Oct 1: I don’t know if you guys actually visited my blog in October but this was the header. When I saw it on Unsplash, it IMMEDIATELY resonated with me. I’m not sure why. Sure, it’s creepy, but there’s something compelling about all of the hands on the wall, like they are begging for help. I feel like this was a common theme this past year, and really, this year as well. Who knew that 2021 would be just as awful as 2020. Well, maybe not AS awful – our lives pretty much went on though my job situation was stressful, but still, definitely not normal. And the quote I put on the header:
Stare at the dark
too long and you
will eventually see
what isn’t there.
I feel like that perfectly captures people’s mindsets nowadays. We’ve all been staring, obsessing, over this COVID thing and what the media and the government was telling us that we couldn’t see the truth behind the handprints. We didn’t stop to use any sort of critical thinking skills, we just blindly went along to get along, and though we’re slowly getting back to normal, at least some aspects of the country are, the keyword is S.L.O.W.L.Y.
I was Dr. S’s medical assistant today and we traveled to an outlying clinic. I have mixed feelings on outlying clinics. On one hand, I hate them because you have to pack, you have to work in an unfamiliar environment, you race to get things set up when you get there and it’s stressful until you have some rooms full and you give your doctor and your mid-level something to do. On the other hand, it’s nice to get out of the office, the team is much more relaxed and you get to know them a little better than you would in the clinic and though the change is stressful, it’s also challenging – break out of the same ole, same ole.
The clinic ran smoothly – like REALLY smoothly. Like, not one thing went wrong. All of the patients showed up, Dr. S’ got two surgeries out of it so it was worth her time to go and everyone was in a good mood. I really enjoyed it. I like this particular clinic because we use a family provider’s office and it’s part of the hospital so we don’t have to worry about Internet connections, which is REALLY nice because I have worked some clinics where we use a competing hospital’s office and we have to take Wi-Fi hot spots and connecting with that is sometimes a challenge and then the doctor is waiting on me and I can’t do anything because I don’t have Internet … it’s stressful. Not fun. But this was a pleasure to work and I wouldn’t mind working that clinic more often, to be honest.
My manager gave me the green light to leave early so it was really nice to get home an hour early and just breathe. When we had our MA meeting, I again brought up the proposal of taking turns leaving early on Fridays – just leaving a few hours early on a Friday, once in a while, does the mental health GOOD.
Oct 2: Kevin bought a fancy-smancy camera for our podcast. Like, a professional-grade camera, like a $1,500 camera. *gulp* I don’t really have a problem with him spending that much money because A. cameras are his hobby and I know he actually got a good deal on it because he bought it from eBay and the normal price for this type of camera is $5,000 new but B. I trust his judgement. It’s not like he goes out and spends money like this all the time.
I was really more worried about the timing of the purchase, to be honest. Again, I have no idea what is going to happen with my job. Though my religious exemption was approved to opt out of the COVID jab, I still haven’t heard back about the flu vaccine and the clock is ticking. I have no idea what I’m going to do if they deny it but at the same time, how can they deny it if they approved my COVID jab request? My point being, I have no idea how long I will have this job. Not to mention, the “conditions” of this approval haven’t been discussed yet so again, I have no idea how this is logistically going to work out and for how long. And how long will I put up with it? I’d like to stay at this hospital for my remaining working years but again, who knows with everything else going on right now? At any rate, we filmed our Right From Us podcast last night and the camera worked like a dream and Kevin seems really happy with the quality of it. He’s editing it now and will post it soon. You can find that podcast on YouTube, (though only an introduction since YouTube won’t allow free speech anymore), Rumble and Gab TV for the full, unedited versions.
Oct 3: Jumping into Preptober! I freaking love this time of year and it really gets me excited to write fiction. I plan on buying Natalia Leigh’s Preptober Workbook. It looks like it has a lot of fun stuff to help prepare for NaNoWriMo next month. She’s asking for donations, just give what you can and what you think it’s worth. Then you can print it off and pay a place to bind it for you if you wish. I am happy to donate some money to her because she spent a lot of time on the project and it’s going to help so many people. I don’t know if I’ll bind it and I likely won’t use all of the pages, but there are some that look really promising.
Kevin still have his diesel truck. He’s had a few bites but no luck so far. He actually took it off Craigslist because he wants to try a few things to see if he can get it up and running enough to maybe ask more for it. The truck body itself is in excellent condition and F250 diesel trucks go for a lot of money so it makes him sick to think he might sell it and come to find out, it was an easy fix. So, he’s not giving up on the diesel truck yet. I have yet to ride in his new truck.
