Year: 2016

Bronchitis with Bite

Posted on by kmarrs

I’ve gotten bronchitis every single fall since I was 12 years old.  For those of you keeping count, that’s 20 year’s worth.  I haven’t missed a year.  Sometimes I even get a bonus case in the spring.  I don’t know dudes.  I don’t smoke anything that actually gets inhaled.  I don’t have asthma.  I don’t have many things that would explain this 20 year ordeal.  I just have chronic bronchitis.

So when the chest cold hit last week, I acknowledged my fate and went to the doctor before it had a chance to get bad.

Actually, let’s back up about a dozen years.  I don’t know when this part began, but as far as recent years go, the only things that really get me breathing right are an inhaler, which isn’t uncommon, and a shot of steroids to the ass.  Now, I suppose it doesn’t have to be administered that way.  I could do the 5 or 7 day taper down, but I metabolize it better when I get the shot to the ass and I become less psychotic.  Seeing as I’m borderline psychotic on my best days, I find myself willing to submit to the needle.  Plus needles don’t bother me.  And my ass has lots of padding.  So it’s a little fast prick (insert lewd joke here) and then I can breathe again within hours.

But I always need the steroids.  Always.

So when I went to the little urgent care at the grocery store I had two items on the agenda: steroids (any form, I couldn’t be picky at the urgent care) and an inhaler.

Now I’ll admit I was early in the illness so I wasn’t yet wheezing, but she acknowledged my history and stated that yes it was bronchitis, just caught early.  She handed me a script for an inhaler, an antibiotic (she thought I might also have a sinus infection, you don’t treat bronchitis with an antibiotic), a script for a decongestant, and a script for a cough syrup.

No amount of talk would get her to prescribe a steroid.  It didn’t matter that I had a 20 year history of this, she wasn’t going to do it.  She didn’t give me a reason, just a refusal.  So that was that.

That was last Saturday.

I went to work Monday and convinced my coworkers I was dying and dying loudly.

Tuesday I went in again, because I knew I’d be needed, but told my boss it would probably be best if I stayed home Wednesday and Thursday, and why. (I didn’t see her at all Monday, and she works on a whole different floor, so she had no idea I was sick and dying from the cough.)

Tuesday at 1PM I got sent home early, which isn’t unusual for a Tuesday and I decided F that noise, and went to my local emergency room.  I was bad enough I needed chest x-rays and I wasn’t going to leave until I got a shot of steroids to the rump.  The hospital, btw, use to be the first place I went with this crud, and that’s where the steroid treatment began.  So I knew they’d hook me up.

Well, after a brief wait, and a few chest x-rays I was called back to a room and given the interesting news that I was no longer dealing with just bronchitis, I know officially have my first case of pneumonia.

They hooked me up with a breathing treatment, because my pulse was up and I was, well, that sick.

And yes right before I left, my beloved steroids to the rump.

I can’t even tell you.

It’s like for days I kept coughing and coughing and coughing almost nonstop, but nothing was happening with it.  After the steroids… You know that feeling of finally being able to get under a cough to push it up, verses fighting against it for ages but never being able to get under it, so it’s just stuck down inside you? Steroids let me get underneath the cough and push it all the way out of my lungs.  Now instead of nonstop coughing, I cough a few times an hour and that’s it.  Maybe more if I’m doing a lot of talking.

And I’m still like super drained, because duh I’m really sick, but before that shot, the idea of going back to work Monday felt impossible.  Now it’s totally doable.  The next few days of rest and I’ll be so ready to return to work.

So yeah, I’m just going straight to the hospital with this crap from now on.  I’ll wait until it’s fully in my lungs.  No more catching it early, because doctors don’t like being told what’s going to happen, but when it hits, I know where to go from here on out.

Babies

Posted on by kmarrs

My 20 gallon community is teaming with new life.  I have baby Sunburst Platys.  But most excitedly I have baby cherry shrimp.  It took forever for them to breed, and I think half of them end up fish food, but so far there have been 2-3 waves of baby shrimp and I’m super excited.  At some point, tax return most likely, I’m going to try and talk Pat into letting me upgrade to a 30 gallon.  I won’t add new life, it’ll just better support the life that’s already in it.   We’ll see.

IQ You

Posted on by kmarrs

On the 24th of October I sat the admissions test for MENSA.  I sat and failed, that is.

It’s been a lifelong goal of mine to join MENSA.  So this came as a hard break.  It’s not even that I’m not as smart as I thought I could be.  I don’t care as much about that.  I was greatly looking forward to the social opportunities.  And well, yes, I feel stupid.

I do feel really stupid.

And as I sit here trying to turn this into a long post I realize there is nothing more I want to say on the subject.  I mean I could explore how I feel stupid even though I’m not stupid but fuck that.  I don’t really want to talk about it.

So I’ve shared that I tried.  I’ve shared that I failed.  And now I have school work to work on.

Social Life

Posted on by kmarrs

I’m trying to make friends.  It’s one of my goals in therapy, to have a friend by the end of 6 months.  I have plenty of acquaintances, but no real solid best friend (besides Pat).  And I want one (besides Pat).  So I have embarked on a social life, of sorts.

