Changing Tides

We have had an enormous change here in the Bitchypants household. Mr. Bitchypants, who has been unemployed for six years, went to work yesterday.

It’s been a long time. His unemployment started out by choice when the line he worked at in a hospital-equipment company moved to Mexico. Thanks, NAFTA. Anyhow, he was having a hard time finding a position to replace his earnings. Evan was in half-day kindergarten and we were paying full price for him to go half-days, and another $50 per week for the school bus to take him to school from the daycare in the small, rural community in which we lived. Instead of him just taking any job with a paycheck and paying $1000 per month for that arrangement, it made more sense for him to just stay home. Yes, I said it.

That is when it all started. Having him home was….different. First of all, while I am a feminist of sorts, my husband is the Man’s Man. USMC veteran. Country Boy. His wife supporting him while he stays home? Ummm, it didn’t sit well. Not with him, not with his family, not with society. Regardless of how progressive we think we have become, there are some deep-seated traditionalist views we all have. I had no problem with it, but the world in which we live had big problems, and I could see it everywhere we turned. I found myself defending our lifestyle. If the roles were reversed, and a man had an infinitely larger earning potential than his wife, and it cost the wife almost as much in childcare as she was earning by working out of the home, we would not bat an eye at her choice to stay home.

Make that woman a man. That wife a husband, That mother a father. Replace the vagina with a penis. Does the arrangement make any less sense?

Regardless of the rationality of our choices, we faced mud-slinging from everywhere. To my colleagues, my husband was constantly a “bum”. To our debtors, there was disbelief that he didn’t work. They wanted to put everything in his name, and he would tell them that his wife was the breadwinner, much to their shock. His parents would lecture him to get a job, that he would have no retirement when the time came. Of course, this was coming from his mother, who was living on her husband’s pension, with none of her own because she retired too soon. And the other objection: “What if Andrea leaves you, John?” Well, “Andrea” has been here for almost 12 years. Through homelessness, hunger, illness, poverty. And when the going got tough, I am the one who pulled myself up by the bootstraps, got a higher education and pulled my family out of that situation. And what of all of those stay-at-home moms? Does anybody ask them what they would do if the husband left them? So yeah, we heard it.

A couple of years ago, with the introduction of Zachary into our family, we really could use the extra income of John’s work. He began looking for work. The arrangement no longer made sense with diapers to buy and another mouth to feed. But with my establishment as the breadwinner for so many years, he couldn’t just take any job. We needed something that would A) not conflict with my odd schedule, or B) pay enough to compensate us for putting 2 children in childcare. And if one child was expensive in rural Indiana approximately 4 years earlier, the cost of 2 kids full-time in Cincinnati was damned near prohibitive. So John had trouble just finding positions for which to apply, let alone accept a position.

Enter the tension.

With two kids, we began bickering and fighting. I would come home from working God-awful hours to a house that was trashed. I would get ready to go somewhere and have no clean clothes. You see, John never was much of a housekeeper and I’m a little obsessive-compulsive. So we would fight. I would be upset that, while I was working my ass off to make ends meet, he was showing flagrant disregard by allowing our house to get trashed. I remember a particularly awful day where I found some of the boys’ expensive designer clothes molded because hey were under a wet towel in the basement laundry room for God knows how long. I began to try anything to get him to understand my point of view.  That is where I made my near-fatal mistake. Since he is a hard worker when he is getting a paycheck, I thought it would motivate him to do better by presenting it as if he was getting paid. With food and shelter and medical benefits, all provided by me.

How awful of me. I didn’t mean to hurt his self-image. I did not mean to completely emasculate him. I just wanted clean laundry and felt that I deserved it.

And with the pressure I was dishing, John issued his own counter-pressure. He wanted a job. Desperately. But he was still limited on the types of positions he could take. Then when he would find one that could work, he had to explain a years-long period of unemployment. Society still just could not handle that from a man. “You were a what? A stay-at-home-dad? What’s that?” So even if he made it through to an interview from the piles of applications, he never got an offer. In the meantime, I wanted him to find work. If I was going to clean the house anyway, at least he could bring home some money so I could maybe stop working all of the overtime. But nobody would give John a chance. And in John’s eyes, it was all my fault. I am the one who said, all those years ago, that he should just stay home. That it made more sense. And now, he couldn’t find work.

