Sunday March 24, 2024

 It’s been a while. I’ve been both busy and kind of depressed and didn’t want to write, I guess. A lot has happened and lot is happening, so I’m going to do separate posts for everything. But in general, just wanted to update and say that I’ve been having a hard time mentally so I went on some medication. I have been working with the same therapist for many years for cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD. I told her in the beginning that I am sort of anti medication. I just don’t like taking medication. I don’t like dealing with side effects. And I’m just not goo about taking medication. Even when I set a reminder on my phone I will turn it off and think to myself that I’ll remember to take my medication next time I’m in the room the medication is in. But I never do remember! So, anyway, the past two sessions my therapist has said that while I’m doing great with the CBT, life just doesn’t need to be this hard. She recommended I try Zoloft or Prozac. So I did my research and decided Prozac might be the best fit for me. I went to the doctor last week and he got me a prescription.

I also went to the doctor twice last week for the hysterectomy I’ve been putting off. I had a pelvic ultrasound on Thursday so the doctor can see if he could see anything that might be urgent. In the meantime we are buying time with birth control so I don’t have cycles. So I’ve been thinking about when the best time to get it is and there just isn’t a good time. So I wrote to director of student services and asked if I could join the cohort that does block 4 over this summer. Then I’d have the hysterectomy first week of August, then take the NCLEX in September and start working. We’ll see what happens. I know they don’t like the CEP students to accelerate their nursing program, but I hope they will make an exception for me with health concerns. It does make me a little sad to think that I won’t finish with my cohort, but I have to think about my mental and physical heath right now. I think getting the hysterectomy will also help with some of my mental struggles. And finishing school sooner than later will also help. It’s also messing with me that I feel like school is all I do. I have to be somewhere all the time, or I have to be reading something all the time, something due, or someone needs something. I’m just tired. Doing it this summer would be unpleasant because I’d go to school tues Wednesday thurs, then work Friday Saturday Sunday from May 14th-august 1. By some random stroke of luck they do have the week off of school that we’re doing the family reunion at Disneyland. But we wouldn’t be able to go to the cabin this summer which makes me very sad. Oh, and I can’t swim at all. Being in AZ over the summer and not being able to swim sound terrible! But I have to put my physical and mental health at the forefront. We’ll see what  they say. I think they would let me transfer into that cohort, but I don’t think they’d like me messing up my CEP schedule. So we’ll see.

In other news, things are okay at home. I still feel like Garren likes his assistant more than me or just doesn’t like me at all. I’m trying to link the feelings with OCD, but I just don’t feel like he cares about me. He laughs at text messages from his assistant while he ignores mine altogether. I’ll tell him I have a lot on my mind or I’m overwhelmed and he will just act like I’ve said nothing at all. Doesn’t respond, doesn’t ask how he can help. Another reason I just need to get school over with. Maybe if I can stop feeling overwhelmed by life and expecting Garren to notice I’m drowning and wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning, maybe I can stop resenting him for feeling this way. So to save my marriage, too, I just need to get school done with.  

Anyway, I’ll do separate posts for the happenings lately. 

Sunday Feb 11, 2024 (Post for December 12-January 1)

 Woah!! Been super busy. And also super lazy. ;) So this is a catch up post for Christmas and New Year.

Well, these pictures uploaded all out of order and I’m too lazy to fix them.

We went to the temple lights on Christmas night.

We went to the cabin for New Year. My parents were there. My mom keeps the house at 83degrees so we slept with the windows open even though it was below freezing!

Garren and Miriam built a pantry cabinet for the cabin.

Have to do our walk on the golf course even if it’s covered in snow!

We watched movies and played categories on New Year’s Eve. We introduced the kids to That Thing You Do. They thought they weren’t going to like it, but the ended up loving it.

Pinetop still has a Radio Shack so Josh wanted to go. The store owner had his dog there sitting in front of a space heater with a curtain over it. I wonder if the place has burned down yet. I don’t know how this guy is still in business. He had merchandise in there from the early 2000s! And the packaging definitely looked it! Yellowing and all that. . . 

Just hanging out home. Probably watching Jeopardy.

Sugar with a pitiful face, protecting her carrot. 

Miriam on Christmas morning with her art supplies and Elton John piano book.

I think she liked all her presents.

