Stressful decisions

They say that stress is a controllable feature of your life.

Right now I'm inclined to agree with that about halfway. Half of my stress is school and final related and the other half is illness induced. I managed to catch a cold Friday night which put a serious damper on studying for my final. I know, I know, I've known for months that I would have a final this Monday and I could have been studying ahead of time but between school and work and everything the free time just didn't present itself.

Which meant that I called out of work on Saturday and slept for about 36 straight hours. I really should have gone to work but it just seemed like poor judgment to work in a hospital with a fever of 100.5 when I was coughing and sneezing all over the place. I'll probably still get written up, but my health is important to me as well as not spreading germs all over a bunch of people who are already at risk.

Sunday I did my best to study. Against the fog that is cold medicine and fever I managed to submit my child psych final and read through all my notes for this nursing class. But that was it, and I feel that was just a skim coat of all I needed to learn.

The test this morning confirmed that feeling. I guessed way more than I feel comfortable doing. I know I only needed a 60 to pass the class and it was a 100 question test but I'm still feeling paranoid. It's always on the tests that I feel good that I do poorly, so maybe on this one, where I feel bad I'll do okay. I wont know until tomorrow afternoon. Or earlier if they call me and tell me I failed and I'm out of the program... aagh, nursing school is so much more pressure than college was. :(

I'm also stressing about money and about the plan I had in progress for the next year or so.

I had everything figured out until I found out that I wont be receiving a large chunk of change from my jobs tuition reimbursement program. So now I'm stuck scrambling to get into a microbiology class for the spring semester because if I can get into it then at least I have some time to weigh the options of doing the traditional nursing program or doing the fast track program.

It's a big decision and will put a lot of pressure on Jim and I over the next year. If I do the fast track then I will basically be forced to leave my job once the summer starts and rely on whatever loans I can get and what support my family is willing to offer. BUT I'd be an RN by December (That's ONE YEAR FROM NOW!) If I go the traditional route then I will be able to at least work through the summer before I need to reconsider the whole working issue but I definitely wont be an RN until June (18 months...)

I had intended on doing the traditional route and graduating in June because I was supposed to receive tuition reimbursement from my job that would have paid for just over half the program. Now the policy has changed and I wont be receiving any help for the next year.

So what do I do? Any ideas or suggestions? Do any of my wise readers have some suggestions? I don't know what's the better plan...

The idiocies of youth.

The punishment for hanging up Christmas decorations outside alone is that you are clumsy and trip over a wall and twist your ankle and knee and fall on your face. The punishment for subsequently favoring said twisted ankle and knee when you have clinical for 7 hours and work immediately after for 9 more hours is that you wake up in the middle of the night after collapsing into a much needed sleep with a charlie horse from hell. I'm pretty sure I didn't scream in agony this time, but that was essentially because I was too tired to wake up enough to acknowledge my own pain. My calf is still knotted up into a tiny ball of pain, but at least my knee and ankle don't hurt as much anymore. Oh the life of a nursing student.

Surviving the holidays.

Determination is the name of the game.

In 13 days I will be done with my first semester of nursing school. I have a B+ right now and I'm happy with that. Going to be studying hard for the final because I am very close to being able to get an A and it would be nice to pull it off but I'm not going to kill myself over 2 points.

It's been a bit difficult the past few weeks. Dealing with Jim's Mom being an ass and trying to come to terms with the holidays without Dad and with Russell far from home. Worrying about my Mom spending her birthday alone. But mostly just selfishly mourning the loss of all that was, all I took for granted.

I still expect to go home to the wacko Christmas tree Dad has picked out. Or go to the tree farm with Russell and try to find the most perfect tree we can just to spite Dad's love of the slightly off tree's. I expect the house to smell of cigar smoke and pine and wood smoke. I expect greasy flannels in the laundry room and Russell's room to be littered with candy wrappers. Christmas dinner is the four Ehrets's and Jim, with Danny and maybe Bob popping in, with Grandma and Grandpa Ehrets and Grandma McNeely, with Alice and John and Seth and Caity, with Pete and Yo, with Phil and Claire and even Aunt Gert. With the family Yankee swap where all the old ladies are too polite to steal anyone's gifts, even if it means they go home with men's cologne. I expect my Mom to be making dinner and Dad to be helping out with carving and doing the dishes and then hiding from the inlaws. I expect Dad to be in his Grinch teeshirt and Mom to be putting Kenny G on the stereo.

I loved Christmas because the whole family got together. We got to laugh and talk and eat and just be a big happy family. All of that is broken this year. Russell's in Iraq, Dad is dead, Grandma McNeely and all the Smigelski's are going to be in California, Phil wont be around because Aunt Claire is in the hospital struggling to recover from surgery, Gert's health has her trapped at home and Grandma and Grandpa wont even leave the house for dinner because of Grandpa's bladder cancer, my Aunt Marie wont leave her house for a holiday since her husband died and I can barely look at Jim's Mom let alone feel apart of her family. So this year for Christmas I feel like I've lost everything. I feel like I have no family left, like it's going to be Mom and me sitting around alone for the rest of our lives. I feel like we have no one.

I miss my brother and I miss my family. Most of all I miss my Dad. I keep find myself thinking I have to figure out what to get him for Christmas and then I remember that I don't, he's dead.

Ugh, I have to stop this.

Take it a day at a time, minute by minute. Dad's not coming back, I have to do my best and make him proud. I promised him.

Two more weeks of nursing school. Two more weeks to do it. Keep going. Get up every morning and just go. Survive. Can't collapse yet.

Planning out the school year.

I went digging around the Bridgeport website and found the academic calendar. It's so nice to have the class dates for the next 9 months or so. Lets me see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I finished Nursing 102 on 12/22/2010. That is THREE WEEKS from today. :D Huge grin here :D

Then we get two weeks off for the holidays to actually breathe, unwind and relax.

January 4th we start Med-Surg nursing. I'm sure that's going to kick butt, but I cannot wait until we get there since that's where I work. I'm know I'll learn so much that will help me in my job. That lasts for two and a half months and finishes up March 18th.

Plus! Then we get a week of for spring break! Wheee! (3/19/11 - 3/27/11)

Nu-105 is Pediatrics and Maternity. That's a quick and dirty class that only lasts from March 28th to April 29th. One month quickie. That will be interesting I'm sure and finishing that class means I'm officially done with Level 1 of nursing school!

We start level 2 with Beginning Management of the Client right after Level 1 ends. It's considered a summer class but it runs from May 3rd to June 3rd, another 1 month quickie class.

After that one though we are off the rest of June, July and August and go back September 6th for Psych.

It makes it a bit easier to deal with breaking things down into smaller clumps like that. And it's certainly nice realizing we get 3 months off for the summer. I've been debating taking Microbiology in the spring or in the summer, but knowing I get so much time off in the summer I think I'll definitely take it then instead of stressing myself out even more this spring.

Things I'm thankful for:

Jim. My hubby, best friend and partner in life. Who has stood by me this year when we've had incredible highs and lows. Stood by me through depression, anger and grief. Through school stress and family troubles. Stood by me and held my hand and helped me keep going.

My family. It may be smaller this year than it was last year, and we're certainly spread across the globe this year, but I've been lucky a long time. My Dad was a huge part of my life and loved me and got to see us get married and see me get out on my own. My Mom is one of my best friends and we've gotten much closer over the past year, despite the distance. Russell is an inspiration to me, pursuing medicine and defending our country at the same time. I've got a few new people in my family this year, a brother in law and essentially a sister in law and the in-law parents (even if my MIL is a PITA.) I'm lucky to have them.

My friends. My dinks means the world to me, those crazy people who are spread across the country. Even though we don't get to see each other very much anymore and our lives keep us busy I know we could all still get back together and fall into a conversation like we saw each other yesterday. I know those people would do anything for me and I would do the same for each of them.

My job gives me a reason to get up every day. I love it more than I ever thought it was possible to love a job. You would think that taking care of people would get old or feel degrading, but I only ever feel grateful that I can help someone else to feel better. That I can be that source of comfort.

All the opportunities I've been lucky enough to have. I'm going back to school for my RN, I can afford to work part time while I'm doing this. I was able to get a bachelors degree. I was able to travel outside of the USA and across it. I've known love and friendship and family. I've experienced NYC, the Jersey Shore, Disney World and the Adirondack Mountains and many other wonderful things.

I have a lot to be grateful for. I just want to say thank you.

Mommy Dearest is back at her tricks.

My mother in law is back at her old tricks.

This year Jim and I want to host Christmas at our place. I've been thinking about it for a long time and really wanted to get to have the family over at our apartment. I've discussed it with my Mom and we both thought it would be really nice to do something different this year. It's going to be hard enough without Dad and with Russell in Iraq we just thought that a totally different tradition would make things a bit easier.

I've been asking Jim and his father to discuss it with Edna for weeks. Al is all for the change but we've been afraid of how Edna would take it. I knew she would either say "oh yeah, what a great idea" or "Um, no honey, Christmas is MY holiday." No ifs and or buts about it.

On Saturday I stopped by their house on my way home from work since I knew Jim was going to be there. He was supposed to have talked to her but when I'd gotten there they hadn't brought it up, so I waited for a moment alone with Edna and then asked her. I told her I really needed something different this year and my Mom as well. I asked her if she would consider letting us host and that I would love it if she would be willing to help us. She seemed to hesitate a moment, so I told her to take some time and think about it.