The man who served his country. The man who is such a hard worker. The man who, despite his own desires for his own life, put everything on hold to meet the needs of his family when the time came for it.

Well, yesterday, the phone rang. He was backing out of the driveway to go and put in yet another application, and I had to flag him down. It was a job offer, but the employer really needed someone. They wanted him to start then and there. So he left. The pay is only a quarter of what I make, but it is enough to compensate for childcare for Zachary one day a week. The only time we will need it is on Friday so I can sleep a little before going into work. Evan is old enough to play on the computer or watch a couple of movies while I nap, and he knows to wake me if he needs something. And we found a center that will do just one day a week without charging us for full-time care. In the fall, when I start my MBA program, they also allow flexible scheduling so I can pay by the hour while I am in class three afternoons a week. John’s schedule is 8-5, Monday through Friday, no weekends. In other words, perfect.

So the tides have shifted. Because while he may not have been a great housekeeper, I never had to worry about the kids destroying the house while I take a simple shower. If I mentioned that I wanted coffee, he would brew it for me before I even thought of moving. When I had to get ready for work, he would have my clean scrubs waiting for me. When we were hungry, he would cook…

I never realized just how much he did.

So while, with my career now and my future MBA, I will always be the breadwinner, John’s new job has done something monumental in our little family. I have a newfound appreciation for the partner I have had in John. I have taken him for granted. And with the first day of work, I have seen a change in him. He smiled all night last night. He was slower to lose patience with the boys last night. He seemed….fulfilled. And I had to realize that working is so much more than a paycheck. Being as into my career as I am, as motivated and driven as I am, I should have realized this all along.

Benefits to a job include medical, dental, vision, life insurance, vacation time, 401K. They also include self-esteem, self-worth, dignity. I feel like I have robbed John of that. I said it was all about the math, but I was so wrong. It’s more than math. It’s more than a Women’s Rights Statement and a big middle finger to the “establishment”. I’m still the breadwinner. I am stil the tough woman who will take the male-dominated world by storm one day. But this way, we all get what we need. Most of all, John.

While I Was Away

I’ve been busy. I’m sorry. I’m a horrible blogger. And the truth? I’m still busy. I honestly have no business creating a long list of catch-up posts when there is so much I should be doing. So I am going to try to catch you up in this one post, if you are still out there.

School: I’ve got a couple more classes under my belt. More A’s. I’ll be finished with my business degree in September. I’ve been working on the MBA applications. More on that in a sec.

Evan: Evan is still…Evan. They’ve changed his meds several times. Some of it has been good and some bad. The bad changes are the ones that had him literally awake for days, dark circles under his eyes, palor. It broke my heart. Until one day when his teacher called and said he fell asleep in school and we had to bring him home and let him sleep for almost 2 days straight, only waking him to get some fluids in him so he didn’t dehydrate. I hate it all and would love more than anything to just be able to take him off of all of them and get them out of his system, but I kow he can’t function without them. Now things are finally looking up. He came home last week, excited and proudly presenting this flyer from school. Turns out they are having baseball sign-ups and Evan wants to play. We signed him up. He’s never played a sport before because he has never shown interest. But we jumped on this, even taking him to get fitted for a glove and bat, getting him training gear. He’ll start practicing here at home this week, since he is too old to play tee-ball, and this is actually pitch baseball.

Zach: Zach was officially assessed at the 12-month level, developmentally speaking. He has started therapy after officially being labeled as developmentally delayed. I had some very overwhelming days where it struck me that I have one child with Asperger’s and another who is DD. I had to get past that to carry on. In the meantime, in absence of any verbal communication, the therapist has started teaching Zachy to sign what he wants. Simple things like “more”, “drink”, “all done”, “eat”, and “help”. He can finally express what he wants to us instead of having a meltdown because we cannot understand his grunts and shouts. And with this development has emerged some attempts to be verbal. He can get the intonation of the syllables of words, but nothing anyone can understand yet. But he is trying, which is more than he was doing a month ago. He continues to be social and adorable and loving. And he is so smart. He can clearly understand anything you say to him. He hs favorite places and knows the routes to those places and will cry if you turn the opposite direction in the car. We just have to catch him up a little bit.

