Giving Thanks

Things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving:

1) Having a job
2) Having a comfortable place to live, food on the table and clothes to wear
3) Friends that are forgiving, kind and loving
4) My family
5) The awesome fur children in my life: Beanie, Thor, Theo, Brunswick! I am grateful for their unconditional love and the humor they bring to my life
6) Living in L.A., where it is 80 degrees and gloriously sunny on November 26th
7) A new Bon Jovi album and their upcoming tour (NYC...May....YIPEE)
8) The amazing doctors and nurses at Northridge Hospital that assisted in my surgery and recovery. They are doing amazing work in sometimes difficult circumstances.
9) The wonderful care the nurses gave me reinforcing my desire to go into nursing.
10) The 12 pounds I lost after surgery and my renewed desire to keep it off and to take of the remaining 80.
11) TiVo, XM Radio, the IPod and my Blackberry. I am a techno geek and love gadgets!
12) My lack of desire to be at Old Navy tomorrow at 3AM, WalMart at 6AM or anywhere near a mall all weekend!
13) Coffee Bean
14) Getting my classes for Spring Semester and my love of going to school
15) Our selfless men and women in uniform and the freedom their sacrifices afford all Americans.
16) The Butterball hotline. I don't cook....never called it....but I am grateful it exists in case I ever need to roast a turkey.
17) That our house isn't in danger of being burned to the ground by someone deep fat frying a turkey. We are eating out this year.
18) The Food Network. I'm grateful for Alton Brown showing me the science being food, Guy Fieri showing me the best Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Paula Deen showing that butter isn't something to be feared.
19) My friends and I making it to the end of an insanely wild year with our sanity relatively intact
20) Humor. It will get you through any situation

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Friends Are Family

I don't have a problem being single. I totally buy into the idea of being able to do what I want, when I want. What scares me about living life single became glaringly apparent after my recent health scare: when you are single, who takes care of you when you are sick or when you get old?

The truth is that when you are single, your friends become your family! The good friends step up and take care of things when you can't. Thank God I am blessed with some wonderful friends. Val, who took me to the hospital, had the presence of mind to remember what hospital contracted with my insurance and sat with me in the ER. Selena, Robert and Shannon, who came to visit and comforted me with pictures, books and just their presence. In return, I entertained them with incoherant, morphine induced mumblings and ramblings. Terri, who checked in and prayed for me! There are many others who left wonderful get well messages on Facebook. I am grateful for all of them! Their love and support helped greatly!

So when I get scared of being alone and sick, I think of the wonderful friends that helped me recover and know that if the tables are ever turned I would do the same for them. Just like family.

Surprise!

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Oh boy, did I live this addage two weeks ago! I left work planning to spend the weekend studying for my mid-term. 24 hours later I was in the ICU at Northridge Hospital, dehydrated, borderline septic and looking at emergency surgery to fix a diaphragmatic hernia. What?? I am someone who never goes to the doctor. I am remarkably healthy, but it is God given and not because I am acting responsible for my health. Needless to say, I have never been to the ER.

I hadn't been feeling well and thought it was the overly spicy burrito I had eaten at midnight. The diagnosis at Urgent Care was gas. A $40 prescription for Previcid didn't help because 12 hours later I still felt crappy. Sunday afternoon, as my roommate and I were discussing whether or not to spent the $100 copay and go to the ER, I felt a searing pain shoot across my body and up my left shoulder. It felt like someone was slicing me open with a burning hot knife. I broke out instantly in a cold sweat and the question was answered. We were off to the ER.

The average wait in a L.A. County ER is 4 hours. I knew I was seriously in trouble when I got in after 45 minutes. I was severely dehydrated and had a very high white count. Luckily for me, I was busy concentrating on breathing through the pain otherwise I probably would have been terrified. I was just happy to be out of the misery that is the ER waiting room and on the way to having the problem solved. After a CT Scan, X-Rays and an Ultrasound, the culpret was found: I was born with a hole in my diaphragm and my bowel, stomach and intestines had moved up through the hole causing it to tear right behind my heart. The great thing is that once they knew what the problem was, I got drugs....good ones...morphine...wahoo! Relief!