Oct 7: I found out today that my flu vaccine exemption request was denied. I was not surprised. I’m not even that upset about it because I understand it. I’ve taken flu vaccines in the past, how could they approve it? I’m at peace with this decision. I will do what I think is best for me and my family at this point in time. I will get the vaccine. However, I know, at some point, likely in the near future, this decision will likely come back and bite me in the ass. Because at some point in time, they, the government, Big Pharma, are going to come up with a flu vaccine that will incorporate the mRNA because it supposedly makes producing vaccines faster. And perhaps it does. But until mRNA has been thoroughly vetted and tested, and until I’m convinced that it will most likely not harm me, as opposed to now when I don’t have that opinion, I will NOT succumb. So. What does this mean for my future with the hospital? I don’t know. And I don’t care at this point in time. I’m sick of thinking about it, I’m sick of stressing about it, I’m sick of living under this black cloud. I am at a point in my life right now that I am DETERMINED to live my life the best way I know how and right now, that means one day at a time. A lot can happen before next August, which is the deadline for my religious COVID exemption, I don’t know what that means but I suspect something is coming that I will not be on board with, but for now, I have a job and I’m thankful. I was told today that the hospital is working out the logistics on where and how I will succumb to a weekly COVID test – again, I will deal with that when it happens.
You know what’s weird? I’ve done such a good job of just pretending and moving past this nightmare that when my manager came to me today to tell me about the flu vaccine decision, I was surprised. I had momentarily forgotten that I was on probation, so to speak. I had forgotten that it was even an issue. I want to go back to to those days. When people minded their own damn business and left me the hell alone.
I will get back to those times. Mark my words.
Brandon has been having a lot of problems with his hands. He is very sensitive to a lot of things. We took him to an allergist when he was small – they poked his back with a number of different things and he had a reaction to a lot of them – the worst being oak. Which was unfortunate because we have four huge Oak trees across the street from us. But his hands seem particularly sensitive. He has had outbreaks for years – red, splotchy, peeling, itchy. He’s tried all sorts of OTC creams and some of them helped for a bit, but here lately, it’s gotten bad. He works at a bank so I’m betting handling all of that filthy money all day only makes it worse. I finally talked him into going to a doctor and they prescribed him something today that he says seems to be working pretty good. I don’t know what the medication is yet because he hasn’t answered my text yet (*ahem*), but I’ll let you know when he does. But it warms my heart that he took the initiative to seek help. That he’s being helped. That he’s healing and will get better. There is nothing worse than seeing your offspring hurting or in pain. It’s a very helpless feeling and I don’t know how much more helpless I can take. I want to be in control of my life and I feel like this past year and a half, has been complete chaos. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. I want off this merry-go-round. And I’m jumping off in 3…2…1…
Oct 9: So tired today. This is one of those days I could sleep all day. Sometimes that happens to me, I just want to sleep. I remember doing that a few times back before I met Kevin and lived on my own. There would be entire days I would sleep and then sleep all night. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was just exhausting. And of course, I was exhausted the next day, too. I could easily do that again.
Trying to make plans to go camping in November. There is a campground just off the strip in Branson that we have stayed at before and it’s walking distances to so many attractions. We haven’t made reservations yet, but I really want to go.
Question – when they start requiring me to test weekly for COVID, (*eye roll*), how will that work when I’m out of town or on vacation? I’m assuming I will have to test on Saturday to give them time to get the results back before Monday, what if I’m not in town on Saturday? For example, this upcoming mini vacation – I’m taking off Thursday and will be back on Tuesday. How will I test then? Will I have to take the rest of the week off? Will it be a rapid test? It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
This is the last hot weekend of the season, I think. I’m ready for cooler temperatures and sweatshirt weather.
Oct 11: Dr. M was back in the clinic today. He was a good patient and wore his sling all day. He was back to his old self and it was really good to see. I hope it lasts. I, however, was bored. This job is never slow but sometimes boring. Just because it’s the same thing, over and over again, at least, the process. Patients, of course, are never the same. It make me feel good when patients recognize me and greet me like we’re old friends. I guess that’s what happens when you work for one doctor for ten years.