Instead of actually taking some time she turned around when Jim and Al walked back into the room and asked Al what he thought about Jim and I having Christmas at our house. Al had been in on it from the start so he basically started jumping up and down, grinning and turned around and hugged me, saying "Thank you! That sounds great to me!"

So after that Edna went on to say how she wanted to give us her Christmas-y china set and that they have a card table we can use to seat people. She also started listing off religious decorations she wanted us to have. And how on Thanksgiving we'll announce to the family that Christmas will be at Winter Street this year.

I left the house ecstatic, feeling that things had gone amazingly well.

If only I'd known about the drama that started that night after Jim left and then kept up when Jim went back by the house on Sunday.

As soon as Jim walked in the door Edna started on him about how she was insulted that we are taking Christmas from her. We ganged up on her and stole her favorite holiday. We don't understand how she's had a tough year too and she's always compromising on the things that she wants. She's always expected to give things up to make us happy. It would be fine if we took any other holiday except Christmas because it's her favorite. No one has been there for her this year when she was sick and we didn't visit her when she had her surgery. My Mom has never even seen her house and that insults her. And from there she basically devolved into a screaming maniac and locker herself in her bedroom in the dark and wouldn't speak to anyone. She's just going to sit home on Christmas and we can do whatever we want. Her family is already small and now we're going to destroy everything.


Yeah.

After calming down when I heard all of this from Jim my basic thought is that I am now daughter in law to the worlds most selfish woman.

She never compromises. Unless you consider her starting dinner at 1pm instead of 1:30 as a compromise because I have to be at work at 3pm. She has never been okay with the fact that I occasionally want to have a holiday with MY family and that Jim wants to go with me. That I moved two and half hours away from my family and never get to see them means nothing.

The fact that it would be all the same people that go to her Christmas dinner with the single addition of my Mom makes me confused as to how we're destroying her family.

The fact that my mom has spent all of 12 hours in Connecticut since I moved her over a year ago means that she should be personally insulted that Mom hasn't visited her house. And half of that time was when my Mom came to my house was with my brother a week after Dad had passed away to pick up her old couch. And both times she visited we've asked if they wanted to get together and Edna has had other plans.

We never compromise. Yes well I guess you could say that's true in a way because she will never budge an inch to LET US reach a compromise. We either do whatever she wants to do or we don't get to go. If we want a holiday dinner it's always at her house at 1:30pm, rain or shine, no budging that time or working with anyone else's lives. She wont TELL me that she didn't want to give up Christmas, she just agrees to my face and then talks trash when I'm not around.

And the fact that 'no one' was there for her when she was sick. She got sick at the same time that my Dad was dying. Jim left me the night that Dad died to go home and be with her for her surgery. So yeah, I personally was not there for her when she was sick, I was at home helping my Mom plan my father's funeral. I'm a horrible person and I should suffer forever.

The fact that I asked her ALONE without Jim or Al around is ganging up on her. That I asked her for something that I need, something for me. I need a year that radically different from every other year. I need to not be at home looking at Dads empty chair or thinking about Russell in Iraq or seeing my grandfather weakened from radiation. I don't really see where a post menopausal woman needing a hysterectomy is the devastatingly horrible event that outstrips losing your father at 25. But I'm a selfish bitch, so what do I know?

This kind of bullshit just makes me want to tell her NOT to come to my house. Don't come near me or my house or try and have anything to do with me. I'm going to have a Christmas dinner and she can come or not come as she likes. I will sit home with my Mom if she wants to have her very own dinner with HER family, I don't even want to go to Thanksgiving. I'm done inviting them out for dinner (which I do at LEAST once a month because I feel guilty that we don't see them enough.) I'm sick of accepting her stupid gifts and NO I don't want your fucking nativity scene; take the hint that I'm NOT religious and don't want your damned Bible thumping stuff. So stop shoving your shit on me every time I see you.

Dx: Life. Ineffectual Coping

I've been thinking about how nursing school's different from traditional academia. Yes we have exams and lab but it's nothing like a science class lab or anything I've ever experienced. We're assigned hundreds of pages to read each week and without fail each week I do not do it. It can't be helped, maybe if I didn't have a job and had no aspirations for anything resembling a life I would be able to get all the reading done, but that's not the world I live in.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do occasionally peruse my texts, and I carry my ATI books with me almost everywhere, but most of the time the dozen or so books that are 2000 pages long and weigh 10 lbs a piece... are decorating shelves. The lecture outlines tend to contain all I need for the tests. So long as I payed attention in class and took good notes I tend to do fine but even then I usually feel slightly like I'm training for the Olympics but I don't know what event I'll be competing in.

Take this exam for instance.

We spent 4 hours of lecture time going over medication types and odds are I wont be asked anything about the meds, the side effects or the contraindications that was 80% of the material. Odds are I'm going to get 4 different questions on whether or not certain meds should be taken with food or water or whatnot because those are the common sense things real nurses need. It's utterly useless to try and remember all the side effects they list for anticoagulants because when I actually get assigned an anticoagulant I'll inevitably find 17 other side effects that weren't listed and three that were don't fit this med.

It's incredibly frustrating at times.


I'm trying to take school in stride and adapt to this new way of learning but there are times where I miss the comforts of the past year. We didn't have a lot of money, but enough to pay the bills. I had time to go home if I wanted to, time to relax and actually enjoy my hobbies. Time to work out and time to sleep!

Now I barely feel like I have time to breath without someone else wanting something from me.

They expect more from us at school, or someone needs me to switch at work or wants help on their homework or help with their kids.

My online class suddenly requires us to come in for observations and the class I need to register for in the spring is filling up quickly but I don't have time to go sign up for it.

I have guilt spilling out of my ears that I haven't sent my brother a care package in Iraq yet, that I can't get home more to keep my Mom company, that I can't be with my grandparents as my grandfather is going through radiation, that I can't call my friends more often, that I can't help my husband out more around the house.

I'm stretched so thin that I feel inadequate at life right now.

They say to give it your all. Give it all you've got. I'm trying so hard to do that but there just isn't must left in me right now. I gave it all away, lost it, when we lost him.

Saturday marks six months since Dad died. Six months since one of the pillars of my life faded away forever. Six months that I've spent empty.

I get so angry sometimes I want to rip things apart.

I've done things right. I barely ever got in trouble. I did good in school. I didn't drink or do drugs. I went to college. I worked as much as I could. I met a nice guy and we got married. I decided to try an new career before wasting more money in school. I didn't have any children I wasn't prepared to care for. I found the career I was meant to pursue and I'm going after it.

But none of that matters anymore. When we found out Dad was dying I would have given anything to have had a child in high school. To have been able to let my Dad be a grandpa and give my kids the opportunity to know him.

My Dad died and I've always felt that he wondered where this book-nerd daughter came from. With few friends and even fewer boyfriends.

It's only now, in this depression that I can see how I truly am. I miss the outdoors and the solitude that we had in NY. I miss hiking unmanned fields and woods and following animal trails to the lakes and brooks. Flying kites over the hills and wading down frozen streams to catch minnows in the pools.

I hid myself in books because I dream of fantastic things. I wish there really were dragons and hobbits and magic. I used to stand outside during thunderstorms wishing for the power to control the weather. I'd fly a thousand miles if I only had wings.

I miss singing. Uninhibited screeching at the top of my lungs. No concern whether or not I was on pitch or disturbing the neighbors or forgetting the words.

Most of the time I don't like to listen to music now. It reminds me of home. It reminds me of Dad. I listen to books on tape a lot. Hide in that reality instead of this one.

This reality is lacking.

One more day.

Same old tune just a new instrument...

I finish my first nursing class on Monday (well, mostly.. i have a five minute long evaluation on Tuesday with my clinical instructor but that's it!) I'm hoping I can improve on my last test grade and come out with a strong B. I would have liked to be in the strong A area but after getting an 82 on the last test and an 88 on the first one I'm gonna just go for the B and not add the extra pressure on myself of NEEDING the A. It's been something getting used to nursing school and coming to grips that this scholastic experience is not the same as all my others. I am working three days a week and still coming to grips with some significant life changes. I cannot expect myself to get A's on every test and every paper or project. This does not mean I will be a bad nurse. I'm hoping this means I just come out of nursing school as a sane one!

I'm not going to lock myself in the house and study every moment that I'm not working. I've had a hard enough time making friends in Connecticut and now that I'm getting to know some of my classmates and really enjoying their company I'm going to enjoy it. One of the big things losing my Dad taught me was that you have to do everything to can to enjoy every day as it comes because you never know when your last days will come rolling around. I don't want to just survive the next two years, I want to live them and embrace them. I'm sure they will be a trial but I want to look back on it and smile that I didn't just lock myself in a box and muddle through. I want to LIVE the way my Dad would want me to. I want to meet him again in 60 years and have him walk up to me and say "Daaamn girl, you did great!"

Jim and I went to Boston last Friday for the Jimmy Eat World concert. Even though we just drove though the city for the show and then back out again I felt like Dad was with me the whole time I was there. He lived in Boston when he was younger for a while and I think always wished he could have gotten back there. I fawned all over that city... it was beautiful... even in the rain.

Five months. It feels like a thousand years and yet no time at all. I still wish we had one more day.

Starting over.

I feel satisfied in myself today. It was a good day. I was a fully functional human being, which probably shouldn't be considered an actual accomplishment but after how I've been lately, I'd say it definitely is one.

I managed to get up on time and get to class in time to snag a good seat in lecture. Actually payed attention throughout the whole 8 hours worth of lecture (well... 95% of it anyway, or maybe 90%... but definitely way more than last week!)