Joshua made us waffles for Christmas breakfast. We celebrated Christmas morning on the 24th because. I had to work on Christmas Eve. So I was going to miss Christmas Day since I’d be sleeping. I wanted to see the kids enjoy playing with their gifts. So we celebrated early.

We got Josh an hour of flight instruction in an airplane. He actually got to fly it! 

Miriam took this picture. This was me trying to sleep in the car on the way home from the cabin because I had to work New Year’s night. I din’t sleep, in case you were wondering. . . It was a long shift.

Monday December 11, 2023 (post for 12/3-12/11)

 Block II is officially over and. . .  I PASSED! Phew! There were many times this semester when I felt like that was in question. Including every answer I click “submit” to on the final today. 

Our exam was today at 1pm. That was unpleasant because I had the whole morning to think about it. I just did some review and mostly practiced math questions. I thought if I had the math solid I knew for sure I had it in my power to make sure I got all of those right on the exam. So I did lots and lots of practice. Then I went to the exam 30 minutes early just in case. Ha!I sat beside my good friends Sam and Nadia (and Shannon on the other side of Sam). Nadia took a few minutes to pray for all of us before starting. I prayed in my car before coming in. I prayed that if this was my path I would be guided to the correct answers and if it was not my path that I would feel comforted that it was meant to be that way. I didn’t feel very well prepared for this exam. I worked 5 shifts last week. I get a lot of studying done in the monitor room, so I like to pick up shifts. It’s almost like going to the library! So I did do tons of studying, but for some reason I just didn’t feel confident or prepared. I did practice exams and didn’t perform very well on them. I also participated in a study group with classmates last night and it felt like i was hearing everything for the first time! I was very relieved that I did well and am relieved that it is over. I finished with a B which is fine by me! This semester was brutal. Nursing grading is 92%+ is an A, 84%—91.99% is a B, and 76%—83.99% is a C. So I am at a solid B and I am happy with that!

All I’ve been doing the past week and a half is working and studying. So nothing other than passing the block is really new. As soon as I got out to my car to leave the exam I got an email telling me my masters class has started and I have an assignment due tonight. Ha! I’m in the monitor room tonight, so I got it done in time. No rest for the weary! I’m going to get ahead on the rest of the week’s assignments tonight so I can just relax and do absolutely nothing the rest of the week! I’m going to cook a real dinner that takes longer than ten minutes to make and maybe even bake something for dessert! 

This was me when I pulled out my psych notes to prepare for the exam. 

#true.

This morning after taking about 6 practice psych exams and getting a 50% or less on each one I decided to organize my notability and then ‘manifest’ that I would make it to block 3 by making block 3 tabs.

Sugar being a lap dog. 

Sugar being a lap dog again.

Lap dog. 

Joshua and my dad finally started making their model train! It’s up in our loft. I’m going to buy a couch this weekend to go in that space too. It will be crowded up there, but that’s okay. It will be worth it. My dad wants to come over on Saturdays and Sundays and work with josh on the train. It will be nice to have him around.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m just going to relax for the next couple of days. May not write again until we go to the cabin for New years. Peace out!!

Saturday December 2nd, 2023 (post for 11/20–12/2)

 It’s Saturday morning, Dec 2, 2023. I am at Miriam’s figures meet in Anthem. It is also the Anniversary of Linda’s passing (my mother in law). Hard to believe it’s been a year. 

The past two weeks have been a little bit of a blur. On Monday the 20th we had our last clinical day at Chandler Regional on the med/surg and med/surg trauma units. I was glad to have that done. Clinical is good exposure, but after a few weeks it gets repetitive and we are limited to what we can do as students. Repetitive is good, though. I feel like I could do a Sub-q injection with my eyes closed now. (I won’t. I promise). 

Tuesday I did my OCD/PTSD therapy and my therapist had a genius suggestion for me. I told her that sometimes I spiral too fast to incorporate any therapeutic techniques. She told me to scrunch my toes! So I had an an opportunity to try this at work on Thursday night. I work with an extremely unpleasant human being. She is grumpy all the time and acts like I’m inconveniencing her and is just generally annoyed by my entire existence. I came into work and saw she was the other aid and I immediately got anxiety. I scrunched my toes and it all went away! I think it’s that I was freaking out about the rest of the shift but scrunching toes brings you to present time. I texted Garren and I said, “This might make me a whole new person!”