Oct 13: Dr. M was pretty frustrated today. He had three surgeries that needed immediate attention and obviously he can’t do surgeries for a while so he had to refer them to his partners to take care of. This is his livelihood, this is what he’s gone to school for so many years to do and he can’t do it until he heals. He was a bit cranky today but considering the circumstances, I completely understand and empathize with him.
Kevin sold his F250 today! He didn’t get as much for it as I had hoped but he didn’t do too badly, either. Some guy in Arkansas bought it – he and his buddy work on trucks so this will be the perfect project for them to tackle. I think Kevin is relieved that it’s going to someone that can work on it because if he can get it up and running, he’s got a great truck on his hands. The body is in great shape. The truck is still sitting at LeRoy’s house, the guy has to have his buddy come back with him to tow it back home. I think Kevin is relieved but he’s also sad to see it go. It was a BEAST of a truck. His new(ish) F150 is nice but it’s not as mean as the F250. I’m relieved he’s getting rid of it because I didn’t realize when he bought it how much maintenance a diesel engine was. It’s a handful.
Oct 15: Girls and I went to a protein shake place today. It’s a small business and I’m all about supporting small businesses nowadays. Especially in this hostile environment where Biden and his administration is working hard to make it as hard as possible for small businesses to thrive right now. It was good! I will definitely be treating myself to more of those in the future. It was nice to get out of the office for a bit and just BREATHE. The hospital is the only place that requires masks in our city and working there is like a different universe to the “real” world at times. It still makes me unreasonably angry whenever I have to go to work and pull out the muzzle. It’s humiliating and feels so dehumanizing. I’m looking forward to T coming back to work on Monday. She timed it perfectly so she would be out at the same time as Dr. M so it’s been really easy to handle the workload by myself because we haven’t had any post-op patients to take care of while she’s been gone. But I’m ready for her to come back. It’s been too quiet. Ha!
Oct 16: Printed off Sarra Cannon‘s Preptober book today. I have two Preptober books now and I’m taking bits from each of them that I like and feel like really apply to me. I know what I’m going to write for NaNoWriMo and I’m excited about the idea. I have my characters though they aren’t fully fleshed out yet, and I have a general idea of where I want the story to go. I need to put some sort of outline together so that I can sprint out of the starting gate November 1st instead of hobbling out, like I usually do.
Oct 17: Have you guys heard of Kindle Vella?? I happened to watch a YouTube video on it and now I’m COMPLETELY intrigued!!
It’s brand new and still in Beta but you can join and read stories. I believe Amazon is working on the Android app, at least, I hope they are because I have an Android, but I will DEFINITELY be looking more into this after NaNoWriMo. This sounds RIGHT up my alley because I’m more a short story writer any way and I think writing excerpts would be really fun to try. Stay tuned for more on that in the future. If you’re writing on Kindle Vella, let me know! I would love to read your stuff!
Oct 18: It’s Medical Assistant (MA) week at work and though I appreciate everyone’s attention, these dedicated weeks embarrass me. I just want to do the best job I am capable of doing and then going home – I want to earn my paycheck. I want to be the best MA I can possibly be. It is nice to be recognized for a job well done but I do cringe a bit at all of the attention. I’m sure we’ll all have lunch together at some point, but with Dr. M and T getting back from surgery, we really just don’t have the time to devote to it right now. That’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.
I hope.
Oct 22: Good Lord. I’m pretty sure this was one of the hardest days of my life. It was crazy, scary, embarrassing and just plain sucked. I won’t get into all the gory details here, I wrote a whole post about it, but suffice it to say that I somehow fell into Vertigo hell and stayed there for about 20 straight hours. I’ve never experienced Vertigo before and I pray to God I never experience it again. It was truly the worst thing I’ve lived through in my entire life.
Oct 23: Vertigo stopped but I remained dizzy and nauseous all day. Carried a puke bag around with me all day and trust me, I used it OFTEN. Yuk.
Oct 24: Feel a bit more normal today. Still having trouble keeping food/drink down.
Oct 25: Felt great for most of the day, but then had another dizzy attack in the evening and I’m back to feeling dizzy and disoriented. It’s not Vertigo, just dizzy, but just as bad.
