Champagne & Cellulitis

No I will not tell you the reason for this obscene title. You make it to the end, you find out. Capiche?

Pardon me for being cliche, but a young man once said “Life is like a box of chocolates.. you never know what you’re gonna get”. Ok Tom Hanks, I FEEL you on that. You know..when you really want one of those creamy caramel ones but you end up choosing the awful custard filling one instead? Talk about first world problems.

But seriously. Life is so damn inconsistent, that we really are better off embracing how unpredictable everything is, rather than stressing about it. Take today for instance. After receiving lots of awesome feedback on how I have been performing over my first 2 months at my new job, I felt the confidence I had been yearning for finally start to sink in a little. To top it off, I had pho with my boyfriend for lunch. I’m not sure which one I was more excited to see. And obviously when you are having a stellar day, you have to finish it off with a quick yoga sesh right?! Totally feed off that positive energy thing you have going. So there I am, drowning peacefully in my sweat, ending in the perfect Shavasana. Thinking to myself, “how much better could this day get?!”. But the universe had it’s own way of telling me to get the hell off my high horse. Because as I get back to my apartment, looking like I just took a 60 minute nap in a sauna mind you, I quickly discover that I have ZERO access to the #1 element of all times. WATER. Yes, people….no shower, no cooking, no dishwashing, no laundry, no brushing of the teeth. And even better, the management at my apartment complex didn’t find it necessary to forewarn us poor civilians on this tragedy. How can such a good day turn to shit so quickly?! WHHHYYYY MEEEE. Effing A Cotton, Effing A.

It’s those moments in life, where you just want to take that “I give up/I’m over it” selfie, right?! See my attempt below.

Wrong! It’s so easy to get wrapped up in this fast-paced society that we live in. But honestly, if you can’t take a step back and laugh at yourself every now and then, you’re only making matters worse. In the words of Amy Poehler, “There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do”. Nothing will ever be perfect. News flash, you DO have flaws. There will always be bad times, but there will also always be good times. Karma always has a way of coming around and giving you what you deserve. The more patient we are, the less we worry and the more we enjoy life! My mom used to always tell me “Worrying isn’t gonna do any good”. The older I get, the more I think I understand what she means. Because at the end of the day, what’s meant to happen will happen. If you’re truly meant to get the caramel chocolate truffle, you eventually will. And if you don’t, maybe you should just accept the fact that that shit tastes gross, and move on to a different high-calorie afternoon snack. I know, I know…easier said than done.

Now for the Champagne & Cellulitis saga:

Oh, where to begin. First off, anyone that thinks they know me is aware of the fact that I consider myself a champagne connoisseur. Champagne with orange juice. Champagne at the pool. Champagne out of the bottle. Let’s be honest, money can’t buy you happiness but champagne sure as hell can. Nothing like finishing a long day, whether it be good or bad, with a glass (or bottle) of bubbly. ANYWAYS, on with my story. So yes, as I have mentioned above, I love champagne. I love to love champagne, and I love to find any reason to “celebrate” with a glass. That’s the first half of the story. So to shift gears a little, last year I joined a coed soccer team with some of my pharmacy friends in San Antonio. Go Team Zwitterions! (For those of you who actually care, Cefepime is a zwitterion, and anyone in healthcare knows that Cefepime is freaking badass). I swear we have friends, ya’ll. So we played games against all of the other healthcare professional students at UTHSCSA on Thursday nights. So much fun! Because not only did we not give a shit if we won or lost, but the other teams treated this league like it was the minor leagues. Chill out bro. Welp, because I thought I was too cool to wear shin guards, the soccer gods eventually got to me. In one of our last games I collided shin y shin with a girl that looked like her name should have been Bertha. Needless to say, I ended up with a battle wound that covered literally my entire lower leg. Gangrene looking and all. A nice black and blue masterpiece just in time for summer. AWESOME. Obviously I had to use it to my advantage somehow, so I convinced my boyfriend that one of my patients at the psych state hospital attacked me. You should have seen his face. You’re welcome babe. Well over the course of about 2 weeks, my battle wound got better, until it got worse. I started to notice a knot forming under the skin, and it started to redden around the area where I had gotten kicked. I’ll just give it a little bit of time I thought. How bad could it really be? Hmm….after my mom and my two roommates at the time, who are in medical school mind you, told me that it was probably cellulitis I finally decided to go to the clinic. Who the hell gets cellulitis from a bad bruise? I was in straight denial. However, come to find out, I indeed had a pretty little case of cellulitis all over my right lower leg. For all you non-healthcare people, it is as bad as it sounds. Don’t google it. So there I am, trying to convince all my friends that I DO have good hygiene and that I DID get cellulitis on my freaking leg from a damn soccer game. Of course they all laughed at me. Only you Hayley, only you. But after a while, it became the running joke. Life lessons from Hayley Gray. Sometimes you end the day with a glass of champagne. And sometimes you end the day with a case of cellulitis.

So the moral of the story, is that we are all in this together. We are all f***ing idiots. Some days we totally fail at life, and some days the light really does shine out of our ass (shout-out to Juno). At the sake of sounding super cliche, the way we handle it all is really what defines us. If life were anything close to perfect, there would be no fun in living at all. But whenever in doubt, you can always ALWAYS enjoy yourself a nice glass of champagne.

*Cheers*

 

xoxo H