I had surgery the next morning. I remember being woke up, wheeled into the surgery room and then waking up in recovery. The surgery was a success. They tried to do it laproscopicly but got in and found the hole was too big so I was opened up all the way. (I have a lovely scar that runs from the top of my chest to my belly button, no bikini in my future). They put a mesh wiring over the hole and pulled everything back down where it is supposed to be. I even have a DVD of the aborted laproscopic attempt! Cool!

The next 3 days were spent in the monitored care unit. I was hooked up to the heart monitor, catheter, IV and oxygen! This was the real deal. The day of surgery I slept. I remember 5-10 minutes of Gossip Girl but that is it. On my second day I was sitting in a chair and walking with the nurse without a walker. I only went a few doors down but by the time the physical therapy staff came, I could do two laps around the unit with the walker. This is probably why when Selena, Robert and Shannon came to visit, I could barely stay awake. Well...the walk and the morphine! On the third day, more sitting and walking and less morphine. Fourth day, doc came in and asked how I felt about going home! I said great! He said my progress was remarkable but there was no real reason for me to stay. Fine with me! I was home to watch Grey's Anatomy on Thursday night and actually stayed awake to see it.

Recovery is a work in progress. I feel less and less pain every day and last night I was actually able to sleep without a Tylenol PM! I can bend over but still am not supposed to lift anything. I am back to work next week and I am actually looking forward to it. Cabin Fever assists you in appreciating having somewhere to go everyday!


It has been two weeks...just two weeks... but I am feeling better and better every day. I am grateful for my health and will take a more active role in maintaining it!

Reinvention: A Work In Progress

A big part of my reinvention program is improving the parts of my life that need work. One of the areas of my life that could use improvement the most is my finances. I have a real instant gratification problem: I think about what feels good for that moment and not worry about the big picture. Consequences, like high interest rates and overdraft charges never enter my mind. Pay $35 for a latte due to overdraft? Oh well! Its the Thursday before payday and I really want that latte!

I do believe in God and know that He gives us opportunities to the right thing, and when we slip and do less than what we should, he lets us try again...and again...and again. Such is the case with me and my finances. I am out of the never ending cycle of overdraft and have my credit cards paid down and what does God present me with? One of the biggest Bon Jovi tours in a decade! Six shows readily accessible on the West Coast and THREE in New Jersey! The biggest test of my finances is concerts and even worse than that, a Bon Jovi tour!!

How am I doing? Well...The best seats available are almost $200 a pop! If I went to all those shows it would almost cost $2k for just tix alone! I can't do that! I don't really even want to get myself in that big of a hole! I have tickets to the NJ shows and will wait and see for all the West Coast ones. I can't say I haven't been tempted to overdraft and grab a KILLER seat for the LA show but I didn't do it! It just feels better not having that stress of only having $5 in my wallet! The tickets are on presale and the general presale is a week from Monday...after payday...when I am in a better position to buy. I feel good about waiting!

Sometimes delayed gratification feels better than then instant gratification. I am on the way to reinvention after all.

People: A Necessary Component To The Nursing Profession

It has been said....mainly by me...that I don't like people! What's to like? People abuse defenseless animals, abandon kids, act horribly towards each other and that is what you hear about on a GOOD news day! Look no further than at what the health care debate has turned into: hate and fear mongering! Makes me wish I was a dog!

 

I might be turning a corner though and coming back around to appreciating my species. I was enlightened today at, of all places, work. Today was one of those days I hate, all claims calls, all whiners, no one was happy…most of all, me! At about 6PM, my co-worker told me to take a deep breath and to remember that we don’t know what is happening on the other side of that phone. It could be illness, unemployment or sometimes both! We must be outside of ourselves and think about the other person!

 

It was then that I realized what I don’t like about customer service is that we are just the bearers of the bad news. We can’t control what is happening as there are procedures in place. We exist only to tell people what those procedures are! In nursing, I will actively be able to make a difference in people’s lives, not assist some huge corporation in screwing them.  

