what a week!!

Spring break, my @ss!! No breaks here and no rest for the weary!

Monday I admit, I worked an 8 hour shift, came home, and sat on the couch watching tv. However the rest of the week has been nonstop action.

Tuesday I worked, then did my first 5 mile (8K). I'm still paying for it today, my left hamstring has been giving me fits for a few days. Not fun, not fun at all!

Wednesday, it was wound care observations and then spent about 5 hours when I got home doing research for my case study project. I have to say, after 3 years of this, I've found one area of physical therapy that is *not* for me. I told Chad last night that if the only job I got offered was doing wound care, it was a deal breaker. I'd work at McDonalds. Interesting, but ewww.

Thursday was back to work and research,  except that I finally got the research done and started on my outline.

Friday, worked 8 hours and came home. The darned chicken I put out to thaw was still totally frozen so we ended up going out to eat at one of the local restaurants. I haven't eaten at Smokey D's since it moved from Bandana to LaCenter but it was wonderful!! I had forgotten how much I love their catfish...and I'm really not a catfish fan. That's sort of like saying "I don't like Basketball" ... around these parts, that makes you a pariah. However, in my case, both are true.

I worked on my outline until about 11. Honestly I should be working on it now...but I'm here, blogging instead! LOL I need to finish it up because I have to provide copies of my outline to my classmates, to the first year students, and to my instructors. I had *planned* on being done, taking it to work yesterday and running copies there. Free. LOL But  I didn't get done so looks like sometime this weekend I'll be making a trip to Office Depot and having copies done there.

I still have to write out my home exercise plan to discharge my patient with, write up my SOAP note for one of my treatments, find pictures and set up my display. Not to mention the regular homework and reading I need to do. I'm so ready for school to be over!!!

Today they are tearing down old house that I grew up in. I just couldn't go watch. It would be different if my dad were still alive and he wanted it gone. But he loved that house, and even after we moved into the new house right next door...he kept the old house as a workshop. It was a one room school house, someone moved it to our property and then my parents purchased the property a little while later. It was a fun old house to grow up in, lots of history...good and bad. I wonder how many kids ran thru those front and back doors. I wonder about the family of the man that killed himself there. I will never forget freezing half to death in the winter because we heated with wood and my room was at the back of the house. I think that's probably why I sleep with a ton of blankets...even though we have central heat! I remember Mom hanging our clothes on the backs of chairs by the stove so when I got up, I would race up to the front of the house and jump in warm clothes. The floors were always freezing!! In my older child days, we bought a new wood burning stove that had a fan built it. It's a wonder I didn't burn my feet off, I would race up there, and then stick my feet up under the stove, inside the fan area to warm them.
Summers were hot...all that linoleum on the floors. We'd be sitting on the floor watching tv and try to get up and be stuck to the floor. The floors still looked great though, after all these years. Even a few weeks ago when we were in there cleaning them out they looked dirty, but good. Floors now days sure don't last that long!
There was a spot on the ceiling with footprints. My mom was gone to work one night, and my dad (probably having had too much to drink!) got to laughing and kidding with us, and for whatever reason (I don't remember??) he pulled out the ash pan under the stove, dipped our feet in, flipped us upside down and had us walk across the ceiling. I remember my mom coming home and being pissed, pissed, pissed! Oh she was mad! If the feet had still shown up after all these years I probably would have pulled the panel down and kept it.

Let's not forget the time I fell out of the top of the closet and snagged my lip on the 16 penny roofing nail that stuck out for me to hang my backpack and coat on. That babysitter never came back.

Or the time that Jason and I were swinging from the closet door to the bed, bouncing off the bed, and landing on top of the cast iron table in his room. Except he missed just once and knocked his front tooth out. Or the time a few weeks later he was riding his tricycle and slammed into the front porch steps and knocked the other tooth out.  I yell at my kids to this day for slamming their bikes into the porch...I'm still traumatized by that! LOL

The old barn door I had for a bedroom door, that would open on the top, or you could open both halves. Super fun for a kid growing up. We had that crazy dog so half the time I just crawled over the top of the door instead of opening the bottom half.

Time marches on....

what a wonderful day...

The sun was shining, took a long (and I mean LONG!) walk with my little girl. We walked about 2 miles, headed west to the pond and stood around for a while enjoying the turtles swimming around. Next time I think we will have to take a blanket and sit and watch for a while longer to see what other critters show up. We walked on down a little farther and found a patch of Easter flowers. Lydia brought back a beautiful bouquet and was thrilled when I found a little pitcher and bowl for her to put the flowers in so she could have live flowers in her room. It was so warm and sunny - I can't wait for summer!!

