That Bloody Girl

My dog died yesterday. I don't really have much to say about it, except that I am intensely sad she is gone. She was an incredible dog who lived a very good, happy, table-scrap-filled life. She did her job well and pretty much kept the family together after it came crashing down a few times. Everyone who met her loved her, even if she wasn't so keen on them--and, you know, sometimes she was a bit of a bitch. She was nine-and-a-half.  A while ago she was diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation secondary to a congenital defect in her heart. Because of this condition, she suffered from CHF and lived well for a while on drugs. She was happy 'til her last day. She loved being outside, if only to lay in the sunlight, and enjoyed hunting small animals in the backyard. Tuesday night she couldn't catch her breath. She was using every muscle in her body to move air in and out and she looked very tired and very scared. She died of heart failure at the animal hospital the ...

Sorry I haven't been around, but a lot has been going on, and I'll probably be keeping this brief. I moved. I am no longer in the apartment in Brady Heights, but have instead relocated to a little neighborhood near Cherry Street where the floors are nicer and bugs stay outside. It's a good thing, and I think I will be a lot happier there, with more light and a little skyline view. Plus I will be on the second story, so I can open windows and whathaveyou. We moved all of the furniture today, which didn't include my bed. We decided to leave that behind. Partly because it was cheap and wasn't really made to move over and over and thus was kind of falling apart, but mostly because when we took it apart, the entire underside was crawling with roaches. Roaches, mind you, that I did not bring into that apartment, but that decided they really liked my cheap-o bed frame and decided to move in with me. Awesome. So, no bed frame. Everything else came out of it fairly unsc...

:/ So, I was going to update yesterday when I was at my mom's using her free internet, but I really didn't have the energy. In fact, I haven't had the energy for a while. I DON'T have the energy right now. But, I DO have the internet, so I am doing it anyway. Watching season one of Scrubs again. What can I say, I needed something goofy in my life. So, here's an embarrassing topic--I'm kind of a slob. And, because I work more days than I am home and more hours in those days than I have time to do everything I don't want to do ON TOP of those things that I want to do much more, I basically don't clean. It's horrifying. Well, I mean, it's not as bad as MOST of the houses I have been in while working EMS calls, but if I ever needed an ambulance, even if I was dying, I would crawl outside instead of letting them into my shame. It's kind of that bad. And, it's really embarrassing to even be talking about it in a public forum, but, fuck...

I was pretty sure when the government took almost all of my money last tax season, that I had paid my loans off, but last week I got a letter stating that I couldn't start the financial aid process because I was in default on one or more loans. Ugh. My mom got the letter, read it to me over the phone, and subsequently tossed it--albeit accidentally--so I had to find out how to take care of it without any information directly in front of me. No internet, no working iPhone, no letter. Today, I finally got the time to look up the number and sit on the phone waiting for an operator. When he answered and I spouted off all of the information about me ever, he simply told me, "you're paid in full." What? No, they sent me a letter; told me I couldn't get aid; told me I was in default. "Looks like you made a payment in February of (some amount in the 600s)." Yeah, I thought so. You know, since I only got about $200 of that fairly large--for me--tax return....

Yesterday I took the day off and pretty much just hung out with my mom. She wanted to attend a meeting for people suffering from facial pain and trigeminal neuralgia and hear about a new treatment that's not so hard on the liver. That was interesting, seeing how the nerves in the face and neck work and why people have TN. I actually think the procedure might work, although we won't know until she tries. Hell, it may even work for my pain/headaches/back issues. On the way to the meeting, we made up a budget for me for the rest of the year. It isn't so bad, I left a little in there for some creature comforts I still want every week and I should be saving plenty, if I can just stick to the plan. That's always the issue with me. I never stick to the plan. I get bored or tired or stubborn and I just don't want to bother anymore, so I don't. And that's when I go back to spending outrageously and saving nothing and wondering why I can't seem to keep any mone...

I think my body tried to kill me. I mean, seriously, what happens when you are overworked and under-slept and that sinus problem you can't shake is getting worse but you don't think you have anymore chances to call-in at work? Your body tries to kill you. And it hurts. And it's messy--which is really a lot worse than the hurts part. I mean, ouch is ouch, but there are some things you never want to experience or you might have to kill yourself. Yeah, my body tried to kill me. But, I am not going to kill myself, because I didn't let it get that  bad. I drew the line at "ambulance", even though deep, deep down inside I wanted one. I wanted to call 911. But, then, I AM 911, so the whole idea was a little humiliating. Instead, Bonnie drove me in her personal vehicle to the ED at St. John and I proceeded to save my own life, since my body had turned on me. Apparently, I am  overworked and under-slept and what I really needed was not a new antibiotic or a bag ...

I have too much to talk about and not enough opportunity. So, here's what's happening right now: Surgical technology school is back on. In fact, apparently, it was never off. I was told  it was off, on many occasions  by the people who run the enrollment. But, as it turns out, it was never off. Yesterday, I helped Bonnie start working toward becoming a PA. She went to a very...unusual university right out of high school because her very fundamentalist parents requested she did and she really wasn't sure what else to do. So, she has this bachelors from, basically, a missionary school in, basically, home ec. As you can imagine, the community college in town and, ultimately, the university that runs the PA program she is interested in, won't take any of her credits from what has clearly been defined as a joke of a university. Well, unless you want to be a missionary or a pastor, in which case, I guess it's your place. More power to you, but Bonnie doesn't wa...