Tuesday, January 11, 2005

What I've got on my desk

The items on my desk include:

  • a butter knife
  • a purple marker
  • a black ink pen
  • my school keys
  • an empty water bottle
  • a bottle of hand lotion
  • a package of pencils
  • a package of pens
  • a baggie of chocolate-covered almonds
  • a pad of paper
  • a pad of sticky notes
  • my asthma inhaler
  • two random sheets of paper
  • a small pot of mints
  • a paper-clip container
  • some antibacterial hand gel
  • some cologne I confiscated from a dork
  • a heart-shaped Altoid tin, empty
  • two photos: my baby, and my whole family
  • my phone
  • my computer, keyboard, and mouse.
I am so damned bored.



--groovygrrl, queen of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Friday, January 07, 2005

Tanned, Rested, and Ready

Ok, so I'm not tanned.

The past month has been a whirlwind of activity, as is usual, according to my previous posts. However, none of the excitement happened while I was in school:

On December 1, my husband went in for hernia surgery. That night, he vomited, and told his caretakers that he, "felt a pop." Well, they didn't check into it, and sent him home the next day anyway. That evening, he couldn't even lift his head. I had to lift a 350-pound man out of bed by myself. He was in agony all night, and in the morning, vomited again. When this happend, he bled out through his incision, which freaked me out, and his pain increased.

I got someone to watch our baby, and took him to the emergency room. They did a CT scan, and determined that he had popped all of the stitches that were made in his abdominal wall. They surmised that it had happened while he was still in the hospital that first night. (He felt a pop, remember?) I was going out of my mind by that point, angry that they had sent him home, and now he was back in the emergency room, etc. etc. I called for the patient advocate, and told her my story.

He had to go in for emergency surgery that day, right there, from the emergency room to surgery prep. He had two invasive surgeries within 72 hours.

Long story very short (I could go on for days, but I can't afford the energy loss right now), we did not have to pay the hospital bill for the second visit, because they agreed (of course they agreed, they knew they were negligent) that he should not have been sent home the first time.

My husband is recovering slowly. He is almost completely independent; he is restricted fromm lifting heavy objects, and that's it. I'm so grateful.

Because of all this, I was home for all of December. I had planned on taking December 1-3 off, anyway, but because of his second surgery, and because I made them keep him in the hospital the second time around, I had to take December 6-17 off. I had the sick days. That's what they're for, right? Someone had to watch the baby, anyway. He couldn't lift her. About the thrid and fourth weeks of December, I was able to relax. I did some reading, went to the library, visited with some friends. It was good for a while.

And now, I'm back at school. I have declared the nightmare to be over, and things are looking up. I have been writing my book, and I have been scheduling time for some art projects, etc. I'm trying to find some fun in every day. It's difficult at this job, but I manage.

The most difficult part of my day is keeping my spirits up. It's very difficult to be a teacher. The children are never the problem for me; it is always the bullshit paperwork and politics that drive me nuts. Every year I am being asked to do more and more layers of paperwork, and that takes me away from time with students. Nuts, nuts, nuts.

So I do small things to lift my spirits, like wearing my hair in pigtails every Friday, and wearing old-school Converse All-Stars (red, leather, low-tops). I make the kids dance the hokey-pokey when they're losing steam. I try to streamline my paperwork so I can spend time with the kiddos.

I hope everyone reading this can make a choice today that will make your life better. I am writing a book that will sell thousands of copies and make me a lot of money. What are you going to do to make this year incredible?



--groovygrrl, queen of inspiration