Grad School: I got letters of recommendation from my direct supervisor and department director at work. I wrote a stellar cover letter and drew up a new resume. I had my transcripts sent yesterday. Yet about a month ago, I was having a weak moment, so I scheduled a time to go into my first choice school and speak to them about my potential for admission. I was armed with nothing more than an unofficial printout of my undergrad work. She basically told me there was a very little likelihood that I will be turned away with my academic record. But I have to take that damned GMAT. You may recall that I took two weeks off at the end of January to prepare for and take the test. And then I psyched myself out and wouldn’t do it. That was the low point where I called them and made the appointment. And then I bit the bullet and scheduled the damned thing. And tried and tried to prep for without the advantage of time off from work or school. As a matter of fact, I have finished two more classes and started 2 more in that time frame. I still feel underprepared. My stomach has been in knots for days. As in butterflies and queasiness. The exam is tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be started at one of the top-ranked MBA programs in October. Oh, and that’s another thing: because I went back and did an undergrad business degree and will be fresh from that with immaculate grades, I am elegible for their accelerated program. In other words, they will give me credit for my undergrad and I will only have 8 classes left to my MBA. So by Summer of 2013, I will be an MBA. Yeah. No pressure. I have to get in. Have to. No other options. I even submitted all of the financial stuff for grad school, and at a very expensive private university, I will even have all of that falling into place.

So there you have it. While I haven’t been present in the bloggy world, I’ve been doing plenty. I look forward to catching up on everyone’s blogs and hopw you’ll forgive me for my absence.

Little–Yet Mighty–Steps

I am on vacation. I know, right? I never take vacation. The last time I had any real time off of work was when I was on bedrest. But I did it. The plan was for me to spend the next couple of weeks crack-a-lackin’ on the GMAT prep, then take the exam.

Until the GMAT prep made me feel mentally incompetent to even tie my own shoes.

Or my new classes left me with less time than I thought.

And I have had appointments every single day, including some meetings for work. So in truth, I have gotten Jack Crap finished by way of GMAT. And guess what! Jack left town. So we aren’t going to talk about Jack, or GMAT, or anything else that makes me want to scratch my eyes out and beg for Ativan. We’re going to talk aboout what Zach did last night.

He slept without a swaddller. Yeah. Uh-huh. John was at his evening class, and I told myself that now is the time, damnit. It took a gazillion trips to his room to remind him that I was right here. Maybe a couple of pats on the back. And the binky. Yeah, we aren’t even touching the bedtime pacifier yet, in the name of picking one’s battles. But he did it. He slept in his Spongebob pj’s, covered by his favorite blankie, with his little butt in the air. My big boy. Turns out that we aren’t going to have to send him to college with one after all.

What else is Zachy doing? Well, first of all, we cannot go out in public without cracking people up. Really. He gets so excited when he sees something he recognizes. And when he gets excited, it’s the funniest thing ever. As in “Oh! Oh! Oh! OH! Oh YEAH????” Only in that adorable baby voice. Yesterday, I took him to the pharmacy to fill a prescription. Our pharmacy is small, so I usually don’t do this. Well the first thing he saw was a container of baby wipes on the shelf. So here he goes. “OH????? Oh YEAH!”, as he darts to the shelf. Then he saw the body wash I use on him. “Oh-Oh-Oh Yeah?” And so it went, back and forth across the pharmacy,, which is essentally a little room with shelves. And quite the audience assembled to watch him in amazement, because through all of this, he didnt take one thing off of the shelves. He was just excited to see the products we use at home. You really should see him at the grocery store!

He still isn’t really talking, but it is obvious, even to the therapist who came to the house, that he understands everything being said to him. He just won’t speak. Except he said “book” the other day, which can be added to the short list of random words he says. By the way, did you know that the sippy cups with the straws are better for language development because drinking from them requires different muscles and actually strengthens the muscles needed for speech. Well, now I know it and we are in the process of replacing all of Zach’s sippy cups as a result. And though I hate the commercialism of characters on children’s products, I will do anything to get this child talking. So basically, whatever floats his boat…Spongebob pj’s. Elmo sippy (with straw, of course!). Thomas toy. Not a lot of characters, but some.