 

 

All of sudden, my future became clear. I have been nervous about going into nursing for the very fact that I just have no patience with crabby, stupid people! I am looking forward to the science medicine aspect just not the bitchy family members! Taking me out of my shoes to walk in theirs makes sense! The people are still going to be crabby but in the hospital they have reason to be! I think I am much more capable of handling the crabby cancer patient than the guy bitching about paying $25 for his $200,000.00 open heart surgery! I will be armed with the skills necessary to handle those family members with the skills I am learning as a Customer Service person.

 

I’m thinking I just might learn to like people again. We will see.

 

Youth, Wasted On The Young

I've been thinking lately about the decisions we are faced with when we are young. The fashion dos and don'ts, keep the cool superficial friends or the uncool yet interesting loser ones, meet curfew or be grounded, go to the prom or party with friends at a kegger not sanctioned by any parental units, get a job or not have a car....all perfectly stressful decisions for a teenager, right?

 

There is a reason why college isn't mentioned in that list. It is because I didn't really stress over whether or not to screw around in college, I just screwed around. I never took it seriously. I did well in the fun classes and flunked/dropped out of the boring, yet mandatory, ones. Mom said I would regret that one day. Did I listen? No. I had no time to worry about the future, I was having fun! I did just enough to get by and live at home…that is…until I left home and college altogether.

 

Life is funny. The older you get, the wiser your parents become. Mom was right, school is important. She also was right in that it gets harder to complete the older you are. When you are young you don’t have to worry about working, your TiVo filling up, your dogs missing you because you are either at school or at work. You don’t have to worry about finding time to study or if the bills are getting paid! Parents took care of all that pesky life stuff. All I had to worry about was studying but I was having too much fun to see the big picture. Life was so much easier back then.

 

I sit every week and see kids making the same mistake. They talk about blowing off tests and dropping out of classes. They are planning parties, downloading movies, not a care in the world. I’m jealous. I want to go back and do school over without the worries I have today. This is what I wish for the kids in my class. I hope they learn the value of education before they are in school in their 40’s, listening to the kid next to them plan the next kegger.

 

Following Your Bliss When The Bliss is Money

My co-worker and I got into a heated argument. I mentioned my goal is to finish nursing school, work as a nurse for 15 years making tons of money and then retire on my ranch to rescue dogs…that is, after I travel to every National Park in my RV! She asked why nursing when I don’t even like people! I said I am working now for $15 an hour in a job where I don’t like people and have to deal with them, why not do it for $75-90k a year? She said that it’s a shame to be working toward the goal of making money! I should be doing something I like and the money will come, follow my bliss and I would never have to work because bliss isn’t work! When I asked how well that was working for her, the subject suddenly was changed! I asked how much she loved listening to people complain about health insurance but she rushed off in a hurry. Imagine that!

 

This did get me to thinking: what is wrong with delaying the bliss following? For the first time in my life, I have a long-term goal in view. Sure, working full-time and going to school is hard and I might have to sacrifice an hour or two with the Desperate Housewives or Jack Bauer to study. It will be worth it! Put up with a few nasty family members? That can’t be any different that someone cussing you out because they didn’t’ bother to get pre-approval for their MRI and now they are getting a bill!

 

If I am going to not LOVE what I am doing, I might as well make money while I am doing it! That way, I can have enough money to be blissful in retirement. I may not be following my bliss now, but if I keep on this path, there will be plenty of bliss as a result.

 

The Hard Part

I was told going back to school wouldn't be easy! I thought they were talking about studying. Studying is the easy part. Finding the time to do it has proven to be very difficult!

I have too many things to distract me. I have 4 episodes on Oprah on TiVo, 2 Rottweilers that need a love fest, 2 months worth of magazines and catching up with my roommate to do. On top of all that it is National Blog Posting month and that means I have to blog every day! None of this should be more important than school but it always seems to be!

I have always had plenty of time. I am single with no kids so time has been strictly my own. Having time hasn't been a problem but setting priorities has been. I have been self-indulgent, only caring about fun.

Times, much like myself, are changing. I am finding the best time to study is in the morning and I stick to that. I watch TV only for an hour when I get home from work, to wind down. The magazines and books will wait. I am setting priorities that will serve me best in the long run, not just what will make me feel good now. That indeed is a change, one for the better.