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.