So that’s it. Little steps. I’m not afraid of little steps. Just like I will be taking little steps to get the GMAT prep finished. All it does is slow me down a little bit. But then again, maybe I needed to slow down.

I Shall Call This One “Someday”

Because…..

Someday, I will have time to make a dent in this 6-inch thick GMAT prep book.

Someday, I will have a day off of work.

Someday, Evan will go back to school.

Someday, Zach will start speaking and stop doing the whining/ grunting/ pointing thing.

Someday, this house will be clean. And neat. And organized.

And I will finish the 1000-page book I started reading out of a lapse in my sanity. Because for some reason, aside from GMAT prep, working like a dog, the questionably Aspergian high maintenance oldest child and the terrible-twos toddler, and all of the other shit I have to get done, I thought I would have time to read the damned thing.

Someday, I’ll relax.

Or maybe finish the apps for grad school.

Or maybe eat a dinner that is home cooked because we had time to cook.

Someday, there will not be sheer chaos in this house.

Someday, I will finish the 50 gazillion blog posts I have started about the different things I wanted to tell you all about but have not have the time to finish. On our Christmas. Or our anniversary. Or Evan’s progress and Zach’s delay.

But not now. Because right now, the tv is blaring, Zach is screaming because he doesn’t have the words or ability to tell John he wants apple juice. I am waiting for a phone call from the developmental interventionalist because I am finally worried about Zach’s speech delay to do something about it. And once I get the call, I have to go through the gu-wrenching possibility that my treatment during the pregnancy did something to him just when I thought it was all okay. And it is finally snowing outside, mixed with a bit of rain and freezing temps that are sure to make my commute a living hell.

And right now, I have to go to work. Again.

Fuck.

No Rest For the Wicked

I swear, everybody, that this next comment is going to make me seem like a braggart. I’m not. I’m really, really not. But some people have to really work at academics. I am not one of those people. From grade school, I have handled school work with ease. My business classes have been a cakewalk other than the demands on my time and the volume of work to be done. It isn’t that the work is demanding–it’s just overwhelming for my current schedule.

I am currently in a statistics course. It seems like common sense, and I have an A in the course with only two more assignments to be graded before winter break. But I swear, some of the assignments have been insanely difficult. Maybe it is because it is difficult to learn the intricacies of these complex mathematical formulas online with no face time with my professor. I can do the work but it is actually taking a certain amount of effort. Monday, for example, I had to complete a project that involved a 250 sample size, including organizing the data, computing solutions for problems regarding the data, and presenting it all in spreadsheet form along with an APA-formatted paper analyzing and interpreting the meaning of the information I extrapolated from the data. All of this was done after working all weekend and not sleeping. I literlly came home from work on Monday morning and sat at my desk at 7:30 AM and not completing it until 1AM Monday night/ Tuesday morning. At one point, whether it was from exhaustion, stress, being overwhelmed, or whatever, I actually broke down into tears. In the process, John kept looking over my shoulder, shaking his head and exclaiming how no human could possibly understand the stuff I was being asked to do for the project. He brewed me 5 pots of coffee throughout the day. And then, once completed, I had to hurry and finish the 46-slide PowerPoint presentation on the organizational effectiveness of my current employer. By the end of the night, I was nauseous, my fingers were swollen from feverishly typing, my back/ neck/ head ached. I was still sore the next morning, and didn’t want to even see typeface for a while. No Kindle, no blogs or blogging, no reading.

I am almost finished. I will be on winter break from Monday through January 8th, when I will return to a whirlwind of classes before I can move on to the MBA. As a matter of fact, I will have 6 more 5.5-week sessions, back to back, with 2 classes each session. For the immediate period of time, I am working every hour that is available. I have 3 days off between now and January 4th, and none of those are holidays.

