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.