Wednesday I had my second to last lecture. After lecture I had to participate in a group meeting with the department head of the nursing program. I was supposed to represent my clinical group. So I asked everyone in my group if they had any concerns to be addressed. So I relayed everything they told me to and some of my own things and she responded like everything was a “me” problem. So I feel like the meeting was pointless. I told her some people in my group didn’t like our clinical instructor used “lingo” because we didn’t know what it meant. She said, “Why didn’t you ask?” But some people don’t feel comfortable doing that because sometimes you go into class, someone says something and you think about it trying to recall if it was something you were supposed to know already, like, was this something I read about? And you think about it and by the time you realize it wasn’t something you had already learned they’ve moved on. So, anyway, she just kept saying stuff like, “Why didn’t you do something about it?” I was like, okay so my suggestions aren’t going anywhere. . . .” So, waste of time. I went home and watched Christmas movies with the kids the rest of the day.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. We went to Neal’s. It was nice. Mom and Dad were there. Ashley came out from Phoenix. It was pretty low key. We just ate dinner and played some games. Miriam stay ed the night and they went to see the new hunger games prequel. The rest of us went home. I went to work for the night. That’s when I worked with the unpleasant human being. I don’t know why people actually want to be unpleasant, but whatever. I also worked Friday and Saturday. 

Monday the 27th, I started preparing for my final exam that’s coming up. I started with the psych portion. Have I mentioned yet that I hate psych with all the passion I can muster?

Work has been nice this week because they need a lot of help in the monitor room. On Saturday I called staffing to ask if I could work in the monitor room and they said they didn’t even know I could work in the monitor room! I said, “There should be a note in my profile.” She said, “Oh yah, there it is where no one looks. I’m going to put it in a more obvious place. We can always replace you as an aid because we have plenty of those around, but we don’t have plenty of monitor techs.” So ever since then they have been floating me to the monitor room! Wednesday the 29th they floated me to the monitor room but I Was expecting to work the floor. So I didn’t exactly come prepared. I wrote Garren and asked him to bring all my stuff to study because I can get about 7- 9 good hours of study time in the monitor room. He drove down to the hospital and brought me all my stuff. It was nice of him. I feel bad though because it ended up that I felt burned out a bit on studying and I ended up watching the entire mini-series of “All the Light we Cannot See” on Netflix. As a side note, in case anyone is concerned. . . . I do not completely absorbed when I watch stuff on my phone and block out everything else. i don’t use headphones and I am not oblivious to what is happening around me. I set all my alarmas and parameters on the patients at the beginning of the shift. I scan everyone’s rhythms every five minutes. I also record what their rhythm is on a piece of paper every 2 hours. So when I say I “watched a movie” I am watching my patients at the same time. 

Thursday night I worked in the monitor room and I did study the entire time. I feel like I know my content, but I never know what to expect when my teachers write their own questions. I do really well on the state board of nursing exams because those are designed to be able to use test taking strategies. When my teachers write their own questions there are NO test taking strategies possible. You either know the answer or you don’t. There’s no possibility of getting it right if you don’t just know it unless you happen to guess the right one. With test taking strategies you can at least narrow down options and arrive at the correct answer eventually after some thought and application.. But there is none of that with the teachers questions. So as I’m studying I feel like it isn’t enough to know the content. You have to be like a mind reader or something. 

Friday (yesterday) I slept most of the day—or tired, rather. It’s getting less and less able to sleep during the day and it’s getting really frustrating. My neighbors have lawn maintenance people come at 9am, our pool guy comes. ..  it’s just that no one else in the world is on that schedule so it’s impossible to sleep! Garren and I went out last night to celebrate his raise, bonus, and becoming a shareholding partner in his firm. We had a very mediocre dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Probably won’t be going there again. Ever. Then we went home and watched 30 minutes of Babylon because we can only watch movies in 20-30 minute increments these days. Ha! Now here I am at the swim meet. So we’re full circle. I work tonight. Hopefully they float me to the monitor room!

I feel like I was a Debbie Downer in this post. Ha! That’s the only down side about keeping a journal is that I feel like I use it to say all the things I can’t say out loud to anyone else so it sounds like a lot of griping and complaining. Ha! Speaking of griping, there is a girl dancing around me right now as I sit at a picnic table and type this and she is driving me insane and I wish her mother would tell her to go do it somewhere else. Also, I’m not a morning person at is is 9am. So I’m grumpy for that reason too. Now there is a guy behind me sweeping all the rocks off the cement with his foot. Is everyone here bored to death, or what? Yes is the answer to that. . . 