And now starts my countdown for my GMAT and working on grad school applications. I have put in for vacation for the last 2 weeks of January–time to wrap up exam prep and actually take the exam, hopefully with a few days left over to do nothing work- or school-related. To maybe kick back and celebrate what I have done just a little bit. On a side note, I actually got some interest from M.I.T, which actually hurt a little bit. I cannot pick up my entire family and move like that, though their interest is beyond flattering.  I mean, this is the number  3 MBA program in the country! For me, when just this time last year, I was on track to med school. Maybe in a different time and place. But for now, I have my top three choices and a couple of “safety” schools picked out, and we’ll leave it at that.

In the meantime, I am going to try to spend some downtime here in the Blogosphere over he net three weeks. Please be patient with me and don’t lose interest.

I’m not a huge country fan, though I love me some Kenny Chesney. His music just reminds me of my John. But anyway, he has this song that sums it up pretty well, and I leave you with the key line from it:

“Hey, I wanted it all and that’s what I got.”

Bitchypants, Out.

It’s What I Do

Ya’ know, when I was 19 years old, my mom passed away. At her funeral, there were these strange women there, crying along with the family. None of my brothers and sisters knew a single one of them. It turned out that they were from the respiratory therapy department at the hospital mom always went to when sick. It was a little hospital. And I remember thinking “how awesome is that to be able to be that invested in your work?”. I guess it stuck wih me. And then later, John talked me into going back to school. I was too smart to not finish my degree, according to him. And so I did. I just wanted something that would support my family. I was going to try nursing, but I couldn’t handle the poop part of it. And I found out my college had a respiratory therapy department. I applied for admission into it. I didn’t think about the times mom’s cough would be productive and I would gag when she would cough into a tissue. I just remembered her funeral, her life, her demise. Along with my interest in medicine.

I became a respiratoty therapist. I never gave any thought to it. I had straight A’s, so how could they deny me admission into the program?

I finished my degree and I ran with it. My first resuscitation after graduating was a 6-month-old baby boy. They found him submerged headfirst in a bucket of mop water that had been left by a bed. We had no idea how long he was submerged. He was supposed to be taking a nap at the babysitter’s house. Of course we didn’t get him back, and I came home from work that day and told John that I had made a horrible mistake, that there was no way I could do this job. Nobody with a heart could. But I went back to work the next day. And the next. And somehow, I stopped being able to keep track of the resuscitations in which I have participated, except for a select few that hit particularly hard. Like the mom who died in childbirth and almost took her baby with her. We were successful at saving the baby, but not the mom. My last picture of that was the NICU door closing on the new widower cradling his new baby girl with a bewildered look as he sobbed for his dead wife. And then there was the little boy who was 3 days older than Evan, who tried to help his stressed Daddy out by taking his ADHD meds himself. Only he took the whole bottle and his heart stopped. And his mother wailed as I stood at the head of the bed, breathing for him until they told me to stop. Or the 35-year-old breast cancer patient who had contracted necrotizing fasciitis after having her lymph nodes removed. Someone thought it was a good idea to let her daughter come back and say good-bye before we called it. Her daughter was Evan’s age, and I can still hear her wailing, “Mommy, don’t leave me.” Those? Those I kept right here with me. They have never left.

It’s interesting isn’t it? For every one we couldn’t help, there were probably 2 that we did help. I don’t remember those. Their faces blur together and disappear into this infinite mosaic of faces that have wafted into and out of my life. My work. Evidence? The grandmother who ran into me and remembered my face as one that did CPR on her newborn grandson. Or the lady who ran into me at the grocery store and remembers me as one who responded to a code on her father. I was just standing there in the produce aisle with my family, with this blank smile on my face because I couldn’t very well come out and say, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the foggiest who you are.” The successful ones become the equivalent as another Big Mac sold by the McDonald’s worker: I did my job. I’m so sorry I do not remember, and I never dreamed when I started this career that I would reach this point. Pretty much the best I can do is assure you that while I was there, I cared deeply. I still do. But when you are standing there sobbing while we do CPR, I have to block you out. I have to concentrate on my job. And when it was over, I don’t want to remember your sobs because then they stay in my head as a constant reminder of how fragile we all truly are. That it could’ve been my husband, one of my children, me.  And while I am sorry that it is happening to you, to your loved one, I’m truly appreciative that it is not one of mine. I can be selfish like that. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

But I am not the only one. There is a whole profession out there of people who do what I do. And this week? Well, this is our week. National Respiratory Care Week. The hospital and the physicians, the drug reps and vendors, will shower us with food and freebies. And they’ll say thanks for what we do. And we will pat each other on the back for this week. But next Monday, it will be business as usual. People will live. We’ll help them. And some won’t make it. I’ll see an obituary with a familiar name and it will drive me crazy, serve as evidence of our failure. And then I’ll hate my job, but I’ll still go in the next day. And the next.  And the next.