First I invited a girl who used to work with us, but had to leave, over for dinner.  She was curious about the animals, and she’s really nice, so I figured, hey, why not!  She and her boyfriend came over and had Pat’s famous baked ravioli.  But, I don’t know.  They seemed in a hurry to leave after dinner.  And she hasn’t really seemed interested in more than idle small talk since.  So I guess there is no real connection there.  Which fine.

Next up, I took my boss to see Wicked.  She came over to dinner first and met the family then we headed out to the show.  It was a great time, and I enjoyed being social.  I even hope we’ll be social again in the future.  But my boss is not going to be more than a casual friend to me and that’s ok.

Finally, another girl I work with has a daughter Sammy’s age.  So I invited the two of them to come to Sammy’s birthday party.  That was a hit and both girls have a new best friend.  Katie and I however, will be ok mom friends, but she just isn’t my type when it comes to a best friend.

So, I’m not left with nothing.  I’m just not any closer to having a best friend.

Five

Posted on by kmarrs

20160814_191244_001I am out of words.  My daughter, my precious, precocious, baby girl is now five.  She’s been five for a couple of weeks now, so this post is well overdue, but I don’t know what to say.

I mean, trying to describe my daughter is like trying to describe the universe.   It’s larger than life, beautiful, and fuels passion in others.  But those are just words, and just words fail to do her justice.

She wears glasses now.  They are purple which is her favorite color.  In part, I think, because she knows it’s my favorite color.  Her other favorite color is pink, which is her daddy’s favorite color.

20160814_191301Her ears are pierced.  I took her to a proper piercer at a tattoo parlor, where a proper needle was used instead of a piercing gun.  Those things are so unhygienic. Anyway.  She still has the little hoop in that the piercer put in.  Soon, though, she can have me change them out.  I have a few sets of earrings for her ready to go.  One set we’ll leave in, and two for special occasions.  Little owls and little flowers.  Pretty in purple and pink.  The piercing and the earrings were birthday gifts.  She wanted them pierced so bad, and even daddy said yes, so I figured why not.

She’s in kindergarten now.  She is thriving there.  Except for the lack of a nap which she doesn’t miss until she gets home at which point we all regret our lives.  5-year-olds are something special.  5-year-olds who are giving up their afternoon nap are extra special.  But, never-the-less she loves kindergarten and kindergarten loves her, so it’s sort of, mostly, worth it.

 

 

 

 

So it comes down to following my dreams or letting my mental health get in my way.

Posted on by kmarrs

I’ve made a decision. I went back and forward with it for a while. I had an emergency therapy session over it. I asked repeatedly for reassurance from Pat that he’d support me no matter what. Then I decided I had until summer before I really had to make a final decision on the issue at hand so I’d just wait until the right answer came to me.

I don’t normally work Thursdays but I needed the hours so I went in. I was glad I did. My bosses had no work for me but a girl who worked with us until recently stopped by so I got to be social with her. Then when it became obvious that there was not going to be any real work for me to do, it was decided I’d go home at 1. So there long enough to collect a check, but still clocking out 2 hours early.

I’ve blogged about how I’m not overtly religious but I am spiritual. I do believe there is something big out there guiding us and he or she wanted me in that office until 1 on Thursday.

Around noon professor B comes strolling in needing help with his email. No one else was around. It isn’t exactly my job since I’m under the maths department but I didn’t have anything better to do and helpful is helpful. My boos wasn’t going to fault me. So I logged myself off my work station and logged him on so we could straighten out his email problem. While we were at it, a favor for a favor. What favor did I need? Oh, just a little advice.

You see, until the end of last month, professor B was the head of the Applied Psychology program. That’s my program. Who better to help me to define my path than someone who has walked it?

He listened to the short version of it all. He told me that an undergrad in both applied psych and general psych was stupid, his words, not my embellishment. He also said that Applied psychology was enough of a psych foundation that I could very reasonably get my PsyD from there. Doubly so if I’m getting a masters.

So technically I can still follow my end goal dream even if I change-up and don’t get the general psych undergrad.

So that leaves the last concern of money. You only get 57,000 in loan money. It is possible to run out of grants and loans before you finish your first degree (much less your second, which is how this all got started). The advantage of OSU is that it’s the state school so it’s hella cheaper. But I looked up how much of my loan money I’ve used versus how far into my degree I am. I’ve used 30,000 of the 57,000 and I’m about half done with the degree program. So technically I think I’ll be paying out-of-pocket for like my last few classes, but I’ll face that when it comes, and that’s just loans, not necessarily grants. There are also scholarships. If I keep up my GPA (it’s sitting at a 3.923) I will have options. So I need to take a deep breath and figure it out when it comes.

For now I’m just happy I’m staying at Franklin. I’m really happy about that. It just feels so right to me. I know I’ll be facing OSU when it comes to grad school and that’s fine. But right now my mental health is still in an iffy place. I need to do what I can to keep things around me stable. That means Franklin. That also means keeping my job I’m currently at where I’m happy and not overly stressed out.

I’m in a good place as far as work and school go. I’m also building friendships. (More on that to come.) My marriage is in a comfortable place. My kids are happy and healthy. My mental heath will find itself settling into place. I just have to be patient.