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Today’s blog post title has nothing to do with how I’m feeling right now. I am not in sorrow nor have I been in constant sorrow these past few days. Which is really weird because of the only thing that has been constant lately, the rain. I’m usually all gloomy and the like when it rains and since it’s been raining for a week or more I should be down right depressed. Life is strange sometimes.

Work has been going really good. I go to the “office” Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but work at home whenever there’s something that needs to be taken care of in between those days. Every once in a while I’ll stay at home on my “work” days and just work from home, which is really nice because I’m must more comfortable in my PJ’s, sitting on my couch with my puppies. I’m not sure how much CC likes this but he doesn’t seem to disprove. I’m comfortable enough in our relationship to tell him when I wanna stay home but whether he’s is enough to tell me “no, come on down”, I don’t know. I think I might email him about that….

My schedule might sound a little weird and although it changes every week this is what I’m up to lately:

• Depending on what’s going on in Paducah/Murray I will either drive to Paducah something Saturday or Sunday morning. I sing in the church choir every Sunday morning so I have to be in Paducah for that.
• I work on Mondays so I’ll stay in Paducah Sunday night and drive to Draffenville that morning. After work I will drive to Murray and stay the night there.
• Tuesdays I don’t work so I will stay in Murray and do housely things and bloggy things.
• Wednesday morning I will drive from Murray to Draffenville for work and then from Draffenville to Paducah for choir practice. Wednesday nights are reserved for spending time with an old friend so I’ll be staying in Paducah that night.
• Thursday will be spent in Paducah. I’ll hang out with my mom during the day and my friends at night.
• I work every Friday so that morning I will from Paducah to Draffenville and then from Draffenville to Murray after work.
• If nothing’s happening in Paducah Saturday I’ll stay in Murray until Sunday morning. Then the routine repeats itself.

Speaking of singing on Sundays, I am singing a solo this coming Sunday at church. Schubert’s Ave Maria. I am so excited! I haven’t sung it in forever and it’s definitely my favorite Ave Maria, maybe even  my favorite classical song. But then I think of Pachelbel’s Canon in D and I remember, there can only be one favorite. Wow, I am all over the place today aren’t I?

And..speaking of being all over the place…I went to see a specialist yesterday for adult ADHD. I’m a firm believer that everyone has at least some level of ADHD and, although I know mine’s mild at best, it has affected my prior education. I start nursing in the spring and I am not about to let ANY level of ADHD affect my ability to learn this time. Especially in this program – normally if you make below a C in a class you just have to make it up before going on. Not in at this nursing school, oh no. You have to drop out and REAPPLY and start all over again. This place is hardcore.

After evaluating me for a freakin’ hour he doctor thinks I have mild to moderate (wha??) ADHD, I just don’t demonstrate the typical symptoms. For example, most people with ADHD experience

• difficulty paying attention
• easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli and frequently interrupting ongoing tasks to attend to trivial noises or events that are usually ignored by others
• inability to sustain attention on tasks or activities
• difficulty finishing schoolwork or paperwork or performing tasks that require concentration
• procrastination
• frequent shifts in conversation, not listening to others, not keeping one’s mind on conversations, and not following details or rules of activities in social situations

I, however, experience more subtle symptoms such as picking at lose or dead skin and shaking my foot and/or leg when sitting. I always thought those were just nervous habits…apparently that’s what makes me have ADHD. Who knew? So I’ve been put on a fairly low dose of this new medication, Vyvanse, which is suppose to be an improved version of Adderall. It’s suppose to be fast acting too. I took my first dose this morning and I think I felt it working this afternoon, or maybe I was just finally waking up? Whatever. Good news is that it didn’t upset my stomach, which is why Neil doesn’t like to take his ADHD medication.

I’m also trying to deal with my depression and anxiety sans medication. The change in work place is making it bearable right now but only time will tell.

I am one of those weird people who can never start something in the middle of the week. I must start either on a Sunday or a Monday. Luckily I finished this design a couple of hours ago and can now introduce this website and the goal that goes a long with it.

I think it was back in July when something changed in me. I decided I was going to start doing what I wanted to do and not what was expected of me from all the different people in my life. I was suppose to go to nursing school in August. My husband and I were suppose to buy a house in Clarksville, TN and move there before my program started. I was going to get a nursing assistant job at the hospital there. I was suppose to do a lot of stuff. None of it happened and it was all my doing. In the end I did get into the nursing program but decided to wait until Spring 2010 to start. Neil and I weren’t thrilled of the idea of purchasing a house in a town we knew we wouldn’t want to stay in long. I was tired of working as a CNA.