Somewhere along the way, I became a respiratory therapist.

It’s what I do.

It’s who I am.

Role Transition

So what’s happenin’? Well, A lot and yet not so much.

The NICU stuff is winding down as we get closer to the day where we will start keeping the really sick babies. When you have a baby at my hospital, they warn you to not let anyone without a specially marked badge in to take care of your newborn. OB staff and NICU staff, as well as Peds staff all have these badges. The core NICU respiratory team is o be no different. So today, I had to go and get a new badge. The special marking? A bright pink stripe. Mine used to have a lime green stripe. How did they know pink is my favorite color? Actually, when I got it, I was appalled. my title is written all extra ginormously and the pink is glaring. Proof?

Pink means "Gimme yo' Baby!"

So not a big deal, I know. it’s the little things. I also renewed my NRP–Neonatal Resuscitation Program for those of you not in the know. It’s the fourth time I’ve taken it and it won’t be my last, as it expires every two years. The video for it cracked me up. They actually included RT’s in the scenarios with the rubber babies. As in, “Call Respiratory Therapy STAT.” And the guy who is supposed to be the therapist shows up and says, in utter robot fashion, “I…am..the…resp-ira-tory ther-a-pist. How…can…I…help?” Yeah, whatever, Dude. That is so not how it goes. I don’t wait to be told what to do. I know my role and get to work immediately. I’ll throw elbows if I have to. Same as wih the adults.

I’m sort of nervous about the change in roles. I’ll still be taking care of adults, too. But I will be on my own with the sick preemies and it worries me. I will see what could have been with both of my boys, and I will be crying a lot. Maybe this makes me less fit to care for this patient population. Maybe it makes me more fit. I guess it’s a matter of opinion. But someone saw me fit to be placed on the team. And so I shall do my best for the little ones while I see Zach’s and Evan’s faces the entire time.

Why I Suck at Life and Other Tales

The I'm-in-a-shitty-mood-and-have-no-pic-for-you pic. Deal with it, please.

So I have to be the worst mother in the world right now. We try and try to monitor what Evan sees/ does/ hears. We cannot control all of it and realize that in just a few short years, he will be a teenager and his peers will likely have more influence on him than either of us. So we don’t get nutty about it. Some of the stuff, he is going to hear, and I would rather it be here with us so I can correct him. But that didn’t prepare me for tonight. It was bedtime, and he was angry that we wouldn’t let him stay up all night, despite the fact that he has no school tomorrow. He was storming down to his room, dressed in his flannel pj bottoms and an old tee, and I heard him say to his father, “Suck my——”. I didn’t sensor that. He did it. He stopped short of saying what would have had me reeling. But I was still shocked/ disgusted/ angry as hell. Where in the hell did he hear such talk? And even though he didn’t finish the sentence, does it really matter what the end word was to be at this point? How could that possibly have ended in a way that would have been acceptable? I’ll answer that one for you: it couldn’t have. So now Evan is massively grounded. And the computer/ tv/ dvd’s/ cd’s/ mp3 player are all on lockdown until I either find the offending media or he rats out the punk at school who talks like that. (Disclaimer: While I sling the f-bomb on here all of the time, I don’t speak that way in front of my children, ever. So don’t even think it.)