I am so ready for bed; I missed my Sunday nap today because Lydia and I, after our walk, came home and watched Marley and Me. Fun movie, just as great as the book, and of course, just as sad at the end. I, of course, cried like a baby. My ever-so-practical daughter looks at me and says "guess they need to put him to sleep, huh?". She's going to make an excellent vet, if she ever learns how to spell and gets better at math!

Lazy day today, I didn't do any homework...I'll have to double up tomorrow for sure! But for now, it's the last 10 minutes of Holmes Inspection...and then bed!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

GOOD: Today, I have marked off 5 of the 9 things on my Modalities Spring Break Homework list. Yay me! 

BAD: It took me over 3 hours to finish the online training module/ CEUs for my clinical site. Boo hiss!

UGLY: The remaining 4 things are all the time consuming projects, such as STARTING (yes, I said starting!) my case study research presentation. Procrastinators of the world...UNITE... eh, tomorrow.


Good thing the day is almost over, because much more of this crap today and I'll have pressure ulcers on my ass for sure!!!

Finally the weekend!

The last few days have been really intense. We have rush, rush, rushed through all sorts of information. I jokingly told my instructor that I should just bring a funnel, lay on the plinth and prop the funnel in my ear since she insists on pouring more and more info into my brain. The funnel might make it faster!

I spent Thursday on a "field trip" as I like to call it. We went to one of the local offices of a national prosthetics and orthotics company and received a wonderful welcome. They brought in donuts and juice for us for breakfast and then spent the next 5 hours demonstrating how prosthetics and orthotics are made, the different types out there, and even asked one of their customers to come in and be a visual example for us. The young man that came in was an Army Ranger wounded in Iraq. He is an amazing guy. It takes someone with a lot of confidence to come in and let a group of women ogle your injury and your prosthetic and watch as you are fitted for parts and the prosthetic is repaired. He answered all of our questions and then some, and really made us all laugh the whole time. It was a great reminder why I love physical therapy...even when I'm ready to jump off a cliff because I'm so overwhelmed.  The company bought us pizza for lunch to close out the day so that was really nice of them as well.

Then it was back to the real world and here, this is due, and this is due and don't forget to do this, and your research project....blah blah blah!!! I came home that night and went to bed at 8:30. Mental exhaustion is the worst!! I can usually push thru being physically tired but when my brain gives out, that's it. I'm done.

Therefore... on this wonderful, sunny, beautiful first day of my spring break, I'm going to sit here and knock out as many projects as I possibly can. I want to get as much done so the rest of the week isn't quite as hectic. I have to work next week, and it's my last week there until summer term, so I've got to get my replacement up and running on her own (at least mostly!) and get some things done so that my next week back at school I can focus on studying for finals and getting thing lined up with my clinical site.

In my personal world, my 13 year old's surgeon finally came back from vacation. We've been waiting about 2 weeks to find out what his restriction levels are. Spring football practice started last week and the change in terms for him means he's back to PE class again. As a (future!) therapist, I knew things were bad in his knee because of what I've seen and learned. But there's always a part of you that hopes maybe it's not quite that bad. Wednesday they called and told us that Dr. Hunt had fixed up Dustin's note and it was with the receptionist at the front desk for us to pick up. My mother-in-law (who is a nurse, and knows Dr. Hunt also) stopped by his office and spoke with him and picked up the note for us last night. I opened it up when I got home from work and Dustin has total restriction. No football conditioning, no PE class, no activity whatsoever. I think that was the final door slamming for me. I know the signs and symptoms of a "terrible triad of the knee" which is why I took him to the ER in the middle of a game. And I also know that we have a lovely collection of various knee braces now. But when a surgeon tells a very active, athletic 13 y/o boy that he can't do ANYTHING... I have to assume it's all damaged. Dustin is trying very hard to act like it doesn't bother him but I know that he misses football something terrible, his friends and the camaraderie. I just can't help but wonder if he will ever get back to playing with the confidence and skill he had before. That kid had the heart of a grown man on the field, and all he has ever wanted was to play football. God has a plan for him, and it's starting to look like the plan we thought was in motion is now being changed. Nothing to do now but wait and see. We go back to see the doctor in May for a surgical consult to determine when he will operate.

I guess it's also God's way of making sure I have a hormonal, emotional teenager after all! *wink*

when you're up, you're up...

but when you're down, you're down.

The last couple of days have been very mixed emotion days; lots of ups and downs. On one hand, I got back a very hard assignment and found that I'd done a great job The few points I missed were mostly because I misunderstood; I thought the list was a list of options to choose from, not that we had to demonstrate exercises from EACH item. I did all but 2 and lost points for skipping those 2. Although, it could have been much worse...had not I not picked all the rest! It was one of those assignments where I handed it to the teacher but couldn't quite let go of it. She just laughed and made me give it to her! So that made me feel good; that I picked well and got a lot of positive feedback from her.

