal of pain, abour 3.5/10, and was offered a painkiller or two. I took one and was soon closer to about 2 or 2.5/10. The patient one curtain over from me wasn't quite so lucky though. She was thrashing around a bit and moaning and told the nurses she was having 9/10 pain. Of course, they fixed her up before sending her on her way. Shortly after that, they put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me over to see Sean who was being instructed as to how to care for me during my recovery! <3 Then, they rolled me out to the car and Sean drove me home! Well, he took me for a few errands I needed and wanted to run first but then we headed right home!

Crunched for time before our upcoming Eurotrip, we spent most of today working at home. We eventually went out for a couple more things though including burritos from Chipotle for $3 each to people in costume! Of course, that was us. :D This time, Sean was a whoopie cuchion and I was a banana. Lol I love our costume collection! Anyway, we each got a HUGE Chipotle burrito and took them home to eat while watching scary movies. Then we colored some Halloween-appropriate adult (FOR adults - not porn!) coloring pages I'd found us through Google, had a little rum, snacked on some candy, and carved a pumpkin Sean had bought me from the 99 Cent Store a day or two prior. (The next day, I even baked the pumpkin seeds with salt as a snack to take on our upcoming trip. Delicious!) Then, I gave Sean a very happy ending to his Halloween night with a nice lonnnng massage to thank him for taking such good care of me. (Probably rubbing him raw by this point in the past week or so though.. xD) Put him right to sleep!

Post-Op:

Two days after surgery, I had my post-op appointment. They'd wanted to schedule me for a later date but I'd be leaving the country the following day so this was the best we could do. They did a few things for me like change my foot wrappings and take new x-rays. In the x-rays, I could see the 2 pins/screws holding my bone in place. The bone was now almost perfectly in place and should stay that way as long as I keep all pressure off of it for 6 weeks. I had big, ugly stitches in my foot and the outside of my heel to show for it and there was a hole in my heel bone where they'd done bone grafting, I think it's called, to fix my foot. That would mostly all heal with hopefully minimal scarring though.