There is a problem with my laptop. Yeah, the one I bought in March. Anyhow, the mouse buttons don’t work, and while I can use an external mouse for the time being, it is driving me crazy to do so. So I googled the tech support number for Dell. And this link popped up with the number, the Dell logo, and more. I called the number and got an Indian guy–not racist, Mr. Internet Troll/ William Wallce/ Braveheart Motherfucker–just an observation. And he seemed polite and helpful. And he wanted remote access to my PC so he could check it out. Which I granted. He asked for my home number, just in case we got disconnected, which I gave. I gave him the cell number too, since he requested it. And then the convo started to go downhill from there as he started pulling up Wikipedia pages on my desktop about malware that comes from social networking sites. And he did some scan that reports that I have like a gajillion viruses–in truth, I scanned my computer after all was said and done, and I found no threats other than the ones he installed. Anyhow, he started demanding hundreds of dollars from my credit card, blah blah blah. Really, the problem is with the damned mouse buttons, not the actual computer. And I have antivirus protection. I didn’t need anything he was slinging. So I aborted the remote access, logged off and hung up simultaneously. The bastard called back. Again and again, to both numbers. And I instantly felt like the world’s biggest idiot. I called the guy. I gave him my numbers, and I gave him access to my computer. And when it was done, my antivirrus automatically fired up and detected two threats that were cleaned off of my computer. I feel so stupid. What is wrong with these people? I mean, really? You’re going to pose as Dell Tech Support now, Cyber Assholes?

Yeah, failure of epic proportions in other areas of my life right now, too. This was the week we were to do our rounds at the big Children’s NICU in preparation for the opening of ours. I was among the 10 therapists who made the cut, and so I was to go. So here’s what happened: I was off for 4 days. I kind of ran ragged though, as I was finishing up classes, getting new furniture and working on the house. Despite wearing myself out during those days, I still couldn’t sleep at night due to my night shift schedule. So I would be up all night and try to stay up all day the next day in the hope that I could spend my days off with the boys instead of sleeping while they are awake. And again, I would be up all night that night. It sucked, and before I knew it, the days off were a thing of the past. I had two days of work, my standard night shifts. Then I had one day off. Though it wasn’t reall a whole day. I got home at 8AM on Sunday morning and had to be at Children’s at 7AM on Monday. So again, no sleep. The same for Monday night and Tuesday night. Needless to say, after sleeping about 6 hours in 10 days or so, I started to feel under the weather. I tried to fight it off. Wednesday morning, when I woke from my whopping 30 minute nap to get ready to leave, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Fever. Chills. Aches. I even puked a couple of times for good measure. And why was I breathing like one of my emphasematous patients? I had no choice but to call in. The last thing a 24-week preemie needs is to be around my sick ass. And so I slept. I slept like the dead. Until John woke me because I was so freaking hot and breathing so strangely that he was really worried. And off to the doctor I went. Yeah. I have fucking pneumonia. So now I am on steroids, antibiotics, bronchodilators. I’m starting to feel a little better, but only slightly. To put it into perspective: before, I felt like I had been hit by a train. Now it feels more like a Mack truck did me in.  I have been off since Wednesday, and now am off until Tuesday night. Shit.

So there you have it. I truly do suck. I’m hoping that tomorrow, if the third day of antibiotics and steroids continues making the same amount of improvement the first two days made, I may be able to leave the house long enough to get some lunch or something. Or maybe some very quick retail therapy before I wear out. Who knows? I’ll probably be dead by then with the way this week has gone.

PS- Zachary–sweet innocent Zachy-Poo–learned something new. He learned to stick his cute little finger straight up his cute little nose. Holy shit. And I was so grossed out that my reaction may have scarred himfor life. Is his brother’s Pig Stage rubbing off on him? No. Please, God, noooooooooo.

Sad

There was this friend of mine, a coworker. We used to hang out together at work before I became pregnant. She was a labor & delivery nurse, and it never failed that when I was admitted to the hospital, she would be taking care of me. She used to jokingly act angry that I was supposed to be an easy patient, yet I always ended up on a mag sulfate drip or had contractions that freaked her out. Or I would have to take a ride across the river. I was far from easy, yet she was always there. I had to have worn her out, yet she never made me feel as such.

She was the one who walked in on me, sitting on a garbage can in the bathroom of my hospital room while John helped me wash. I had been on a mag drip for days, and thus had strict bedrest orders. This meant I couldn’t even take showers and, due to the drugs, I didn’t even have the strength to try and clean myself up in the bed. I didn’t even feel human. It was somewhere toward the end. And John showed up with an enormous bag of bath products and helped me break orders. She caught us, but one look at my tear-streaked face, and she didn’t say a word. She knew what I had gone through, and just bowed her head and closed the door.