But the real feat was when I got home. I actually managed to make dinner, wash the dishes from dinner, fold and put away about 1/2 the laundry, organize a few things, read a chapter for my nursing class, redo an assignment for my child psych class and dig out my few Halloween decorations. And I feel mostly human. I'm doing a forced limit on my television time. For every half and hour I spend watching TV I have to do an hour of studying or cleaning. I tend to wallow in television when I'm depressed so I need to stop letting myself do that.

I'm trying harder to help out around the house. I've been seriously lacking when it comes to housework for the past few months. I just felt like I had no time for cleaning because of grief and school and depression. So Jim's been picking up all the slack and on our anniversary we had a talk about how we were both feeling about our life and marriage to date. The overall consensus was "Yay, we made it one year and still love each other!!" but underlying that was the fact that Jim has been feeling taken advantage of because he's been doing all the housework and I haven't helped at all. Which is hard to hear, but pretty close to true. He never complained before so I never accepted it as a problem and this was a wake up call. It ISN'T fair of him to do all the dishes, watering all the plants, feeding the animals, doing the laundry, changing cat boxes and taking the trash out. It's not that I ever told him to do those things or that I said I wasn't willing to do them just that I stopped doing my share of them a few months ago and he picked up all the slack. So I'm making a change.

I want to do better at life at home as a wife and partner and roommate and I want to do better as a nursing student. I'm trying. It's all I can do.

random rambling

Had the most random conversation ever tonight with Jim's brother, Tom. Good, but completely random and only slightly awkward. It was kind of nice getting to talk to someone... I don't want to say new, but someone different. I've kind of felt all along that Tom and Beth get me a bit more than Jim's friends get me. I think I told them once that it was nice hanging out with them because I didn't feel like the biggest nerd in the group, and it was nice being a group where nerd isn't a derogatory term. I don't really feel like I need to watch what I'm saying around them either. I don't have to worry about offending them.

I'm on the edge a bit the past few days. I can't tell if I'm coming down with a cold or if I'm just drained from working and school. It seems like as soon as I come home and sit down all the energy drains right out of me and I pass out. I only sleep for a few minutes but I feel incredibly lethargic the rest of the day. And I can't sleep at night, even though I've been taking sleeping pills. Grrmmm :(

What in the hell should I do/get for Jim for our one year anniversary?? He let drop that he was getting me something and now I am panicking because I have no ideas for him. We're going to the Big E with his friends the day before so I don't know what the hell to do special for us.

Both kittens have a clean bill of health. Vet says they're 11 weeks old. Cute seeing them race around the apartment now, wrestling and jumping on each other.

I'm so tired.

bored. so incredibly bored.

I'm sitting in the worlds longest lecture. With a woman who has a propensity to over-talk every single issue until you want to bleed out of your ears. I don't even want to pretend that I know what she's talking about. Something about assessment? I'll read the emailed notes and review the reading when I get home. But she has been giving us examples and stories for every single statement on the notes! It's a little excessive. Especially since half of the illnesses, words, medications, procedures she is discussing mean nothing to the class as a whole. If we haven't learned anything about a procedure then why are you using the advanced technical jargon with us? We don't know what you are talking about. And if you are allotted two hours in which to lecture then edit it down to 2 hours, don't take 2 and a half. This is your job, you should be aware of how long it takes to go through your information. Plus, you are the one who made the damned powerpoint. If you put a picture of a cat peeing into a toilet on the slide about urination then don't act all surprised when people chuckle at it!! You put it there, what reaction did you think you were going to get?

Low point on my horizon

My heart is sore.

I have this ache inside. Sometimes I can ignore it, can just go on like it doesn't exist, but sometimes it brings me to my knees.

I enjoyed having the past three days off, but when I'm not running at 120 mph I feel like there is a wave cresting just behind me. Waiting to come down and sweep me into the abyss. All weekend I fought the ache, fought the desire to crumple. To curl into a ball and howl at the pain of it all.

He's gone. Get over it. Stop crying for something that doesn't exist anymore.

God it hurts.

Keep moving.

Mrrrow!

Hello! Our names are Ferrari and Tobey and we really need a good home. This nice man found us sleeping under a car and took us home, but he cant keep us. His kitty cats don't want any more roommates and as much as he would like to keep us he cant. So if you would be able to help give us a nice warm place to live (or you know anyone else who would) please let Missy Laurel know.

Jim's late.

Jim and I had a big, real, screaming fight the other day.

Probably one of our first where I got loud, and, come to think of it, I don't think Jim got loud at all. He mostly tried to hide from me.

Now mostly our relationship is fantastic. We rarely fight and when we do it's usually small spats about daily annoyances ("Goddammit, move your damned SHOES, I'm sick of falling over them!" Type fights.) We're out of the lovey dovey, always cuddley phase and are comfortable with each other. It really was a pretty smooth transition from long distance to living together, I think we did pretty well. There has been one issue that's bothered me throughout our relationship that has kind of snowballed now that I'm living with Jim and going to school.

He's ALWAYS late for work. And I don't mean 10 minutes, I mean an hour or TWO every single day. We've had talks about it, I've tried asking nicely, I've tried setting two alarms, I've even tried to bribe him with... nevermind, hehe. And still, he goes in late everyday, regardless of the fact that he's admitted that he knows he'd lose his job if his boss found out and that he's aware that this is not acceptable behavior, he still just doesn't change.

Wednesday, when I got home at 11am after my morning lab and he was still at the house (he's supposed to be at work at 11, and it's a 30 minute drive) I just lost it. I forgot all my nice, calm, rational thoughts and I became the ranting bitch for about 15 minutes.

I told him how I can't handle the added stress he puts on me by doing this everyday. The knowledge that when (not if) his boss finds out and he gets fired I'll have to drop out of school to support us. I told him how it hurts me that he doesn't seem to care that he does this and how it does effect me, because to me it's him acknowledging doing the one thing that puts our relationship and risk and still doing it over and over again as if he had no cares in the world about securing our future.

I told him that I'm sick of the excuses. Everyday there is some new reason why he couldn't get up on time (he couldn't sleep, the cats were too noisy, he was still really tired) and I'm sick of it. I have nursing classes starting 8am three days a week that go until midafternoon, then I have 9 hour shifts at the hospital from 3 to midnight, yet I still manage to get back up at 6am for class the next morning. Doesn't he think I might be tired after an 18 hour day and then four hours sleep before starting all over again?! And yet I manage to be on time to my job every day, hell, 99% of the time I'm early! He's had the same job and same schedule for the past EIGHT years. He can have a damn routine so that he shouldn't be so sleep deprived (if you can call getting 8 hours a night deprived, I can't.) And yet he still can't manage to get there on time.

He said he's going to change, but he's said that before. Yesterday he was on time. Today is 10:20 am and he's still in bed, even though he needs to stop at his parents and feed their animals before going to work. He's going to be late again.

I don't know what to do anymore.

I hate feeling like his mother. Like I need to go wake him up every morning like he's ten years old and dress him for school. Grrrrr, I guess it can't always be marital bliss.

I'm going to go throw a cat on him.

Life to date

I'll try to do a brief sum up of life to date. I know it's been a while.

Last week: Went home on Wednesday after arguing with the DMV some more. Finally got my license, registration, insurance and plates. Also managed to get my school id in their somewhere and finish up everything I needed to do for school.

Home: Yay Russell is home! We kept the bickering to a minimum and only got snippy when installing appliances (which we were in no way qualified to do, but we managed.) Went swimming, played chess (I got massacred,) but I whooped mom's rump at Mariokart (although I have more than a decade of practice, I was at an advantage.) Jim and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary as a couple while there and managed to be nice to each other the whole weekend even though we were stuck sleeping in a double-sized sleigh bed that was surely built for someone 4 foot 9 not 5 foot 8... it was an experience not getting snippy with the blanket stealing and bedhogging we both thought the other was doing. All in all, it was a pretty mellow visit. Got to see Dan Lorino, Danny McCarthy, Bobby B, all the boys basically. It was good. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rumors Russell has heard about his deployment are going to be true and that he will get to come home from Iraq around Christmas and not in March. I also got to visit with my grandparents. Grandpa is doing really well with the Radiation treatments, granted they just started, but he seems in good spirits. He is 85 years old, as long as he's in good spirits and feeling decent and able to do the things he wants to do, I'm happy.

School:
Started my online child psych class last week. Still kinda getting the hang of an online class but I think I've got it under control. Nursing classes started this week and we had our first clinical today. It was pretty basic stuff. Mostly introductory info and safety and hospital policies and the like. My only hiccup right now is that my group of six is doing our first clinical rotation on the oncology floor (which also caters to Hospice) so it's kind of difficult keeping the emotions under wrap all the time. But we seem to have a very nice instructor and a good group of people to work with so I'm keeping optimistic.

Alright, I've got to go write up a quick child psych 'paper' and at least try to do some reading for class next week. Working the next four days... keeping my fingers cross that I get a decent assignment.

It's been almost four months since Dad died. It still hurts. I miss him. I hope I'm making him proud.

Passive Aggressive post will be passive aggressive

Dear Neighborchildren,

Your plastic, three wheeled, noise-making devil bikes are going to disappear if you leave them in my driveway one more time. Either that or I'm 'not' going to see them next time I have to back down the driveway.

If you insist on riding the damn bikes up and down MY driveway just outside of my bedroom window AND my office window so I can get NO peace and quiet, then at least put the things away when you are done playing with them.