Josh and Garren in his car setting up. . . something. I don’t know. All that technology in his car is over my head. I think it’s over Garren’s head too. He had Joshua helping him figure it out. I thought it was cute. 

 

Tuesday, November 21, 2023 (post for Nov 14-Nov 20th)

 Ahoy! More business, so I’m going to try to both recall events and write them down in the 23 minutes I have until my therapy session.

Last Tuesday, the 14th, I went to lunch with my parents, my brother, and Garren for my birthday. Ashley could not come because her babies are little and a bit rowdy. And she lives an hour away. Sad face. It was nice though. My mom gave me a Christmas cook book, a blanket, and some chocolate covered pretzels. 

Wednesday I went to class then I went to work. At midnight it turned the 16th and was my birthday! I went to the hospital cafeteria and bought myself a slice of cookie pie. When I was doing midnight vitals, one of my patients had asked me if I had any kids and I said I had a 16 year old son and a 13 year old daughter. They said I didn’t look old enough to have a 16 year old and I said, “I’ll be turning 38 in a few minutes!!” One of the nurses heard that in the hallway and everyone wished me a happy birthday and was really nice. 

Thursday, my actual birthday, I slept most of the day. Then I got Miriam from art club and pretty much drove her straight to swim practice. But in between she gave me this mug:

It says, “Super mom, super wife, super tired!” Super right, Miriam!!

Josh went to work straight from school, so I didn’t see him. Garren surprised me by getting some dinner for us to enjoy together before I had to leave for work. We were going to try Backyard Taco for the first time, but couldn’t get there due to some traffic issues. So we just got panda. It was a very nice little surprise that made my day! Then he gave me my first gift: A subscription to the Hallmark channel! And yes, I have already watched 4 Christmas movies instead of studying Arterial Blood Gases. 

As I was getting ready to leave for work my manager surprised me with a bit of a birthday gift. She floated me to the monitor room! I was happy about that because working the floor is kind of killllling me. I had also wanted to work the floor that night, though, because after 3 months I finally feel like I’m relaxing a bit on the floor and fitting in a little more. So at about 2am I got a call from my floor asking to come up to the unit. So I went up there and one of my nurses, Shannon, had bought cupcakes and cookies to celebrate my birthday! So I stayed up there for a little while and visited with everyone. It was so nice! I feel very awkward and fumbly sometimes on the floor. I try to show my best self and sometimes when that is my focus it just ends up in disaster. But I’m finally feeling a little less awkward. 

Friday, I had to wake up early, around 1:00pm, to go pick up my mom from a surgical procedure at Mt Vista. I missed it! Then Garren reminded me that I have a way of romanticizing my past and remembering the good things. He reminded me how terrible it could be at times. Ha. But I had a lot of good times there too. I really missed it. I was also glad that my mom didn’t seem to remember that her mom died there! Or, at least she didn’t mention it. So I got Miriam from school and drove them both to mom’s. Miriam stayed with my mom to take care of her because I had to go to work. Miriam is a caretaker by nature. She is very sweet and took good care of my mom. 

That night I worked in the monitor room. 

Saturday when I woke up, I spent some time cleaning out my Gardyn and putting new plants in. Then we celebrated my birthday by going bowling, eating sandwiches at Steve’s Krazee Subs, then to Coldstone for ice cream. It was nice! Garren got me a steam cleaner for our floors for my birthday. Then he immediately used it! Ha! Then we went for a long walk as a family. It’s so simple, but it’s one of my favorite things. :)

Sunday we went to church, relaxed, did a little house cleaning, then went for another walk.

Monday I had my last clinical. I was on the Med/Surg Trauma unit at Chandler Regional Medical Center. It was a slow day, but that was okay with me. I’ve been struggling a lot physically lately, so I’m kind of limited to what I can do  now :/

Well, I need to go log in for my therapy session now. I’m so glad I started my OCD/PTSD therapy again. It is helping so much in this stressful line of work. My therapist is amazing. 

I have just 3 weeks left until I am done with Block 2. Then I’ll be 50% nurse!