My Hips Hate Me

I battle chronic pain in both of my hips.  I frequently blame it on a really bad decision I made concerning a garage sale, an entertainment center and my mom's basement but really I'm pretty sure that was just the straw the broke the camel's hips.

I dream of the day I take a few weeks off and wake up with shiny, new, resurfaced hips. 

I am going to take some trazodone and call it a day.

I am in LOVE with my new office.

I feel like the queen of everything in here.  It's awesome. 

I have a houseful of people that I dearly love more than anything in the world.  But.  They are so needy! 

After spending the last couple of semesters setting up  ad-hoc study areas around the house (none of them comfortable) and then spending my summer 16-day statistics marathon at the kitchen table with the noise and the questions, and the chatter, all the while glaring at my family with violence in my eyes, I finally have a real home office! 

One of the best features?  A door - so I can close it and thus reduce the incidence of glaring at my family with violence in my eyes.

I made the curtains from some really decadent fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby and then used that iron-on fabric glue to make the hems and seams.  I don't sew.  It's not that I can't sew.  It's that I don't. I love the fabric so much, I couldn't bring myself to discard the last of it, and instead made it into a chair-back coverlet.  Here I will work out the last of the bills, loose ends, and other headaches before school begins.  After school is underway, this will be the CNS of my academic life.

Bliss. :-)

A Prayer to the Gods of Financial Aid

Lay it on me baby.  Mama needs . . . well, Mama needs pretty much just about everything.  It's looking pretty lean in the old refrigerator.

Congratulations! You have been properly titered, tested and immunized.

I'd like to take this opportunity to tell all the anti-vaccine "cuz it like totally causes autism because Jenny McCarthy said so" nutters to go ahead and die slowly in a barrel of fire ants under a latrine pit, please.  You are causing innocent babies to die incredibly painful and totally unnecessary and preventable deaths.  You are responsible for this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuvn-vp5InE&NR=1 and you should be banished from civilized society right after your children are placed with loving, SANE human beings who will love and care for them enough to protect them with proper vaccinations.

OK.  I feel better now!

DANCE PARTY!

I awoke to find this in my inbox this morning:

Hi Wanda,

Congratulations! You have been released to register for classes by the Student Health Office. If you have any questions please feel free to give us a call.

Yippeeeeee!  Now I just have to figure out how to round up $850.00 for this semester's books.

Things I should be getting done today.

I tried to spray the patio and driveway today.  I really did. Unfortunately the sprayer is not charged up so it will have to wait until tomorrow.  It' a shame too.  Today's high is a relatively tolerable if not muggy 84Fand there is no wind at all.  Oh well.

We have a huge property, about 1/6 of a block so spraying to keep the weeds down is a big deal.  If you have to spray more than once a year or your yard is any bigger than a postage stamp I cannot recommend one of these highly enough.  It will save your back.

We don't have one of those lawns that you see in Perfect Homes and the Well-To-Do People Who Own Them Magazine,  We don't have that kind of house either.  We purchased an old Victorian that had been converted first to housing for nuns and later 5 apartment units for drunken college students.  It's been an adventure, to say the least.  It's also been time-consuming, expensive and at times, painful.  We've ripped out 3 full kitchens, 7 doorways, and countless false walls. We've remodeled 3 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, 4 bedrooms and we are nowhere near done.  That's just the inside.

So you see, there is always something to do.  A broken  down Victorian will teach you humility and it will teach you how to manage guilt.  Which brings me to the other things I should be doing today.  My kids taxes, my mom's shopping, and diving into the big pile of financial doo-doo I'd like to take care of before school hits the fan.

We'll see.

Where I visit student health four times for one little TB skin test.

One of the last things on my shopping list is to complete my required vaccinations for admittance.  For most incoming students, I imagine this is a simple matter of asking their mom for a copy of their childhood shots.

I called the local clinic where I got my shots as a small child,  (Lookie there!  It's still standing!)  and they informed me that the stone tablets that once bore my vital information were ground into ashtray sand sometime in the 20th century.

On to the backup plan.  This involved piecing together titer and shot records spread across several institutions and about 2.5 decades or 1/4 of a hundred years.  

In order to enter med school you need: (you can skip to the end of this paragraph, it's pretty boring)


Chicken Pox (Varicella): Documentation of two immunizations or a positive Varicella titer.
Hepatitis B: Documentation of three immunizations & a positive Hepatitis B surface antibody titer to show immunity.
If your titer is negative you must repeat the series and titer within the next 2 semesters.
Polio: Documentation of last date of series.
Measles/Mumps/Rubella : Documentation of receiving two MMRs or positive titers.
Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis: Students should have received a vaccination with Tdap.
If Tdap has not been previously administered to the student, an interval of 2 years since the last TD booster
is suggested.
Tuberculosis (TB skin testing):
Documentation of a 2-step PPD which must be administered at least 7 days apart or a negative
QuanteFERON gold within the 6 months prior to registration or documentation of treatment if tested
positive.
All students are required to have
documented proof of a yearly influenza immunization
before December 1.

So after  extensive efforts, excessive mileage and many levels of voice-mail hell, today was the day appointed to take my final TB skin test.

08:30 am - Not here yet.
11:00 am - Meeting!
02:00 pm - Try after four please? (starting to wonder if I should take this personally)
04:30 pm - Finally.

(TB bacilli)

Nursing School. Finally.

Some unmarked day in the early to mid spring of 2007 sitting at the stoplight on highway 30 and 5th Avenue I had an epiphany. I just couldn't take it any more. It was 6:40 am and I was on the way to what was unquestionably the shittiest job I've ever had in my life - working for "environmental services" a.k.a. housekeeping at a local healthcare facility. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say I'd had enough of being spoken to like I was developmentally disabled by pretty much everyone and being treated like a sneaky child by my so-called superiors.

Through the years I've had my own photography business, driven a truck, and done all kinds of work for paltry sums of money, but along the way, I always wanted to be in the medical profession. I just didn't know how to make it happen. At that stoplight, I determined to find out.

A little over 3 years and some 86 credit hours later, here I am, trying to finish up the last few odds and ends so I can roll on in to UNMC properly papered and punched.

I thought it might be a nice idea to journal my experience in nursing school as a way of connecting to others, maybe, but also as a record for myself and my family. I hope it will be occasionally of interest or use to someone other than just myself.

Next entry: Hit me with your best shot - or - Thank you sir, may I have another?