Thank you.

Love,

That crazy looking chick in nursing scrubs who most days leaves at the crack of dawn and comes home around midnight dragging a full backpack and glaring evilly at your parents for parking their cars half across her driveway.





Dear Neighborspawn (I say spawn, because I cannot find it in myself to call you people),

In case you hadn't noticed, this is a quiet street. People bring in their trashcans in the morning and keep their yards tidy and hang flowers from their porches. The vast majority of them also appear to have 9-5 jobs during the weekdays. They seem to mostly be nice, polite families.

Let me give you some tips.

Jobs:

Most people have them. It is something you should aspire to get. It lets you get out of the house during the day! And they give you money! Which you can use to buy things! Like trash bags!! Yay!

And speaking of...


Trashbags:

They Go AROUND Garbage.

THEN the garbage (which is now contained in the bag) gets placed into the TRASHCAN.

THEN (and don't despair this is the last step!) You take the LID to the TRASHCAN and close all that trashy goodness away from those fun animals that like to eat rancid foodstuffs.

Wheeee!


Children:

You have several! We've all noticed. They like to bike ride and yell. A lot. The little one tends to also cry a lot. Buuuuuut there are studies that have shown that when you do things like pay attention to your own children and do things such as sending them to school they cease to be obnoxious sobbing noisemakers (at least not ALL of the time.) Paying attention to your children and caring for them when they cry is also part of a bizarre activity called "Parenting." Believe it or not, you joined the "parenting club" when the squalling noisemakers escaped your loins. For the love of jeebus, give it a try.


Acceptable noise levels:

You like music. We all like music. We all like DIFFERENT music. Should the neighborhood develop a love of Hispanic rap music I'm sure they all know whose house to have the block party at. Until that time please keep the stereo volume in your car down to levels soft enough to NOT rattle the windows in neighboring houses. Especially as you seem to have a love of leaving your car radio running for most of the day and loitering *cough* I mean... relaxing, in front of your house.

Anywhoo, that's all the tips I have for you today. Hope you take them into consideration.

Love,

The lady next door who is forced to vacate her porch every time you come outside for fear of being accosted by the... gentlemen *coughdrugdealerscough* you so frequently host.

brief update

Back from NY again. This time home was different from a few weeks ago. The weather seemed to condone mourning instead of adventures. It was cold and rainy for 3 of the 4 days I was home. Mom had to work during the week and so I was on my own, with naught to do but clean and sort through Dad's things. A depressing task any day of the week. But I still think that these trips home are helping me deal with the loss. It's good to talk with Mom and be in our house.

I certainly do feel more like myself than I did a month or so ago. It seems that the break from school was well needed and well deserved. Hopefully the next semester wont be as onerous as the summer session was.

Hmm, I find myself with nothing to say. Toodle-oo!

The 'To Do' lists are mocking me...

The 'To Do' list and I are not really seeing eye to eye right now. I had two days off and basically managed to do zilch on my list. Not that I didn't try, but things just weren't happening the way they were supposed to.

For School I needed to get:

• malpractice insurance
• student ID badge from Bridgeport Hospital
• Physical
  
• Drug test
• register for Child Psychology
• request transcript for my A&P summer classes to be sent to BHSON
• Hippa Test printed and completed

And most of this needs to be done by tomorrow with proof dropped off at the Hospital's Industrial Medical Center. The only problem is I couldn't get my physical schedule until today at 2pm and my appointment at the medical center is today at 1pm. So essentially this means I'll be making a 2nd pointless trip down the the medical center tomorrow to drop everything off.

The other important detail nagging my conscience is my car. I've been delaying and delaying getting a new license and registration in CT and found out last week when I was home that my NY inspection was expired (and not just a little expired, but WAYYYY expired, as in expired July of 2009!!!) And my registration is up this month. So now I'm scrambling. But while I thought I could go do everything at the same time at the DMV I was apparently very wrong. You must get your license FIRST. Because you cannot get CT car insurance without a CT license. THEN I have to get an emissions test and THEN get insurance and THEN take the car BACK to the DMV to get it registered. (All for the approximate cost of 3 arms and 2 legs.)

Ugh. I'm hoping I will have all of the school oriented stuff done between today and tomorrow and can deal with the car nonsense next week.

School starts in like 3 weeks! Ahhhh!

The balancing act

I'm back in Connecticut after a six day homecation with my Mom. We had coffee on the back deck, walked the dog, swam in the lake, fed the deer, visited my Grandparents, played in the woods, shopped, went to open mic night and basically hung out and talked and relaxed. It was wonderful. A bit hard going home for the first time with Dad gone, but it was great to get to just be with my Mom and talk and cry and laugh and just be together. Mom's had too much time alone.

I feel a bit more like a human being too after a few days away from everything. I needed the time to wrap my head around my Grandfather's illness and take a breather from school. The time to learn how to balance everything that's going on. As I told Jim when I got home, I've been feeling more and more like someone whose been told to juggle and then tossed knives and burning brands. I keep getting cut and burned and as soon as I get any kind of rhythm where I feel like I can handle the load someone throws me something new.

I'm hoping this breather and renewed state of mind can help me keep going.

The hits just keep on coming...

Grandpa's surgery was planned for today. They opened him up and closed him right back up again because apparently he has an aneurysm right by his bladder that makes it impossible for them to do the operation. So now we are forced to go with radiation treatments, which only had a 10% chance of helping him.

I'm supposed to be at work at 2:15 today. I called out. I'm going home tonight.

Can't we just catch a frigging break once and a while??? This whole "disaster domino effect" is getting old. And frankly I don't think my Grandmother will survive losing her husband months after losing her oldest son. Can we just stop?

summer break

I'm finally finished with my summer classes. Took my last Anatomy and physiology test this morning. I don't think I did as well as I would have liked to, but I'm sure I didn't fail. My heart just wasn't in it this time. I couldn't think and didn't do all of the bonus questions. C'est la vie. It is what it is, and all I need is a C for the class and I had a 90 average before this test so I'm not too worried.

I'm trying not to worry too much about my Grandpa. His surgery is tomorrow. Radical Cystectomy. Ugh. My shift tomorrow is going to be less that fun with me feeling all scatterbrained. But once it's over I'm off of work for five blissful days and I am going HOME!

Mom and I are planning on redoing the den I think. It needs a serious coat of paint and we need to put down the tile floor. Plus, that is the room that Dad died in so it needs a face-lift to restore it to 'den' instead of 'depressing Dad room that no one goes into.' Mostly I just want to hang out with my Mom, I miss her. I think the fair is going on too, so maybe Jim and I will kidnap her and take her out to do something fun.

I'm going to go sleep. And NOT study first! Wheeeeee!

The hits keep coming

I think... I'm depressed.

I haven't left the house in two days. Which means I skipped the last two days of my summer class. I have no desire to do anything. I don't want to talk to anyone, do my schoolwork, shower, cook, clean, laugh, work, anything. My third and final exam in my summer class is tomorrow. I spent six hours watching Greys Anatomy yesterday and three hours today. I scan through pages and pages of FML or MLIA because the single paragraph is about all I can concentrate on.

Jim comes home and talks to me and it takes three "what?"s before I can process what he's saying.

This morning I had a bad dream. I can't remember most of what it was about, except that it's the first bad dream I didn't want to wake up from because my Dad was in it... there was a part of the dream where we were on a bus and then walking up my driveway. He held my hand. I missed class because I kept trying to get back into that dream. I'd sleep all day if I could have him hold my hand again.

My grandfather is having his bladder removed on Friday. I have to work but I'm going home on Saturday so I can stop by the hospital and be with him. Then I'm going to get to be home for a few days. I'm terrified of being home, home without my Dad. I'm terrified that my grandfather isn't going to survive his surgery, his cancer.

I feel like the plate of things to deal with or adapt to has grown to the size of a dinner table and it's stacked with more things than most people have to deal with in a decade, let alone less than a year. Our family just can't seem to catch a break.

Laid off my old job, unable to keep a job in my old field because the market was so bad, so I get certified in a new field. My fiancee at the time (who I love unconditionally) seemed totally incapable of making the step to move away from his parents and his comfort zone, so even though I'm 9 years younger I pick up my life and move to his hometown. I find a new job and start over. Jim and I get married, the highpoint in the past year, I didn't know a person could be so happy. Back to work after the wedding I go through the motions of married life. I don't get to see my family because I'm busy with work and with inlaws and being married. But overall it's a blissful six months, I apply for and get accepted to nursing school, I get to see my brother at Christmas. Then my grandfather gets sick, he starts peeing blood one night. They take him to the hospital and cant figure out what caused the bleeding but they do discover that he has a grapefruit sized abdominal aortic aneurysm. He survives that operation and then we discover the the bleeding is from bladder cancer. Chemo starts... life goes on. I don't see my family for my birthday or see my Dad for his birthday, things got in the way and we just never expected it would be our last chance. A couple weeks later Dad gets sick but we don't know how serious it is, it's just some stomach pain after all. Easter happens but I have to work that weekend so once again I don't get home. We're not religious after all, what does it matter? Then the axe falls. Dad's stomach ache is really cancer and it's inoperable and we only have two months. The world ends.

Seven weeks later Dad passes away.

A month or so after we find out that Grandpa's bladder cancer has gotten worse, not better, and that his only chance is a radical cystectomy (total bladder removal.) School starts in a month. Money is tiiiight and I just keep wondering "what else?" How much more can we be asked to survive? I just want to go back to sleep.