When Fall 2009 classes started I was not enrolled anywhere and that’s how I wanted it to be. Since I wasn’t starting nursing until the spring I didn’t want to waste money on bull shit classes for this semester so it was decided, I was taking a semester off. Surprisingly, everyone was all for it! Hey, that way I could work more and save money for when we did move….wherever and whenever it might be! But working more at the job I had at the time…just thinking about it threw me into a panic attack. It took months but I had begun to hate my job and everything about it. It made me sick to think about. My days would always start off fine until I realized I had to go to work in the afternoon. I would procrastinate getting ready so much that in the last week or two I would be late to work. I’d been trying to ween myself off of my depression meds and working at that job wasn’t allowing me any progress. At the beginning of September I finally did what I’d been wanting to do for months, I quit. It was the best feeling in the world. I was free.

I got a job working as a webmaster for a business man who had multiple business ventures and websites and newsletter to go along with them. If you know me then you know how perfect for me the job position is alone. Then on top of that I get to choose my days and how many hours I work as long as I get done what needs to be done. Pretty soon, when I get the hang of things, I’ll get to work from home. When you look in the dictionary, they have me and my job listed under “things that are perfect for each other”.

What’s best about this job? – the fact that when I start nursing school I can still work there. It’s even close to our soon-to-be new home! My parents are allowing us to live in their lake house (for free!) that’s only minutes from my school until I graduate. And this house couldn’t be more perfect for us! My RLFs know this to be true.

So, in general, this semester has been the “I do what I want, bitches!!” semester. Everything I listed above has also given me time to go home at least once a week and see my friends and family. That is the most important thing. More than anything, I want to move back home and settle down with Neil and start a family with our family near us. And be happy. Now here comes the shallow part.

I think one thing that’s missing from my life to make me completely and utterly happy is feeling good about how I look. It might be a girl thing and it might just be a me thing but I am not happy with my life if I’m not happy with how I look. Since this is the semester of change for me I am going to once and for all change how I look. I’m going to make myself truly happy.

Make sure you visit often. I will be blogging at least every other day with goals, what I’m going to reach said goals, and so much more. Please join me on this adventure of mine!

In case you haven’t read PART ONE I insist that you do. Otherwise you won’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about.

(Contin.)

Tuesday morning Erin came to town to spend time with me during her spring break. We went to lunch and shopped a little and decided that instead of going to see a movie we’d settle on my couch at home with her newly bought Twilight DVD. In the period of one hour during the movie I had diarrhea three times. Along with that were my stomach pains. I felt awful because I had pretty much wasted Erin’s day. Sorry Erin! I had dinner plans with Emmy that night too and had to cancel — she even had to bring me medicine! Thanks Emmy!

Now I will briefly mention that Neil, while playing basketball that afternoon, hurt his ankle and couldn’t walk on it. He was unable to take care of me and I was unable to take care of him. We were a mess.

Neil's ankle. YUCK!

Tuesday night I called my mom in tears, begging her to come down and take care of me. I knew there wasn’t anything she herself could do but all of you know things are better when you’re mother’s around. I trust Ellen more than almost anyone so I was glad I’d get to talk to someone and hopefully get this figured out.

Wednesday afternoon I drove the hour to Ellen’s office for the visit. We talked, she pressed around on my stomach, and she took a urine sample for testing. My urine showed nothing. Great. Ellen scheduled an ultra sound and a HIDA scan for Friday morning and wrote me a prescription for a pain pill. I didn’t eat that day until 6:30 when my father in law took me out to dinner. At 7:30 I took my pain pill in anticipation for the pain to start since I had just eaten. Since I’d taken the pain pill I was expecting to get a little woozy in about 30 mins but it wasn’t until 9pm that I felt something. And that something wasn’t the pain pill kicking in. It was by far the worst pain yet. So bad that the only thing I could think to do was to give my stomach something else to do instead of hurt. I cooked some instant rice pudding and prayed that it would help. As far as I was concerned, it couldn’t get worse. I called my mom, crying again, and begging yet again for her to do something. ANYTHING! She suggested Neil drive me half way to Paducah and they would meet us and drive me the rest of the way in to town and straight on to the hospital. I agreed and started packing. That’s when my stomach decided to chill a little. Thank you rice pudding! I was no longer in pain when we pulled into Paducah so we decided opt for a CAT scan the following morning (Thursday) which was an option to begin with.

