Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Lazy day


I never really fell asleep last night. I think I might have gotten 1-2 hours of sleep. With working the night shift, I can get my nights and days mixed up easily!!!! I made it with very little sleep to my test this morning. I got all checked in, my IV started and was shortly taken to the GI room to meet with the doctor and for him to perform my test. All went well and I didn't remember anything thanks to Versed. They gave me the option to not be sedated but I opted for the sedation. The doctor talked to my Mom and I have esophagitis, hiatal hernia and had some gastric polyps. He said that he would be writing a letter to my primary doctor and then I can hopefully get on some different medicine that will hopefully control my heartburn. I guess all of this was to prove to the insurance that I really do need something other than what they are allowing me to have. I just hope this process isn't to slow!


I got home and I was still quite light headed and dizzy from the medication. I had a little lunch and was planning to do things around the house but was so tired from not having much sleep and then the medication that I finally just went to bed and slept for about 5 hours. I am still tired but feeling better! When I woke up I went into my back yard and was playing around with my parents camera. I am having a hard time getting the focus thing down esp. when your subject moves! :-) I think this weekend when I am off from work, I am going to go the park and take pictures. I want to use up this roll to get it developed to see the pictures! I am so used to digital that this is bugging me!


I am off to get my house straightened up!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Shilo's b-day!


I went to my parents house tonight and we celebrated Shilo's birthday. I can't believe that she is 12 already!!!!! She actually had her party last Friday but I was working. It seems like I always end up working on Shilo's b-day celebrations! We got together and had a miniature celebration!


While I was at my parents house I asked to see there Pentax 35mm camera. My parents have had this camera since 1982 and I remember using it when I was old enough. I have been out of touch with manual focus for quite a while and I have borrowed there camera to do get the feel of it again. It seems old school since it takes film! :-) I went to Wal-mart and got new batteries and film. While loading the film, I was looking in the wrong spot for the indicator of what picture I was on and ended up taking 8 pictures of nothing! I know now! He he! I have found a wide-angle lense and a telephoto lense on eBay for under $20!!!! I haven't bid on any yet as I am unsure how to tell if they will fit the camera or not. My parent will be over at my house tomorrow so I will have to ask them.


Tomorrow is my gastroscopy at the hospital. While I am at the hospital with my Mom, my Dad is going to help me with some yard work. Tomorrow is going to be kinda boring to me since I won't be allowed to drive. I am not used to just sitting at home!! I am hoping to get some housework done and to maybe do some scrapbooking!

Photo fun


I have been playing around with my photoshop elements 5.0 program and enjoying a new feature in this version. I am able to make panoramic pictures with ease! I took a picture of Chloe while she was napping with the panoramic assist with my camera and then uploaded them to stitch them together. I love it! I have panoramic photo paper so I can print it out. It says it it 6 in. by 21 in. which isn't going to fit on my paper so I will have to play with that to see what to do.
I worked the weekend and I was in charge. It wasn't that bad except for a little disagreement with admitting. I had went to lunch and talked to another nurse that works on our sister floor about the disagreement and she agreed that I was correct and even told me that they had a private room for this patient that they were telling didn't need a private room. Thanks to my nurse friends on our sister unit, the patient got a private room which they needed. :-) I often think placing patients and getting admitting to understand why we make some of the decisions we make can be difficult.
I have gotten my syllabus for my summer class and oh my!!!! The announcement that is posted says that it should take us 10-15 hours a week to do the reading for this class!!! I have found my books online and I will hopefully have them soon so I might be able to get organized and get a jump start on things. In less than a year, I will be done! I just keep telling that to myself!

Friday, May 25, 2007

Slacking . . . .