Wake me when it's over.

Naptime

Sonofabitch.

I've got to stop this. Got home from class, had lunch and then PASSED OUT. I had no intention of taking a nap and now half my afternoon is gone. Fuck. My last test is on Thursday and I need the time to study.

Grrrrrrumble

Off to work.

Surgery and School News

Surgery:

I'm not going forward with the surgery right now. After meeting with the therapist and thinking about some of the questions she posed to me I don't really think this is the time to take this on. I need to deal with the issues on my plate first and not add to them.

I hadn't thought about exactly how much change and upheaval I've experienced in the last year. So many things contributing to a heaping load of stress. Starting a new career. Moving to a new state. Getting married. Going back to college while working. Losing my father. My grandfather being sick. Russell getting shipped to Iraq for 6 months. Mom all alone at home.

After thinking it over it just doesn't seem the time to have surgery and force another life altering event onto my plate.

School:

Four more days of class!!!! *squeeeee* Right now I'm holding onto a 90 average for my lecture tests and a 94 average on the labs. I need to get a high 90's score on last test in order to get an A (instead of an A-, which would just piss me off, lol.) Then I have a blissful month off of classes!!!! I'm going home on the 6th and then home again on the 1st of sept. to see Russell. Wheeeee...

Weekend

This weekend was many things. It was good, bad, emotionally charged, boring, a relief, a regret, a chance to relax, a chance to stress, but mostly it was too fast. It's over now. And yet in a fit of self sabotage today I managed to turn off my alarm and go back to sleep as opposed to waking up and going to class. So my weekend is a day longer, but the third day comes flavored with guilt.

I have my 2nd A&P2 exam tomorrow. I failed miserably at studying this weekend. And now it's all on me for today. >>>stress<<< But I'll survive.

The good: It was good this weekend to get a chance at a breather. I've had school, work, and doctors exams for the past two weeks and I was starting to get burnt out. I'm still feeling burnt out but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel now. Next Thursday is the last day of my class and if I can trade my Friday shift away (Grandpa's surgery is that day) then I'll be off for 5 days!!! Homeward bound! But as for the weekend the two days of sleeping past 6:15 a.m.... were soooo nice. And the shagging... also very nice, definitely nice to have time for some shagging. And Jim and I did get to spend some quality time together. Not enough, but some. So it was good.

The bad. I'm in a bad place right now emotionally and Jim is suffering because of it. I want my Dad back. I'd almost kill to have something fill this void and it'd devolved from my begging for a baby to a dog to a kitten to an unhealthy relationship with icecream. Rationally I know that no other child or pet or alcoholic beverage or calorie filled treat is going to fill the void, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try whatever cockamammy thing comes into my skull at that emotionally charged moment. Jim's been trying so hard to be supportive when I'm weeping uncontrollably (which is most nights now) and yet stick to his guns in that we CANT get pregnant and we don't have permission for a dog and Please-stop-crying-should-I-go-away-or-hold-you-or-call-your-friends-or-or-or-or??? And he's trying. But I get mad at him because he's the only one here to be mad at. I get mad at him for things he can't possibly control and I always apologize afterward but it's still unfair to him. I get angry that his Dad is still alive and healthy, angry that my Dad is gone, angry that my Grandfather has to have his bladder removed and is still probably going to die from his cancer, angry that I live in Connecticut instead of near my family, angry at fate for dealing the Ehrets family such a steady stream of SHIT.

I may go see a therapist. I don't know. Grief counselor or something like that. I don't know if I'm depressed or not but I know I'm not healthy. It wouldn't be normal to be happy right now, but I don't seem to know how to get my head above water. Keeping busy isn't enough anymore. I'm drowning.

surgery update 2

I've been working on my to do list for pre-op surgery stuff. I got my blood work done, and I requested a letter of medical necessity from my primary care doc. Had a bit of a snag with that... he gave me a letter, but it incorrectly spelled hypertension and stated that I had sleep apnea when I don't. So I called to talk to him about it, but of course he was out of the office so now I have to wait until Monday to talk to him about getting a new letter. I wouldn't really care except that if he tells the surgeon I have sleep apnea, Dr. Floch is probably going to make me get a sleep study done. I don't want to waste the time on unnecessary tests.

I also met up with the nutritionist about the pre and post op diets. A pretty basic appointment that was not covered by the insurance and cost an appalling amount of money. It also let me know that I'm gonna have to shell out some bucks for the prescription protein type drinks for the pre-operative diet. But it'll be worth it in the long run if I can get healthy and stay that way.

My abdominal ultrasound was this morning. I had no idea what I was getting myself into with that. Ouch, it felt like the ultrasound tech was pushing so deep she was going to take pictures of my spine through my stomach. I felt like I was going to end up with bruises, but we shall see.

All I have left is my appointment with the psychologist on Wednesday. You have to get approval from a psychologist to clear that you are emotionally stable enough to handle surgery. I'm not worried about it.

So I'm on my way.

Surgery update

Had my initial surgical consult with Craig Floch. It was kind of shocking to be told "Well, you're actually very healthy, except for your BMI." The only problem I've got (that they've found yet, I am having my thyroid checked and getting a bunch of blood tests done first) is slightly elevated blood pressure.

I'm doing my round of pre-surgery doctor visits, getting the letter of Medical Necessity from my PCP, meeting with the Nutritionist today and I have my appointment with the psychologist on Wednesday. I have to get blood drawn tomorrow and schedule an ultrasound. But as soon as I can get that done I can get my surgery date.

Gotta just keep moving forward.

A&P 2 relief...

I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief today. I got the grades for my first A&P2 lecture and lab tests, I pulled off an A- (92) on the lecture test and an A (93) on the lab test. I was pretty stressed out about those tests. Due to the fact that I had to work Friday through Sunday it severely limited my studying time and kept me from getting a good nights sleep the night before the test. Add that to my dislike of this professors teaching style and my emotional state the past few weeks and I was expecting to do poorly. So today when he told me asked me "What kind of student are you? An A student or a C student?" It scared the hell out of me because I thought he was implying I'd done poorly. Then he shook my hand and said, "Well you're still an A student."

Phew...

Two and a half weeks until I can go home. I'm off this weekend but of course I have a test in the beginning of next week so I should study. Plus my grandmother is coming down from Binghamton and kidnapping my Mom (or making her drive her to some party) on Saturday night and Sunday Mom has to drive Grandma back to Bing, so there isn't really much sense in me driving out and not getting to see her. I miss her. I worry about her. I want to give her a hug. I want to help her be okay.


The landlord said no dog :( Jim said George was going to think about it, but I don't think he'll change his mind.

we all have to learn to say goodbye sometime...

I'd been dreading going to work yesterday so much so that I called my mom crying on the drive in. It wasn't work so much as Dad based depression. It's been two months and it hurts worse now, missing him is worse not better and I just didn't know who to call who would understand. I've tried not to call Mom when I'm upset because she doesn't need my burdens but yesterday I just needed my Mommy.

We'd had a patient for months now who has been dying of essentially the same cancer that killed my father. Only the family didn't agree to hospice and was 'fighting' to save them. So for months the pt has suffered and endured agony because the family couldn't let go. It was incredibly difficult for me to walk in and see someone dying of the same thing, go through the same stages of horror. I knew it was getting close to the end on Monday when I helped the tech who had this pt in her assignment and I'd gotten very upset and angry at the family for being so selfish to put the pt through all this suffering, I managed to keep my mouth shut and avoid the family for the night but I knew I would have a hard time after that.

Yesterday as I was getting ready for work I kept thinking "what if I get this pt, I wont be able to handle it..." it had gotten to the point where I'd be looking at the pt and only seeing my Dad and I just couldn't bear living it over again. Mom let me cry and rant and told me that she's also having a harder time now that she did just after Dad died and that I'm not alone. I got to work to find out that the pt was finally out of pain. They'd passed away on Tuesday.

I feel pity for the family, empathy for them and what they are going through... But I can't help but feeling that they bought a few months more with their loved ones pain. It wouldn't have been worth it to me, to put my Dad through hell just to get to keep him for a few months more. You don't end up getting any quality of life, just quantity, and that's useless.

I think I judge too harshly because people keep telling me that I should put myself in the families shoes, that it's a hard decision to make, the choice to stop fighting and accept the inevitable. I know it is, I've made it. And I can't help but feel, with all my heart, that we made the right choice in letting Dad choose, and supporting him when he chose hospice. I've seen the numbers, talked to the doctors, I knew the odds. And although I'd give anything now to see my Dad one more time I know that the person in the bed the last week was not really my Dad anymore and that a few more weeks or months wouldn't have changed that. I can wish with all my heart that this never happened to us. I do wish that. But it doesn't change anything. It doesn't make my Dad any less dead or make me miss him less.

I guess this is just one of those things I have to endure.

bad haircut woes

I got my hairs cut yesterday. I also got it colored. So I went from a reddish dirty blonde to a midbrown with reddish highlights. I also got bangs. I'd had long side bangs for a while, but they'd gotten less side and just more long as I got more and more in need of a haircut. I'd been thinking "I have an unattractive forehead! The solution to this is those incredibly sexy bangs everyone pulls off!"

Yeah, everyone but me. I asked for long bangs that could be sideswept and I came out with bangs that like to do this:



The oh so attractive telescopic forehead bangs that curl up and frame out my giant forehead like ugly drapes. I feel like a butch 80's housewife. Please kill me now. Oh my goodness the crankiness :( :( :(

Surgery

Today I confessed to my mother that I'm planning on having Lap-banding done. That was... interesting to say the least.