She was working the night after Zach’s birth. She gave him his first real bath after he got out of the NICU.

The environment at work changed, and I only see her occasionally in passing. I found out today, through Facebook, that she is leaving the hospital for bigger and better things.

I never got to tell her thank you. Well, not adequately anyway. But how can I ever say anything that would be adequate when I see her face and her work when I look at my youngest son?

Best Wishes, C. You’ll be missed.

A Million and One Different Directions

Yep, that’s my life. I’ve been pulled in a million and one directions this past week.

First of all, there’s work. Work has been crazy. Exhausting. Busy. Every night that I’ve worked, we’ve been cut down to 4 therapists at night instead of 5, which means we all run our asses off. And so I come home cranky and tired and ready to just sleep and chill, in that order. But I don’t get to do either.

Because then there is school. I’m still in my Operations Management and Corporate Finance courses. I’m not sure what’s up, but never before have 2 classes thrown me for a loop like these two. Each course has the standard 3 papers per week, plus 2 hours of either live or recorded lecture, plus about 150 to 300 pages of reading, But the corporate finance papers are hard. Don’t get me wrong: I have 2 papers left in each class and I still have A’s in both courses, but those A’s have taken work. I usually work Thursday through Sunday which leaves me Monday through Wednesday to complete all of my school work. But there’s a catch.

Because John started classes. Which means on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I may be off of work and have all of the time in the world, but on those days, Zachary roams the house with abandon. We started by me trying to do both: school work and  be Mom Extraordinaire. It didn’t work. What really happened? I would type a sentence and get up and intervene in impending disaster. And feel horribly guilty that my time with Zach should be with Zach, not doing school work. And watch him destroy something with the mindset that, so long as it isn’t harmful to him, its okay. He tore an entire pack of flourescent pink index cards to bits and was working on the orange ones when I finally gave this up. So the new pla n is to not bank on getting anything done while John is class, which means my school work is now arranged around 2 schedules. And then came the NICU…

There was one day last week where I got 3 calls, and each one was regarding something else I have to do to get ready for the opening of our new Level III NICU at work. A ventilator inservice here. A mandatory class there. Licensing requirements. Drug screen, immunizations. It’s a liitle bit crazy. Because I have no time, this cuts into time I have alotted for other stuff. And then there’s Evan.

To get Evan treated and to make a full diagnosis, we have to do a million things. Tests, evaluations. Therapy appointments. Waiting on psychiatry referrals so the specialists can manage meds instead of our family doctor. Children’s is a one-stop shop, but there are a gajillion people there that all do something different. The Division of Developmental Disorders and Behavioral Psychology handles all Asperger’s evals, diagnoses, and treatment plans. And then the therapist handles his bi-weekly therapy. Now we are waiting for a referral to go through for psychiatry so we can get some medication management. This in and of itself is turning into a full-time job. A job, I might add, that is not well-managed by someone as disorganized as John. Which leaves me. I’ll do it. I won’t complain because I am grateful that Children’s is a stone’s throw away. If anyone is ever going to have something go wrong with their child, this would be where they want to be. In fact, there are people who fly in from other countries to have their child’s life-saving surgery done here. Yeah, I am that lucky, and I know it. But there is more to this, and it is another post altogether.

Zach? Well, Zach is the most laid-back, non-demanding person in this family right now. Yeah, how sad is that? That a toddler is the lowest maintenance? Pfft. But I keep trucking away. I somehow get it all done. I have no idea how. I used to be one of this smug people who would tell you that it is all in time management. But time management is only as good as the amount of time you have. I manage 150 hours worth of crap in 100 hours of time—not an exact figure, just an example. And it sucks. I know where my priorities are at: work–because I have to provide for the family and Evan needs my health coverage now more than ever, Evan’s treatment–well, just because, and my family. If I have to drop classes, I can. If I have to tell my boss I cannot do the NICU, I can. If John has to drop his classes, he won’t handle it well, but he can. I’m just trying not to have to do any of those things.

One day, I swear, I will be able to relax. I just hope it sin’t when I’m dead.