So, I know I’m moving blogs around like crazy, and dude, how freaking brilliant am I to switch websites less than a week before a huge blogging conference, for which I bought a 80 bajillion business cards?  But still.  Here I am.  Here we are.

And since this is my new home and I suspect that at least some of your are new to my life, that maybe I should spend a little time introducing myself and the things you need to know about me.

My name is Katie, I’m 26, and I was born and raised in Southern Central California.  I’m not telling you specifically where because you’ll just make fun of me, and that’s what my husband is for.  In 2006 I moved to New Orleans to be with a boy who is now my husband, lovingly referred to as Slappy.

Slappy found himself in New Orleans for medical school and in 2009 got placed in a residency (in pediatrics/child neurology) in Southern California and we made our way back home.  I taught at a private high school in New Orleans for 3 years and have now quit retired from teaching and am about to begin full time graduate school at USC in a health related field.

But none of that really explains the name of this blog, eh?  You see, I am a health train wreck.  Like if Murphy wrote his law in a hospital setting.  On Valentine’s Day 2006 an MRI revealed that my brain had herniated about 10 mm below the hole where my spinal cord enters/exits my head.  Basically, my brain was overflowing (see, it makes sense now, right?).  For several years we watched and waited, and in the fall of 2007, it was determined that we could not wait any longer.  On November 27, 2007, I had brain surgery.

The surgery removed a piece of my skull and the back side of my top 2 cervical vertebrae.  My neurosurgeon also put a small “patch” (called a duraplasty), made of a bovine pericardium (cow heart lining) on the lining of my brain, to give my ginormous mind more room to function.

Aside from a complication in February of 2008 (a CSF leak that caused permanent nerve damage in my left hand) I had 8 months of headache-free bliss.  And then the headaches returned in July 2008 and have been a constant companion ever since.  Some days they’re bearable and unaccompanied by any other bothersome issues, but other times they’re incapacitating and bring along eye problems, coordination issues, nausea, and lots and lots of whining.

I’ve also had two breast biopsies, one non-intrusive, one seriously intrusive, due to typical and atypical ductal hyperplasias and 5 staph infections. (See? TRAINWRECK).

But most of all, I’m me.  I don’t fit into many boxes, I don’t fall into a lot of categories.  I’m average, but not normal.  I’m me, snark and all.  Sometimes I whine.  Okay, a lot I whine.  Sometimes it’s all about health, sometimes health is the farthest thing from my mind.  Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes it’s about screaming at jerkfaces who leave mean comments (don’t be a jerkface).  Basically, you just never know what you’re gonna get.

Welcome to my new home.  Make yourself comfortable, we’ll be here a while.

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