Thursday morning I arrived at the Imaging Center in Paducah at 9:30. My appointment wasn’t until 11 but I had to drink some iodine before hand. After checking in they asked me “Would you like Sprite, Coke, or Diet Coke?” I thought, well how nice — they’re going to let me chase the iodine with something — maybe the iodine tastes bad? I tell her Sprite, because I’m a good girl, and out she comes with a 1 Liter…A ONE LITER!!! sprite bottle. And then I see her pour the 3-4 tablespoons worth of iodine INTO the ONE LITER sprite bottle and swirl it around to mix it. She tells me I have to drink ALL OF IT! ONE WHOLE LITER in 30 minutes and drink it slowly. I sit down in the waiting room and start drinking. Thankfully they didn’t come to get me at the end of the 30 minutes because I wasn’t done with the sprite yet. It actually took about 50 minutes. Needless to say when they finally called me in I had to pee badly but I didn’t get to just yet. I thought that because I drank a shit ton of iodine sprite I wouldn’t have to have iv injected iodine but I was wrong. Before I had the CAT scan they had to out in my iv port which didn’t bother me…I’m use to needles. Finally it was time for my CAT scan. They brought me into the room and had me sit down on the table that would carry me through me big ring. That’s the only way I can think to describe it but if you’ve had a CAT scan then you know what I’m talking about. Before they let me lay down on the table the technician handed me a cup of water mix with of course, more iodine. Seriously? My bladder can’t hold anymore liquid! But I drank it and had my CAT scan. It only took a couple of minutes and I was on my way.

A CAT scan...er. Scanner? A CT scan machine-a-ma-jig.

I had a very small, sort of healthy lunch with my mom and niece and on our way to Old Navy, not even 30 minutes after eating, I got sick. Again. I had brought my pain pills with me just in case and took two, even though I’m only suppose to take one every 4-6 hours. We turned around and headed home so I could sleep it off. It took a while for me to fall asleep and not too long into my nap my stomach woke me up. Yay. Sick again. I demanded my mother make me rice pudding because it had worked the night before and low and behold, it worked that night. Thank God. I slept well last night.

Rice pudding

Yesterday morning (Friday) I woke up at 6:30 to get ready and leave the house at 7am for my ultra sound/HIDA scan appointment at a hospital an hour away. A good thing about small hospitals is that they never make you wait long. I was there for 10 mins before the ultra sound technician called me back. Being a medical professional myself I requested that the computer screen be turned a little my way. The technician gladly obliged but may have regretted it later because during the entire exam, which took about 20 mins, I asked question after question. She was such a good sport and answered every one of them. She even taught me a little! Next up was the HIDA scan which until now I had NO IDEA what that entailed. I was taken to another small room which held the machine. The male technician, who was MAJORLY hunky!!!, put another iv port in the same vein that was used for Monday’s blood and Thursday’s iodine. The median cephalic vein on my left arm is hard to reach and instead of having them root around in my arm (OUCH!) for it I allowed them to use my right arm every time..and probably will continue to do so. He pushed saline into the left branch and a radioactive dye (sounds fun right?) in the right branch simultaneously and we waited for it to run through my system.

Gallbladder Ultrasound

I climbed on top the hunky technician table and lay down. The table itself was ridiculously thin so I felt like I might fall over either side if I leaned one way too much. I had to deal with that feeling for an hour and a half. No exaggeration. And lay completely still on that thin table almost freezing to death? Pretty impossible. Actually at one point near the end of the test I bent my legs at the knees and put my feet flat on the table. It relieved all the tension that had built up in my back. I was comfortable for 5 minutes before Mr. Hunky Radiology Technician asked me to put my legs down. Damn. Every once in a while the technician injected into my IV port some sort of chemical that was suppose to mimic fatty food and bring on my symptoms. I did get a little nauseous but I didn’t get sick, thankfully. I’m not sure what I would have done if I got sick in front of the tech. Even laying in there… alone with him for an hour and a half was ACKWURT! Heh.

HIDA scan machine-thingy

After the HIDA scan I was free to leave and leave I did. I took off, hoping that I didn’t need to check out with anyone…because I just walked out the door and got in my car. Home sweet home, was all I was thinking. Man it was good to be home but at the same time not. In Paducah I was with my parents who could take care of me and if I needed to go to the ER I could have. Here, well, nor my parents or the ER are here in Murray. I didn’t get sick once on Friday. I did however get a call from the hospital. Everything was completely normal. According to every test I’ve had run I am in perfect health. Now what?