We are reaching a point in my program where the instructors are pretty much just backing away... there is less and less teaching and more and more "information"...sometimes it feels like we've been just tossed out to sea and we're floundering. But that has to happen in order for us to bridge from the classroom to learning to think and evaluate patients on our own. I won't have a teacher standing beside me when I graduate.

 I'm so freaking excited about clinicals, just to get out of the classroom and getting to "play" in physical therapy as we call it. To see my real patients and not paper patients who are never cut and dry and you never know what's going to come up next. On the flip side though, I'm nervous about leaving my comfort zone, about being the new person in the building all over again, and nervous about being a student therapist!! I'm supre excited that I'm going to a site owned by orthopedic surgeons because I *love* bones and joints and how they work. It's so interesting!! But the other side is that surgeons can be rather, hmmm, high handed?? and I absolutely do NOT want to screw up a hip or knee replacement. Can you say "terrified"?? LOL

Next week is spring break and I'm super excited about that, but then it means so so so much work to do. Because of the snow we are behind schedule and we are having to play catch up. We race thru the information and then have to demonstrate it 3 weeks from now...but there is no time to practice or get my hands on the mannequins to at least get a feel for the rhythm. I look at my "to do" list and want to bang my head on the wall. I go to work and my inbox is overflowing. I found out today that one of my co-workers was let go because she can't even work one full day a week anymore, the other one has some major family issues going on... argh!! I only have one week left!! They did hire a new student though, and it's a little scary to think of my replacement sitting at my desk. My office is moving in the next few weeks, which means when I go back I will have a new area, a new set up, no telling where my desk will be or who I will be working for... and for an OCD person that's not a comforting thought. I just keep telling myself I will go back for a few weeks in the summer, but pretty much I'll be part time and then I'm gone. Graduation.

I am praying for a scholarship this fall; maybe it will be enough to replace what I would make working and at least keep us afloat while I'm doing my 12 week clinical rotation. Then Graduation.

*sigh*

Now THIS was a good weekend...

I have been a terrible student, not a single book cracked. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't even opened my backpack since I got home Friday afternoon. Oh well! Will make for a very hectic night Monday, but every dog needs a bone every now and then!

Sitting here with my kiddos watching Holmes Inspection...I love that show! It makes me super grateful for my husband and his family (all construction contractors) because I see Mike talking about super easy fixes and ways to make a home more sound and safe, and it's all things we did when we were building.

This week should be a fun week, but lots to do! I have guest speakers coming 3 of my 5 days of class, a clinical meeting where I find out details about my spring clinical rotation and a field trip. Yay. And then....(drumroll....) next week is SPRING BREAK!!! Of course I'll have to bust my hump to get my case study presentation done (which I haven't started, oops!) and I will work a full week that week, but then that's it for me. I will be off work for finals and clinical rotation until May. A little scary that we won't have my paycheck, but it will be a nice change to spend my days doing what I've worked so hard at school to learn. I am doing my rotation with a physical therapy clinic owned and operated by an orthopedic surgical group, so should see lots of neat things. :)

Time changed last night, I spent the day today napping! I may regret that when it's bedtime tonight but it's made for a super lazy Sunday. And that was great. :)

Roller Derby

We went to our first Roller derby bout tonight, part of the "Shamrock Your World" tour tonight. LOL Our local Radioactive City Roller Girls were defeated by ROSI, the Rollergirls of Southern Indiana. But considering 4 members of the team were rolling for the first time, not too shabby. It was tons of fun and I hope we can go again soon. About the time we started understanding the rules and scoring it was all over. :( Hopefully we can hit the next home bout. My sister-in-law's sister-in-law (did you follow that??) is one of the Atomics so it was fun to see someone I know as such a cute, sweet, bubbly personality out there throwing hip bumps and elbows and cracking heads! Great night out with the family and a wonderful day away from school, and homework and all that stressful stuff.

Don't forget to turn your clocks up an hour tonight! And speaking of, I should hit the bed. I'm gonna lose an hour of sleep tonight!!

aaaah spring....

What a beautiful day in western Kentucky. It's been warm and pretty, sun is shining. We've spent the day cleaning out one of my dad's houses. It's been almost 3 years since he passed away, and today was still hard. We had a lot of laughs though while we worked. Found some really neat things that I had forgotten about and a lot of things I wish we'd found sooner. But, then again, if I'd found it sooner I may have brought it home, and Lord knows my dad should have been on Hoarders. At least this way I've been limited to one car load of things to bring home and make room for. I should really have been studying but I think I needed a break. I've not looked at the first assignment today, and probably won't. Last week was a hard one!