Daily Archives: February 25, 2011

finally something went right

i got a 92 on my legal/ethical exam and 100% on assignment #3. that was nice. mind you, a 92 is a B in nursing school. but having that big of a margin from an F feels good. as i spent a number of years in the legal field, i have been frustrated with my experience in the class so far. i spent from 12:30 until 21:30 yesterday at bennu studying for my electrolyte and acid-base exam. still pretty frustrated with that topic. i get the two topics separately, but ask me something like “you client comes in dehydrated from 2-days of vomiting. do they have a) metabolic acidosis, b) respiratory acidosis, c) metabolic alkalosis or d) respiratory alkalosis?” uh, i don’t know. ask dr house! you give me lab numbers, and i can tell you in negative time. ironically, i find the topic of electrolytes and acid-base balance really interesting. randomly, i have been noticing that i find the blood related topics pretty fascinating.

so my friend frederic called me last weekend. he started the conversation as a lot of people do “how’s it going?” my reply was “crappy, i failed a test, my cat ran-away and andreas broke up with me yesterday”. his reply, “damn, i am sorry. i was calling to see if you wanted to hang out tonight, but after a week like that, it hardly seems like you would.” truth was, i would really have liked to. distraction would have been awesome. but i was already in belton. i suggested later in the week. he explained that he is looking at getting back into dating so he needs to practice and wanted to go to dinner/be social. i thought that was pretty awesome and was delighted to be his practice subject. he is taking me to a swanky steak house downtown tomorrow night!

i was thinking about how things worked out between myself and both patrick and andreas. i am just really struck by how in both cases, when i finally had some hope for the relationship, they both were done. is that me? is that a guy thing? the relationships were both very different. patrick and i were together 16 years. andreas and i 3. not to say that 3 years isn’t a long time, but patrick and i were frustrated a lot longer than andreas and i were. not that i am saying you should be frustrated for at least X number of years before giving up. i can’t truthfully say i think there should be a time minimum of struggle. people are different about how much struggle they can take. patrick and i got together young, andreas and i were a bit more mature. regardless, this perspective difference between myself and both patrick and andreas is worrying. one of my best qualities is that i am very loyal. i stick with people, i don’t give up on them. that doesn’t mean i baby them or don’t express my differing of opinion. i don’t actually think you are a very good friend if you just blindly support a friend. loyalty is being there during good and bad. but is this a loyalty difference? (not that patrick and andreas aren’t loyal, i just take it to a higher level than most people…which may be good but may be bad). anyhow, i am thinking of going back to see my therapist a couple times to discuss this perspective difference. is it that i hold on longer? is it that i see something differently? and if i do, why is that? is what i see a reasonable facsimile of reality? in the case of patrick, i don’t have any corroborating opinion. it was just he and i. with andreas, i have some corroborating opinion i don’t feel it is appropriate to discuss here. is this just a difference between men and women? i am not saying their being done when they were was “bad”. sure it hurts, but when you are done, you are done. then again, why the difference? i think understanding the difference might help me in future relationships. all relationships go through rocky times. i think our relationship was really hard for andreas in the last 6-months. so is that the difference? should that be what i worry about? what i should try to address during future rocky times with future partners? 2-data points are, well, just 2-data points. but it covers a lot of years in my life. i want to try and figure this one out. i’d really like to not feel this way again.

both here and there

2011-02-23
good news: today, i got my approval for the high risk insurance pool. the fat lady hasn’t EXACTLY sung, as i still need to set-up my payments through the IRS AND i have no idea whether my Drs are on the plan or not (you couldn’t look that up during application since this is a last resort program anyway). but at least i know i have insurance in case something catastrophic happens. also, something REALLY good happened to my best friend. i don’t want to go into details, but it was seriously awesome. she also got to see “camper van beethoven” last weekend. and they played “take the skinheads bowling” even. lastly, i asked paul from “an engineer’s guide to cats” out via FB (though he lives in wichita). i figured, what the heck. though it felt weird asking a vaguely famous person, maybe they don’t get asked out that much, cause people think they get asked out too much. turns out he just started dating someone, but he was impressed with my “attitude. nothing ventured, nothing gained”. he didn’t mention my cats names though. i find my cats names impressive. it was a fun thing to do, at least.

bad things: i got totally lost during the acid-base lecture today. she even confused me on electrolytes a bit. i thought i had conquered those. it is too bad that the lecture went as it did, being that i felt so good after yesterday’s simulation. another bad thing is how next week is going to suck. i have to do my nutritional assignment, my lab values write-up and pass meeds in clinical. i also have a test in decision making (electrolytes and acid-base), plus a test in legal/ethical. crazy stuff. i am going to study my brains out this weekend for the two tests so i can focus on my clinical paperwork on monday/tuesday.

i guess another good thing that happened was some of my classmates gave me a “cheer you up” card today. they had heard about all the things that went wrong last week. i am not my perky self. being i am usually a very perky person, people tend to notice when i am blue. so my clinical buddies bought me a card. it felt sort of weird as i don’t really know some of them. like they got the card passed to them so they had a write something. but all the comments were really nice. so it felt good. nursing students are generally pretty awesome.