For years my mom's opinion of Bariatric surgery was that "If you can not eat because of surgery, why can't you just not eat??" With that in mind I rarely considered it an option for myself. Plus, in my head, I was just a little chubby, and bariatric surgery was for HUGE people.

(Please note: I'm not trying to be cruel or mean to anyone who has had weight loss surgery. It is not for 'Huge people,' it is for people who need help losing weight and there is nothing wrong with that.)

And it must be said, that the image in my head was wrong.

Now my decision to pursue weight loss surgery was definitely affected by the fact that I work on the med/surg floor of our hospital and that we are the only floor that gets Bariatric patients. So I know who the surgeons are, I know who my nurses will be and it makes me feel much less nervous.

I've also had to come to the realization that I am not in control of my weight. It's been steadily creeping up since college and it's starting to effect my blood pressure (last I checked 140/90 and normal is 120/70) and heart rate (85 resting and about 120 when I'm running around at work.) So it's time for me to take control of my life and my body and be proactive before I end up with a serious heart condition or diabetes. I'm also quite aware that at my current weight I'm going to end up destroying my knees in the next 10 years and I do not want to do that.

So yeah, Lap-band it is. It's the least invasive surgery, it's something that's very simple to modify for when I want to get pregnant and it's reversible if I ever want to remove it.

I have my first consultation on Monday. At the seminar I went to I asked the surgeon if it would be possible to get everything done so I could have the surgery in August, he seemed to think it was doable. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed because that's about the only 'free time' I have between classes. I took off the first week of September from work because Russell is coming home, but I don't want to have surgery when he's home... I want to have fun!

So that's my update. I'll probably keep talking about it, even though weight loss surgery is always whispered about as if it's some horrible thing that people should be embarrassed of having. I'm not embarrassed, everyone I work with is going to know when I go under the knife. If this is the tool I need to be healthy then why should I be embarrassed or ashamed of that?

Turn it around.

It's Monday, the start of a new week and a new frame of mind.

Last week... was rough, it was emotional and draining and I just wanted to give up. I didn't want to keep going to classes or dealing with the heat or coping at work or managing my depression. I wanted to curl up in bed and sleep sleep sleep.

I woke up this morning determined to start fresh, have a new attitude and live up to the strength my Dad always showed me. I gave my teacher the benefit of the doubt in lecture. I still don't like his style but I'm trying to learn.... around that obstacle. It was a good test today because the air conditioning in the building was not working (2nd floor class and its 90+ outside) and it was unbearably hot and stuffy. To say that the class was irritable would be an understatement. We were twenty down right petulant, sweaty, disgruntled individuals, with raging hostility at being kept in those conditions. But we survived the lecture and our prof. agreed to give us our lab quiz and the let us out of lab early.

I'm studying for my class though, and I actually want to go to work today. I have been trying to help out more around the house and tell Jim (and my family) that I love them more often. I'm trying. I wont give up. I wish I could see my friends, but it's just not in the cards right now... I can't afford and don't have the time to travel to see people. And the same problem goes with asking my friends to visit me, money and time. Adult life is a real drag sometimes. Heh.

My brother is being deployed to Iraq in the middle of September for six months. This means he'll miss all the holidays and be away from his family for his birthday (and mom's and mine.) It's a serious disappointment to not have him home with us but mostly the whole deployment is a cause of worry. We'd hoped being in the Navy would mean he never got shipped to the Middle East, but we aren't that lucky I guess.

Sigh.

Back to work!

Jim's picking up some overtime so I'm on my own tonight. It's strange coming home at midnight to a dark house, I rarely beat him home when I'm working the evening shift and the kitties certainly don't like it when I do. Both were waiting bleary eyed at the back door when I got home, with baleful stares for whyyyyyyy wasn't I home a long time agooooo??? and wherrrrrre is Daddy Jim???

Tonight I had the same assignment I'd had last weekend. These patients are starting to feel like my children I've taken care of them for so long. It's a good thing and a bad thing I guess. Nice cause you get to know what to expect and how your night is going to be, bad in that you can get a bit attached to them... and we're pretty sure that one is in the 'actively dying' phase. Somebody said it's bound to happen in the next two days. I just hope it's not on my shift, they're still a full code which means that when the time comes it's going to be a three ring circus trying to force them to live. I know I probably sound pretty callous about this, but with this particular patient there is a strong feeling from most of the staff (myself included) that dying would be a kindness because their life right now is nothing but suffering and pain. The person who used to live in that body has long since withdrawn and the shadow left behind is in torment.

Speaking of torment, I had some crazy attack this morning. I woke up around 6am with abdominal pain in two places, low along my pubic area (like severe cramps) and a sharp stabbing pain just underneath my right ribcage that went through to my back. I thought at first maybe I'd just eaten something bad and needed to use the loo, so I hobbled my way in to the bathroom where I curled almost in half, crying in pain. It hurt so bad I was nauseated. Nothing was moving in the bathroom and I was thinking that I might need to go to the hospital so I staggered back into the bedroom where I crawled into bed, crying and gasping in pain and woke up Jim. Apparently after curling up in the fetal position for a few minutes with Jim rubbing my back and acting thoroughly concerned I apparently passed out. I don't know if I fell asleep or what, but when I woke up a few hours later the pain was much less severe. It's been a dull ache ever since then but I really don't know what caused it. Just doesn't seem worth going to the ER or Doctors about yet. If it had stayed like this am I was ready and set to go to the ER but whatever that was passed and I seem to be on the mend. I'll keep and eye on it and we'll see. It's probably just that time of the month coming soon, who knows.

Oh yeah, guess who got an A in Anatomy and Physiology 1?

That's right! This girl!

Now if only I can learn to tolerate my A&P2 professor and do as well in his class.... fingers crossed!

Passive Aggressive post will be passive aggressive

Dear Professor... ahem... Doctoc X,

It is less than enlightening for you to start every other sentence as a statement and then let it drift off after saying half a word in order to force the class to parrot things back at you. "Lets talk about the lobes of the brain now the Occc.... occip..... occipit..... occipitaaaaaal."

By now the class has got the hang of this and about half of them try their damnedest to guess what the hell you're sounding out.

"Occ...topus! Occip.... uuuuuuh? Oh! Occiiiiipiiiiitaaaa.....l! Occipital! Yeah! I so knew that!"

And the other half of us stubbornly sitting there with our lips CLAMPED tightly closed refusing to act like pathetic mimicking sheep baaaaaing tamely whatever you natter at us.

Unfortunately our silence has only goaded you on to further attempts at sheep choral directing. Now it's become practically every other word that you half say and then urge us to Baaaa back at you.

This is not Hooked On Phonics. I can pronounce occipital without your vocal encouragement. I would not have made it to A&P 2 without this knowledge. Please stop treating us like a bunch of illiterate 4 year-olds with a learning disability.

Make. A. Definitive. Statement.

If you learn to complete a sentence and stop treating us like verbal sheep I may cease hostilities and start participating. Until then, stop with the doe eyes when we glare maliciously at you after your attempts to get us to talk with you.

Additionally, please stop making us waste time on moronic side 'projects'. We are completely aware of what the lab practical is going to contain after the last semester (lab practicals are made up by the department and are the same style for A&P 1 and 2) and you are NOT EVEN ADDRESSING THEM! You are instead giving us wild goose chases through the text book that last two hours and ignoring the list of material we are going to be tested on. It's a fifteen week course condensed into five weeks!! We cannot afford to waste two hours on nonsense!

When the ten or so of us from the A&P1 summer session complain, don't give us some line of bull about how the test is going to be! We know! We've seen them set up!! You have never even taught this class before!

This is going to be a very long five weeks...

Just sayin...

Robins-egg blue and light pink police cruisers should not exist.

nights

I wish I could stop these nightly bouts of hysterical crying.

Regular crying I could handle but this has gone beyond that into full fledged hysterics. It seems like almost every night now I get settled down to go to bed and something reminds me of Dad and I lose it. I start bawling, sobbing, hiccuping, hyperventilating, practically screaming with this pain. Crying so hard I can't see and until I can barely breathe. Until I'm a snot-packed, tear-soaked puddle of shivering sadness a half and hour later.

I'm taking sleeping pills just to get to sleep for six hours anymore.

I know I'm scaring Jim but I don't know what to do.

I'm angry, so furiously angry and yet so heartbroken that I can barely function. I miss him. I want my Dad back. I want my Mom to be happy again and my brother to be himself again. I want our family back.

I want to stop crying.

tales from the sixth floor...

When this weekend rolled around I was extremely reluctant to go to work. Most people don't think that's strange but I love my job, I like going to work. Saturday I was just having a bad day, I was feeling very anxious and panic stricken about being around people. It took everything I had just to get dressed and go face the masses.

I'm glad I was able to go though because it turned out to be a great weekend. We had a fantastic team working and the RN I was teamed up with is a riot. Some of the things we saw this weekend though... oy. Horrors beyond words. But still funny :)

I have patient x, who has been incontinent for quite some time now. They're dying of cancer and are going through hell (almost the same thing as my Dad but far more extensive, but the family wont stop trying to cure him.) Because of ridiculous amounts of diarrhea X's rear end is very raw. We've been medicating to try and prevent the diarrhea so when I got to work on Saturday the day shift told me, "Good news! No poops today!" Fantastic! That's much better than the 15 times a day it was a few weeks ago.

