Dress 9 : Forget the Purple Dress!

Given the small apartments, lack of cupboards and daily shopping sprees, girls in New York tend to have yearly clean outs.  This would involve inviting all of your girlfriends over popping a bottle of champagne, cheese and dip on the table and a bed full of clothes you were willing to part with (to make space for more clothes!)

Today’s Dress came from one of Joy’s clean outs.

When you live away from your real family you tend to make your own out of the friends you have made while living overseas.  Like family they are always there when you need them most.  One day I needed them more than ever.  While on a first date on the 4th of July with an attractive British boy we were chatting over a pint at one of my favourite pubs in New York when I suddenly felt like I was on fire – and no I had not been hit by an out of control firework!  My whole body was burning up, I was lucky that a good old Irish bar tender I knew was on duty and I promptly asked him for a glass of water and that he kept one eye on pouring beer and one on me in case I literarily blew up.  Being an Aussie I thought I’ll be right and promptly stayed at my place in the bar.  After all isn’t it the worst excuse on a first date to suddenly say I have to go home I’m sick!!

After an hour I really felt like I was going to die, so I said the line to my date.  He felt my head and his face was overcome with shock.  He exclaimed he had never felt anyone that hot in his life – I took this both as a compliment .. and confirmation that I needed to get home and to some panadol fast!  My New York taxi ferried me into the night I grabbed some aspirin and fell into bed.  A night of switching between shivering and sweating ensured and when I woke up in the morning things hadn’t improved.  I took more aspirin and messaged Joy and Rachel to please come to my apartment as soon as possible I needed my family!!  They both arrived at 4pm with icy poles, lozenges, water and Chinese food. 

I crawled back in a hoody and coward under my doona while Rachel and Joy discussed what they could do with me.  I tried to keep up the whole I’ll be fine but my temperature was at 103 degrees and didn’t look like budging.  By this stage the girls were really worried so they did what any girl in a crisis does, Rachel phoned her Dad in Oregon.  Rachel’s Dad is famous to us girls as a man who can fix anything and on this day even though he was States away from us we looked to him for a solution. Rachel’s dad also fixes other things – premature babies and helps them to breathe so he was more than qualified to handle a little temperature like mine.  After Rachel explained my symptoms he ordered her to take me to the Emergency room.  Now if I thought Rachel was scary in putting me in line to clear out my clothes, she was even scarier when getting me out of my bed to go to the hospital.  She was able to combat every one of mine ‘But I’ll be fine it’s just a temperature’ and with Joy help me to a taxi.

In the Emergency Room 15 minutes later I was rushed into see the triage nurse who does the preliminary assessment.  After asking me a few questions the nurse looked up to ask “Do they belong to you?” I was like “huh?” and then I realised he was pointing to the window and there were Joy and Rachel concerned faces pushed up to the window!  I claimed them as mine and the nurse advised one would be allowed to come in with me and then they could switch over at any point. 
As my temperature had been so high for 24 hours I was taken straight into the wards and with Joy allowed to come in first Rachel waited for her turn.  I got a lecture from a very camp male nurse that honey when you have a temperature you should not take aspirin as it actually enlarges your brain and you should always take paracetamol!  They monitored me until the doctor could come and see me.  30 minutes later my temperature was still too high but the Doctor came to check me over.  Now as far as Doctors go this had to be the most good looking doctor I had ever seen and he was a cool doctor because he was wearing army pants! – I guess more room to hold stethoscopes and needles. 

He poked and prodded me and advised that my throat airway was actually nearly closed.  After a saliva swab he thought I had strep throat.  He monitored me for another ten minutes and then advised I would need a steroid shot to keep my airways open.  With Joys hand in mine I took the shot and continued to wait for my temperature to drop.  Joy switched with Rachel and after another 30 minutes or so my temperature finally decreased a little.  I was released with prescriptions and pretty pink ER admission papers.  I was on house quarantine for a week and lost a lot of weight – which is never a bad thing.
 
Rushing to get ready for work a few weeks later I decided to pull out this red dress and wear it for the first time since receiving it from Joy.  As I was getting ready to leave my buzzer went.  At 8:30 in the morning I wasn’t used to having visitors so I pressed the buzzer to say “who is it” thinking it must be someone locked out, this tended to happen a lot when people would lock themselves out of the apartment building they would just buzz everyone until someone opened the door.  The person answered back “It’s me” and I’m like “who?” and he replied again “it’s me”.  I didn’t have time to play the It’s me game so I buzzed them in. 

I have a thing called movie moments – moment that would only happen if it was a movie (Taylor Swift song if this was a movie included below to set the mood).  I had my first movie moment on that day because when I opened my front door standing in front of me was my ex-boyfriend we shall call him Boyfriend A (he will have a post of his own coming up I’m sure, so I won’t go into too much detail about him just now). 

While dating Boyfriend A he had a habit of going missing, not calling for days and being an illegal immigrant from Ireland was used to keeping hidden.  This was one of the main reasons I had broken up with Boyfriend A, the actual illegal thing didn’t bother me so much when he explained his reasons for trying to come to America.  I hadn’t seen him in about 5 months and he was one boyfriend I don’t think I ever fully let go of.  So when he showed up like that, that day I was shocked and literary had to sit down.  When he saw me in the red dress, noticeably skinnier, he said “Bub you look amazing, forget the purple dress this dress is much better”.  I had a purple dress I used to wear that he loved. We had a quick catch up of each other’s lives and then he gave me a lift to the subway.  I was so blown away that rushing to leave the apartment I put on two different shoes!!   

After that day I never saw or heard from him again.  Even three years later I still wonder what happened to him.  I have no idea why he dropped in that day or what he wanted,  I guess he will always be an unfinished part of my life.

Thank you Joy and Rachel for being my substitute family , giving me hot dresses like this and holding my hands when I needed it most on that occasion and the many times you held my hand over Boyfriend A. 

Frock Up Fridays continue to be so much fun at work, with heaps more of the girls at work joining in the dress movemoment .. even a boy snuck into this one even though his dress didn't fit he still got in the spirit of my project - thank you Kon you look adorable you totally frock!

Yours in dresses

Skye

Day 9

Dress: Forget the purple dress
Received: 4ish years ago
Price Range: Free
What I like about it: It reminds me of Joy and it doesn’t require ironing!!
Tag Info: Made in USA, Steps,91% Rayon 9% Spandex
Photo Credit: FGreenland & SDobson