I am sooo glad that school is over and I survived all my classes. No more Theories and Research and no more College Algebra that I will never use again! :-) No more Nurse Ministry. I tried to resell my textbooks today and out of 6 books I was only able to get rid of 2 books! For some reason the school I go to only sells books back for one day and I wasn't done with all my classes yet soooo I wasn't able to go. The bookstore I go to doesn't always want my books as they don't use them but they normally will take my general education books. Oh, well! I need to put this money into my Digital SLR fund!
Since school ended, I have been busy with working and I did spend a day with a friend helping her out. She is single as I am and needed help with moving furniture to clean. I can fully understand her wanting help as there are times that it is easier with a second person. She even cooked me dinner for helping her and she said she would help me anytime since I helped her. I had appointments and inservices to go to on my days off this week. The only fun appointment was to get my hair cut and I have a slightly different cut! Nothing dramatic but just a little change that makes my hair lay better. :-)
The last few days I have been working on getting my scrap/computer area cleaned in my bonus room. It looks better but I still have quite a bit of work to do! I have some scrapping to get done as I have some of the new Love, Elsie line! I am excited!!!!!! I should have more time to scrapbook next week as I have 3 days off, work one and then have 5 off! :-) I have my gastro next week and will be confined to no driving for the rest of that day so I will have to scrap! The last time I had a gastro, I was woke up and was fine without feeling drowsy so I hope the same goes this time too.
I haven't been to the Mudhouse, my *fav* coffee house in almost two months! I was going to hang out there today but then decided to hang out at Barnes & Noble to see what was new in the magazines I enjoy. I did get the new Rachel Ray magazine and there are lots of yummy recipes! I got home and couldn't stay awake and had to take a 3 hour nap!
I need to get off the computer and do some more organizing!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The last final . . . . .


I am finished with my Theories and Research class and soooo glad! That was not an easy class. The instructor didn't make it any easier with those crazy test that she gave us! They were all open book but I didn't get very good scores on them and really hope that I did alright on my research paper and journal. I think I might come out with a B. :-P

I have my College Algebra test this afternoon and getting ready to get a few hours of sleep and then spend the rest of the day studying for that. I am unsure how I will do on it. She gave us a copy of an old final and some of it seems real easy and other parts, I remember doing it but can't remember how I did it! I just need to review all of that today. I just hope I don't run out of time. That has been my biggest factor this semester. There just isn't enough hours on my days off to get school work done and getting errands ran.

I am looking forward to getting my house a little more organized again. For some reason my coffee table and around the coffee table is cluttered again. I still need to come up with a daily clean-up plan to keep the clutter down. Another thing I am going to clean is my cat Felix!! He is my wild kitty and I can't take him to the vet to get groomed as he has a growling hissy fit! He had gotten some tangles because he doesn't let me brush him but I held him down and got him brushed and all the tangles out. The fur was flying! :-) The next step is a bath.

I am sure while I am trying to get some sleep, I will be doing math in my head because of my test this afternoon. I will be getting me some relaxed sleep tonight and can't wait! I haven't had any good sleep I think since March when I was on vacation. I am long overdue!

Sunday, May 13, 2007

A little bit of relaxation . . . . .



I stayed up all night last night till my paper was done. I haven't turned it in yet as I am going to go back over it tonight and then send it. I also need to start on my journal tonight that is due in the morning but feel so much better after getting done with my paper. I just hope that I did everything she has asked. I get confused about all the different research designs and the different ways to interpret data. After I get my journal done, all I have left is my final in my theories & research and college algebra. My theories and research final is online and I have the test. If I get done with my journal early tonight, I will have to work on that then all I have to worry about is my college algebra test!

It has been a little warm here and my bonus room where I keep my desktop has been 97 degrees today! I can't tolerate it that long. Last night when I was trying to finish my paper, I broke down and turned the air on and it made it tolerable. Then today, the temp went back up to 97 degrees again so tonight I finally turned the air back on. That room is freezing in the winter and so hot in the summer! I normally only have a few days that it is comfortable when the weather is cooler. I am waiting for it to get cooler so I can sit at my desk to finish my homework!

I was hoping to go to my parents house this weekend, esp. today since it was mother's day. It didn't quite work out that way. Since I stayed up till 0730 this morning, I slept till 1330. When I called my sister, she had already been over there. I tried to call and nobody was home! I called this evening to wish my mom a happy mother's day.

I got out my ice tea maker tonight and made some vanilla caramel tea. Yum!!!!! I will be drinking that the rest of the night!

Friday, May 11, 2007

No work!!!!


I was excited today when I got to work. I actually got to work 30 minutes early today as I was doing errands before going to work and got done earlier than I thought. I was sitting in the report room waiting for time to go clock in. While I was waiting, someone came back to the report room and said that someone was getting a mandatory which it was to be our traveler. They couldn't get ahold of him and he was driving in from Arkansas as that is where he lives. Since he showed up and didn't want to go back home after driving 2+ hours, I got to go home!!! I was sooo excited because that is giving me the extra time I needed to work on my paper and study for finals! WOOHOOO!!!!!!!