I went on with my starting duties, checking vitals, when I get a call from my nurse, "Laurel, are you free to give me a hand? Patient X had a little accident." So I grab some clean linens and warm washcloths and head down the hall to their room. I knew from the smell that we were in for some bad news.

Now, because of their very raw rear end we've moved patient X onto a special sand/air bed. It's basically a big bag of sand that constantly blows warm air up against the patient so they're body is... floating sort of (that's the most basic explanation I can give.) That still didn't prepare us for what we saw after we gowned up in our isolation garb (gowns, gloves, masks) and pulled back the sheet.

Imagine this:



Oh. The. Horror.

You have no idea, a bubbling pool of doom. DOOOOOOM. LoL. My eyes flew up to Annie (my RN) and we immediately started cracking up. (Pt X is non-responsive at this point, and not aware of us.) The look on her face as we both start gagging was priceless. "Don't do it Annie, don't you dare do it!!" "I wont if you wont!" We giggled for a bit while getting pt X cleaned up and the bed changed and went on with our shift.

Oh the interesting things you see while working on a med/surg floor.

I've had patients so anxious to leave that they literally ripped their own IV's out when it was time to leave. Patients who lost it and tried to use a portable toilet seat to break through a sixth floor window to 'escape from the leg pumps that were trying to kill them'. Patients who get incredibly jealous that you don't spend as much time in their room as in the room next door where someone is much sicker than they are. People who decide to 'hold it' while their grandkids visit and then proceed to shit all over the floor as soon as they stand up. Patients who are in for bowel obstructions and have an NG tube in yet still sneak food and then wonder why they end up heaving all night. Or the patient with the colostomy that they've had for years and yet it's too "icky" so they wont take care of it themselves, they make their spouse do it for them!!! EWW! Who was such a baby about it that they let it burst instead of taking care of it themselves!

And yet, with all of this ickiness and bullshit, I still love my job. It's fascinating every single day.

Brief Update (for me at least)

I just took my third and final exam in Anatomy and Physiology 1. Yippee! I'm hoping that I pulled off an A for the class.

Orientation for the nursing program was yesterday. It looks like a pretty decent program although I may have to retake Child Psych. I'm not sure if the one I took at Oneonta is going to transfer. But that means once I'm through with A&P the only non-nursing classes I have to take will be Microbiology and Child Psych. Not too shabby.

I'm excited about my schedule though. We don't start our classes until after Labor Day so that means I have most of August off of school. Just my normal work days. So I'll definitely be planning a few trips home to visit my Mom. I can't wait!

This afternoon I'm actually getting to enjoy my first nice warm, NON-HUMID day of a Connecticut summer. Its actually pretty darned beautiful. I've missed crisp warm days. Air that's actually refreshing instead of stiflingly muggy.

Days like today make me appreciate what I have and all that I've had. They also make me miss him so much it hurts. They make me dream of seeing my friends again, ha, of actually having friends again. They make me want to laugh with my brother and hang out with my boys again. Days like today make me think of home. If only it still existed the way I imagine it.

Fly Away Home

I have this weekend off. Oh my goodness I cannot wait until 4pm tomorrow when I'm finally free. I'm exhausted. I haven't had a day without school or work or both in two weeks and I'm feeling a bit burnt out.

I really want to go home and see my Mom. I miss her and I want to go make sure she's doing okay. It's hard to really gauge things over the phone, it's hard cause we both say we're okay when really we're not. I made some reference to how I missed the quiet of being at home and Mom said something along the lines of quiet being nice, but not if you have no one to share it with and that she doesn't know what she's going to do in the future because nothing is holding her there anymore... so I really want to go home. Unfortunately it's not in the cards for this weekend, I just have too much studying to do and I really need to catch up on some things around the house. My anatomy and physiology 1 final exam is Thursday but because I have to work evenings on Monday and Tuesday (so that means going from 6am to midnight 2 days straight), and then on Wednesday I have my nursing orientation at Bridgeport I need to do some preemptive studying. This exam is going to be tough.

I'm hoping I'll be able to run home my next weekend off (in 2 weeks) if not it probably wont be until August. Then I'll probably have a week or so between A&P2 ending and my nursing classes beginning. Maybe Mom will drag her rump to CT between now and then and visit me, but I know she's got a lot on her plate taking care of the house by herself.

Life sure is different now.

I miss my Dad. I feel like someone ripped out one of the pillars in my life. Everything feels a bit more precarious and a bit less safe. I always knew that I could go to my Dad for anything, he was my superman and my go-to guy. I miss rainy summer afternoons talking in his shop as the sun set over the house, laughing with him about Mom when she was being exceptionally hair-brained, listening to him go on and on about Stargate and all the things he'd fixed at work that day, all the problems he'd solved.

I get frustrated sometimes when people say things to be about how my classes are easy for me because I'm smart or "a science person" and it's easy because I don't have kids. Now yes, I'm sure this is easier than if I had children and was trying to go back to school. But this isn't easy for me by any stretch of the imagination. I don't just 'get it' and I've struggled to absorb everything. But I study. A lot. Like 5-6 hours every day that I'm not at work, and when I'm do work it's still at least 2 hours. I'm driven to succeed and do well in this. The last big news I got to give my Dad was that I got accepted into nursing school and I was going to be a nurse. He's gone now but I'm going to make him proud if it kills me. I AM going to finish this and become an RN. I'm going to do well, this was the last piece of news I got to give my father and it drives me.

It's hard some days though... getting up... going on... spending another day walking around trying to act like I'm not the walking wounded... listening to my professor talk about cancer or dealing with cancer patients... dealing with people asking, always asking 'How are you? how's your Mom? how's your brother? What are you doing for Father's Day?' I just don't want to talk about it, I'm trying to deal the best I know how but the pity and concern just reminds me and upsets me and I do enough crying as it is. So I guess what I'm trying to say is try not to mind if I don't want to answer all my phone calls or talk about how I'm feeling all the time. Also I'm not trying to be conceited or boastful when I talk about my classes or my grades, but these small successes make me happy for a brief moment... and a smile has become too precious not to cling to.

In my pocket

I carry around my Dads memorial card with me all the time. It has his picture on it, in his red shirt with his white owls in his pocket and he's sitting in his chair in the den. He's looking right at the camera in the picture and I feel like he can really see me. I believe my Dad is still out there somewhere, that he's watching over us, that when it all gets too much to bear and I break down he is there with me. I cry for a little while and then a peace comes over me, I find strength from somewhere, from him, to keep going, to get back up and go back to work. I feel like I've grown decades older in the last year. I'm calmer now. All the little things life throws at you don't bother me as much anymore.

I'm trying not to feel like I just am trying to get through the next year and a half. I have a new respect and appreciation for time, it's not just something to endure. So while working and going to school is a trial I'm trying to enjoy what I can.

I want things more acutely now. Not material things, but experiences. I want to have children, oh how I want to have them... I stare at pictures of people I know with babies filled with envy, I watch cheesy TLC birthing shows. I want to see my Mom light up with her grandchildren. I'm also practical enough to know that now is not the time for children, and that having a baby wont take away the pain of losing my Dad. I'm also lucky to have a husband stubborn enough to ignore my pleas and make me stick to the plan.

I want to travel and see the world. I hate that I missed my family reunion out in Colorado. There are times when being financially responsible is a bad thing.

I have a plan now. Working 3 days a week as a PCT while I go through the RN program. Hopefully I can get into the accelerated 2nd year and finish in December of 2011. Then it'll be off to work as an RN. We'll see what area of nursing catches my interest, I know I'm not interested in psych, rehab or telemetry (at least not at norwalk) and I'm not sure if I'm ready for oncology or hospice nursing. I like med/surg, but haven't gotten to experience OR or ER or peds or maternity... so we'll see. Then I'm dreaming of a trip. My first European vacation. A cruise around the eastern Mediterranean... late honeymoon maybe. It may be out of reach but a girl can dream.

Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day.

That day has new meaning now. It's not just another hallmark holiday where I buy Dad a cheesy card and some new work gloves or a new tool. This year I spent the day wishing I could see my Dad one more time, laugh with him once more, ask one more piece of advice, get one last hug, tell him I love him one more time.

I wasn't really up to celebrating the holiday this year with my Father-in-law... it's just too soon for me to say happy father's day to someone else, to someone who doesn't have a bushy red beard and steely blue eyes.

I love you Dad. I'll always wish we had one more day. I'm so grateful to everything you did for me and all that you taught me. There is nothing about my life that I would have changed except to have more of it with you in it. The only regret I have right now is that you wont get to meet your future grandchildren.

Sleep

Ok, I'm starting to get a bit run down. Today starts my four days stretch for work and the middle of my 14 day stretch without a day off (of school/work.) I had my lab class at 8am this morning, skipped out of my lecture and came home around 10:30. Took a quick nap with Jim since I'm working from 3-11:30 and then tomorrow morning 7-3:30 so I wont be coming home tonight.

I'm not too excited about spending the night at the hospital, but its what I had to work out when they scheduled me to work today at 7am. I can't afford to skip my lab at 8am so I had to trade shifts. At least I have the afternoons off for the rest of the weekend instead of being stuck working the late shift.

I just want to be able to sleep for longer than six hours... or past 6am... whichever would be fine. So tired. :(

Whaahooo!

Somebody got an A on her very first Anatomy and Physiology Exam!