Oct 26: So dehydrated. The headaches are off the charts and I’m starting to think I need to go to the hospital just to get fluids. I had trouble keeping anything down. I finally drank a bunch of water, threw it up and immediately afterward forced myself to eat some fries and chicken nuggets along with a Gatorade. I was able to keep it down and felt better almost immediately. I think the Gatorade saved my life, to be honest. I have to work on getting my strength back, so weak. Kevin came home at lunch and helped me do the Epley maneuver to see if that would help with the dizziness. It didn’t help much right away but the dizziness did go away a few hours later so I think it helped shorten the duration. Of course, it made me dry heave a few times but I got through it.
Oct 27: Feeling better today. Still very weak. And very woozy. Not dizzy, just lightheaded. I’m determined to get my life back. I can’t live like this – afraid to move for fear of being dizzy. I made an appointment to see a Nurse Practitioner – my appointment is not until December 2nd. I need to become established with someone in family medicine so I have someone to go to IF I ever experience BPPV again. I pray it never happens, but just in case. Not to mention, I’m getting older, it’s stupid not to have a doctor.
Oct 28: Back to work today – IT. WAS. ROUGH. I felt nauseous all morning and snacked on crackers and drank Gatorade all morning. That helped. Still felt a bit dizzy but I got through it. The afternoon was a bit better.
Oct 30: Ran a few errands today and it was hard. I think I’m just weak because I haven’t done a lot of walking this past week. Felt lightheaded but not dizzy. I feel like I need to push myself a bit to get back to normal. Not overdo it, but I can’t just sit around all the time, either. I feel like that makes it worse. Ran my car through the carwash today and noticed a white streak down my passenger side door. I had parked my car in the parking garage at work when we left for clinic on that Friday and of course, Kevin came to get me and took me home that night so I left my car in the garage because I was in no shape to drive. It had rained a few times while I was gone and I don’t know if it’s hard water build up but there is a huge white streak down my door. It’s like my car was sitting under a leak in the garage and it just continued to run down my car for a few days. It’s really bizarre. Kevin is going to try and wax it out, hopefully it comes out because it’s quite noticeable. I’m pretty upset about it and if it doesn’t come out, I might toy with the idea of talking to my boss because this happened while it was parked in the garage at work. I feel like they might be liable for that, right? We’ll see.
Oct 31: Happy Halloween! I’m not really into Halloween. I mean, it’s fine, but I’ve never been one to rush and find a costume and dress up at work. In fact, I’m usually one (of many) party poopers at work that DON’T dress up. I don’t like dressing up. It’s fun when I’m FORCED to dress up, (meaning, when clinic falls on Halloween and the team peer pressures me into participating – actually – that’s not true. I’m a willing participant and it’s fun when we do it but I’m really glad it’s not every year), but it’s hard to be professional with patients when you’re wearing scarecrow makeup. All of this to say, we aren’t throwing a party and we won’t have trick-or-treaters, largely because we live in an older neighborhood where the houses are spaced out quite a bit and that’s a lot of walking for little legs just for candy. The boys are planning on coming over for chili dogs for dinner and since it’s supposed to be sunny and 60 today, (REALLY unusual weather for Halloween – it’s usually cold and misting – must be climate change – HA! Psych – it’s all cyclical weather patterns), we will likely get a fire going outside and enjoy inhaling wood smoke for a bit. It’s one of Blake’s most favorite things to do – I used to worry about him being a pyromaniac, thankfully, that didn’t happen.
In other words, boring. We likely won’t even watch a scary movie, though Kevin will want to, because the boys don’t watch movies, I don’t like scary movies and we all have to go to work tomorrow so …. yeah – we’re party animals.
NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow and as usual, I’m not ready. To be fair, I was out of commission for nearly a week because my brain decided to short circuit and my body wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do and that took quite a few days to get over, (still not completely over it, but much, MUCH better). I toyed with the idea of not participating this year but let’s face it, that would have been the easy way out and I’m tired of failing at every single writing task I set up for myself so I will be participating but I won’t like it, damn it. HA! So – in between my normal Sunday chores, trying to figure out what happened to my beautiful car, getting stuff ready for tonight’s dinner while being mindful that I need to avoid activities that require me to look down so I don’t knock my rocks loose again, I will be trying to put some scenes together, or more commonly known as an outline, so that I have something to write tomorrow.
Welcome to my life.
Update: Kevin got the gross white streak off my car door!! He used vinegar because it ended up being a hard water stain. I was so worried about that! Good job, Kevin! We have a lot of lime in our water here so we are constantly battling hard water around the house, I should have known it was something like that. I’m so relieved!
Write From Karen 