I also had the scheduler call me today for my test and she caught me off guard at first because after she told me she was the GI scheduler she said, "You look familiar". Uhhh we are on the phone so how does she know what I look like? She told me that my picture was on file. I was beginning to wonder for a moment! That is the only bad thing about having procedures done at the hospital you work at. You see too many people that you know! The last time I had this test done, I had people come say hi to me that I used to work with that had transferred to the outpatient center.

Since I slept most of the day I am going to stay up part of the night to get a good chunk of my paper written! I might actually get to spend mother's day with my mom now! :-) I am going to attach a pic from Cinco de Mayo of my friend with the mexican band! :-)

Extremely busy


I have been busy with trying to finish up with this semester. I have a huge paper to write this weekend, my journal to do and need to somehow fit in some study time for my College Algebra final. There is probably more but that is what is on my mind currently.

I have been tagged twice this week which I will have to do that after I am done with my crazy semester!

I am still having heartburn issues and getting real tired of it. I have had this heartburn for 3 weeks now. I still haven't heard from a scheduler to get my gastro done so I can hopefully figure out what to do next. I think they are going to let my esophagus erode away. I got an opportunity at work earlier this week to talk to a benefits specialist and told him my story about what has happened since our insurance won't let me have my medication. He told me he was going to turn that in to somebody in HR and see what can be done but yet the lady he was forwarding this too never gets back with anybody. I am not holding my breath.

I am going to be quite busy in the next week and might not get back on here till after school is out. I am excited about this semester being over and having a little break!!!!!!

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Party!!!

I am excited about artfest on Walnut street today and a friend just called me and invited me to a Cinco De Mayo celebration! I need to be researching for my paper but thought that I needed to have some fun!

I had a fun time at the art walk last night and glad that my sister decided to go! It was a rather fun art walk this time. They blocked off a street and had art booths down the street. I even got to meet my *fav* local artist Kristi Mashburn! I just love her paintings and she is too cool!! It got dark too soon and some of my pictures didn't turn out till I decided to switch to the night mode and then I was able to take some night pictures.

Yesterday I stopped by a photo store here that sells cameras and looked at the digital SLR cameras. I am thinking about getting a Nikon D40 or D80. He was very helpful and gave me a book to read about Nikon cameras and even hightlighted some of the features in the different cameras for me! I can't wait till I have time to figure out all the features and decide which camera will be the best choice!

Friday, May 04, 2007

More heartburn issues . . . .


I was so excited last week when I was able to get the precertification on the Prevacid. Here, a week later, it isn't working at all and I am still have heartburn and reflux. I called my doctor office to let them know of this. While I was waiting for a call back, I decided to call my prescription plan to see what can be done with this matter. My prescription plan only has generic prilosec, OTC prilosec and prevacid (after precertifiction) listed as formulary medications. When I told the lady my story and that none of these medications are controlling my gastric reflux and heartburn all she had to tell me was, "These are the only medications that are covered". When I told her that I can't have this constant heartburn without other health issues coming up and there had to be a non-formulary medication that I could take with a higher co-pay, I got put on hold. While I was on hold, my doctors office called so I hung up. My doctors office wants to schedule me for a gastroscopy with my GI doctor. I just have to wait for his office to call me now. They are unable to get me anything to help me until I can see my GI doctor and have advised me to go to the ER!!!! The hospital I work at has Nexium as the formulary. I just might go if it gets bad enough!

Unexpected news . . .

A friend of mine stopped by to visit with me the other night when I was getting ready for work. I had actually gotten ready a little early so I was able to talk to him for a bit. He is an international student and he is getting ready to graduate this month with his business degree. He told me that he has decided not to stay in America and to move back home. I was a little shocked to hear this as he has alway talked how he wants to stay here. He even has an uncle that lives here too. He has decided that it was best for him but I will miss him being here. We are planning to hang out some before he leaves. He even wants to cook me some food from his country which I think would be fun but I have to get rid of this heartburn first!!! :-) He has even invited me to visit him if I wished in his country. I think that would be fun so who knows, maybe when I graduate next year I will plan a little trip to visit. :-)