Well, it was actually two exams, a lab practical and a lecture exam, but I aced them both! Pulled out a 95 on the lecture and a 91 on the lab practical. The lecture exam is worth 25% of my grade and the lab 7% so I'm glad I did well on them.

Now I just have to keep it up for the second and third exams. The second is fast approaching (on Tuesday) and I am doing as much studying as I can ahead of time. This time I don't have a weekend off to prepare before the test... plus, this exam is on all the bones and parts of the bones and all the joints. It's a lot of memorizing. All of this is a lot of work... but it's good.

I wish...

that crying would make me feel better. That it would fix this hole inside of me but it doesn't.

Russell says he dreams of Dad every night. I envy him that. I had one dream where I was looking for Dad, but all I could find was the wooden carving we bought at the craft fair because it looked like him.

It hurts to even look at pictures of him at my wedding, knowing that the reason he looked like he'd aged 20 years in the last 5 is because most likely he was being devoured from the inside by this cancer. To see him like that is better than those memories from the last week though. Those plea's he'd made trying to hold on to his last shreds of dignity.

Mom and I are closer than we were. Russell and I too. It doesn't seem worth it to bicker about the small stuff. It's too precious... time, that is. We've all changed though, we're... quieter now... subdued... I feel like all the extra stuff has been trimmed away. This is me, this is who I am, I'm not afraid to be that person and for everyone to see me as what I am.

You want to think I'm a nerd? Fine, I'm a nerd. I feel no shame in being labeled a nerd. I've always been decently smart, I read fast, but I ALSO STUDY my BUTT OFF. I PAY ATTENTION. I'm a book-reading good-girl who will stay home and study over drinking at the bar. I'll answer questions in class and feel embarrassed when I'm wrong. I'm respectful of my teachers but I don't treat them like authority figures or gods or expect them to know everything. The only thing that differs them from me is knowledge and experience... I can get there someday.

I do my job. I take pride in doing my job WELL. I get angered when people are negligent at work or take for granted all the opportunities we are given. Don't be spiteful or mean if I'm taking the steps you never tried to take for yourself. I'm only risking failure. I'm willing to work hard and dedicate the time and effort to doing this. And if I fall, I will keep fighting, would you?

I'm geeky. I wear a backpack even though I've been told it makes me look like a grade schooler. I have the fashion sense God gave a snail (I have patchwork multi-colored denim FRAYED EDGE jeans from highschool to prove it!)

I love Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter AND Twilight. There are merits to all three series. I like Star Trek, and have never seen the Star Wars movies. I HATE Battlestar Galactica, I get seasick just watching the commercials.

I take more pride in the fact that my father was able to give up drinking for the last 16 years than I do in the fact that I graduated from college...

I miss starry nights in the Catskills more than I care to think about, the stars look different from Connecticut.

I sing in the car. Badly. And loudly. I also dance, and wave at truck drivers.

I feel like people never expected me to get married. I dated one guy for five days before meeting Jim, that was it. It never really felt right with anyone until I met him. Maybe somewhere deep inside I just knew.

I would rather spend hours sitting a parked car in front of a Staples with a good friend just talking than go out to a fancy restaurant or catch a movie. I still consider wandering Walmart as an afternoon of fun, but that's Monticello upbringing for you.

I hate when people see my house for the first time and judge that my family is rich and therefore I must have been spoiled. My parents lived in a trailer with no running water and no electricity for five years... then we spent the next seven years in that trailer while my Dad built our house from the ground up. Almost all our furniture is hand me downs from various relatives and my parent's version of a family vacation was driving to my grandparents house in Florida. I've been to ONE movie with my parent's in my whole life. We didn't eat out and never shopped for anything but necessities. New clothes were something for Christmas or maybe one outfit for the new school year. I bought my own first car with money from jobs I started working as soon as I turned 14.

I'm overly generous. I'll offer to pay for dinners with friends, even if it means I put it on my credit card and know I wont be able to pay it off this month. Because of this, I feel like I get taken advantage of and I think people also assume I just... have money. I don't, but it feels good being generous anyway.

I regret not learning how to weld. It's a 'mans trade' but I always had a strange urge to sculpt metal. I'll probably never have the chance now.

I love interior design. I got that from my Mom. I reorganize SOMETHING at least once a week: rooms, cabinets, bookshelves, closets. It used to drive Dad nuts when we would reshuffle the living room every few months. Jim can tell when I'm upset or stressed because I'll go into reorganize overdrive and rip apart a whole room. I intentionally left the den a disaster after I found out Dad was dying. I knew I'd need the project.

I'm getting used to Connecticut but I still miss the quiet of New York. I miss the pride of being a New Yorker, the attitude, the arrogance. Connecticut is just... here... almost a New York City suburb... like a richer Long Island. And there are so many people. Ugh, the traffic. I could never be a city girl, I miss the solitude, the peace, the serenity of nature.

cooking up a party

I'm wondering if it's bad that my favorite and most often used recipes come straight out of my Starving Student Cookbook. Tonight I'm aiming straight for the Tator Tot Casserole. Gourmet cooking at its finest.

Yesterday was a bit hard. I have a feeling all 13ths are going to be hard from now on. One month since Dad died. A hideous landmark that I'd just as soon forget. As if I could.

Mom's back from Colorado. I'm glad she went and had fun at the reunion. Trying not to be too jealous about not being there myself, but it sounds like I missed one hell of a reunion. I'm going to have to start looking for venues to plan the next one since it's the McNeely/Ehrets/Smigelski/Rourke! family's turn to host the next one. Hopefully we can plan a helluva party in the next three years.

Count my blessings.

Someone at work the other day commented to me how I need to find my luck, because all she ever sees on Facebook is me posting all the horrible things that are happening in my life. It kind of shook me up a bit.

I have felt a bit jinxed lately, but I never realized I was constantly posting negative comments. I've felt like I've been acting relatively happy and normal around most people and have succeeded at not giving off the doom and gloom vibe. I don't want to be negative all the time. Life has dealt me a few shit cards right now but that doesn't mean that I don't have a ton of positive things in my life as well.

Yes, my Dad died, but at least I got to be with him, I got to hear him say he loved me, I got to have him walk me down the aisle and see me move in with the man of my dreams. I got to grow up with him there answering my questions and offering support. I was close to my father, I know that I was just like him; gregarious at times and practically mute at others. We had the same sense of humor and the same exasperated love for my Mom when she was having a dippy moment. He was the kind of person who would see someone stuck somewhere and he'd just help. You didn't have to ask for help, or repay him for his troubles, sometimes you didn't even have to be around, he'd just assess the situation and fix things. I want to be like him.

Jim's mom has/had cancer and had to have decently major surgery to deal with it. It was a slap to deal with just after loosing Dad but at least we caught things in time and she's healing up nicely.

The car broke down. So what? We got it fixed, we're a family of two with two working cars, and I'm grateful for it. Money is just money, if we have it, yippee, if we don't have it, I'm still grateful for what we do have.

My neighbors... ahh the neighbors. Yes, they drive me up a wall sometimes. But that's just one of lifes little foibles that we get to deal with. Plus, the neighbors on the other side are fantastic, as are the people across the street.

School. I love to whine about school and work. But I'm ridiculously lucky to be able to go back to school, to be able to afford working only 3 days a week while I pursue a nursing career. I don't have children to raise or a mortgage to pay and my husband has been picking up far more than his fair share of the household chores.

I'm lucky. Unbelievably lucky.

Moving on and growing up.

My husband is selling his childhood twin bed right now. That statement in itself flabbergasts me because Jim had always resisted getting rid of his things. When we first got married I'd asked what he was going to do with the bed (along with a room full of battered and abused childhood memorabilia) and the basic idea was that he wanted to just keep it at his parents house forever. After some nagging on my part he agreed to try and sell a few things. I knew his parents could use the room that it was in for something besides the Jim's childhood shrine. Since then the bed has sat in pieces in his bedroom while he halfheartedly looked for someone to buy it. No one would ever offer enough to satisfy him.

A couple days ago he informed me that he found a buyer. I didn't even realize he'd still been posting his add on Craigslist. I guess it turns out he really is growing up. I should start paying closer attention.

Studying

The studying boner. I had it for an hour or so and then it went away. I'm sitting here staring at my notes hoping that something will stick and so far it's a no go. I did get through the last 2 chapters (out of five the test is on) and manage to start back over going through Chapter 1 again but it's tedious.

I shouldn't complain about this, I've still got two years left to finish before it's over. Plus, I'm sure it's going to get worse before it gets better. But that's life, and this is one more hurdle to jump. I'm sure the next two years is going to whip by pretty fast. Maybe once I'm a nurse I'll feel more like an adult. I doubt it, but maybe.

It seems like things just kind of fell into place over the last year or so. It had been pretty rough after college, but once I figured out what I wanted to do with my life and got the ball rolling things started to work out. It helps that I got to start this journey with Jim. Both of us starting out on our own, but together, I think made it easier for us to cope with suddenly being responsible for rent, groceries, utilities, health insurance.. all of the technicalities associated with being a grown up. I'm 25 but I don't feel like a grown up... I still feel like a kid sometimes.

**** This next bit is rambling because I'm wicked hormonal right now****

After I finish school I want to start a family. Losing Dad has made me yearn for children. Maybe as something to fill the void and mostly because it hurt so bad accepting that he will never be apart of my future childrens lives. I want my kids to get to be as much a part of my parent's and grandparents lives as possible. So I dream of babies... waiting for the day I don't have to think 'Not Yet.'