The end of an era...or maybe just 2009

May I just say that this 3 week break is going by entirely too fast? I am not very happy about the fact that it is half over. Any time I feel even the least bit bored, I tell myself that I should just lay around and enjoy the boredom while it lasts, which is what I tried to do today. I have accomplished a couple of things, but not near as much as I would have liked by this point in time.

Accomplishments:

Finished my resume

Re-arranged my bedroom so I don't have to lay cock-eyed to watch TV

Found out what is wrong with my car and made an appointment to have it fixed

Yet to be Accomplished:

Write cover letters

Prepare for the next internship

Start studying for boards

With that said, I better either get motivated to finish my goals or just sit back and enjoy the rest of my break without stressing about them. I did find out my schedule for Wildwood (my next internship). I'm working Monday thru Wednesday and Fridays from 7:30am to 6:30pm with Thursdays off. If I'm not mistaken, that is technically 44 hours instead of 40, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and telling myself that the extra 4 hours will be worth my time. I am also pretty excited that I will not be spending $25/week on the turnpike for 8 weeks to get there.

So, obviously there are big things to come in 2010. I'll be doing two new internships, graduating from graduate school with my doctorate degree, and with any luck passing my boards and getting a job. 2009 definitely had its ups and downs, and while it wasn't as sh*tty as 2006 (it doesn't get any worse than that one), it sure wasn't my best year yet. I am so ready for a new year and a new start. 2009 brought two very crappy things: weight gain and lost friendships.

My plan for 2010 is to finally show the world what I was put on here to do: make it a better place by helping other people. I will finally have a purpose in this world and that's what makes it so special. Not only is it the beginning of a new decade, but it's the beginning of my purpose here. I'm pretty much starting over in all aspects of my life. I'm only going to surround myself with positive people, those who have a positive impact on my life. I'm going to get serious about my health and make a conscious effort to "practice what I preach" by staying in shape, getting in better shape, and living a healthier lifestyle. I am going to take more time to appreciate my family and all of my friends. I'm going to spend less time laying on the couch feeling sorry for myself and more time out and about and enjoying life! I wouldn't call these things "new years resolutions" because they're not just for the new year. They're a commitment for the future and I'm starting today.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Christmas was a little different for me this year, but I still enjoyed it. My mom left this morning to go see my brother and his family. It's my nephew's first Christmas, so I know she couldn't resist being there for that! She was very excited to go. I had my Christmas with her this morning and then we left for the airport. I have to say that most years I have wanted to save all of my gifts for the end so that I could be the last one opening them, but this year I was so excited about the things that I bought for her, that I wanted to save hers until the end and watch her open them. I think she was happy with what I bought for her. I was pretty excited because I got all of the main things I wanted: a smaller george foreman grill with temperature control and removable plates, king sized pillowcases for my big pillows, a Walmart gift certificate, a tool set, and a basket of canned goods that someone had out-bid me on at our church's silent auction, plus a few other things. I also stole some chips and cheese dip at my Ziegler family Christmas last night (I am all about the food), which included 2 dos equis (XXs), so now I am "the most important (wo)man in the world and have discovered that you can not just screw the tops off of expensive beer, but in a pinch a can opener can substitute for a bottle opener just fine. So I hope everyone has had a good of a Christmas (or any holiday you celebrate) as I have! I am currently so stuffed full of food, I'm not sure if I am even going to have the energy to waddle downstairs to the Buckboard Christmas party, but I think I will manage somehow ;)

Official break time

Ah, so now it's time for some relaxation! 3 weeks of it! I'm trying not to think about the fact that this is my last "Christmas break" until retirement in about 50-60 years. You can bet I am enjoying every minute of it though! I've had a very relaxing weekend. Just trying to get some cleaning done around the house and organize all of the things that I just threw in a pile in the closets when I moved in. Tomorrow, my big plans are to go get my hair done, finish my Christmas shopping, probably upgrade to a new cell phone that I can actually use, and then come home and wrap gifts. I'm still debating whether or not to go Christmas caroling with my church tomorrow night, but since I'm not working late and it will more than likely put me in the Christmas spirit, I probably will. As for today, I plan to just lay around and watch football, take a nap, and do a whole lot of nothing.

most annoying quotes from my CI

There is officially only one more day left at my clinical. I have to say that although it has gone by fast, and I know I am going to miss it, I am actually glad this one will soon be over. It seems like my CI has been super nit-picky this week, but that might also be because I have been itching for Friday and to get this show on the road already. However, just to give you a taste of how this has gone, I will give you a list of a few of the most ridiculous comments I have heard my CI say this week.

- To a few of the patients on my caseload - "Get ready, because this is the end of your easy sessions. You're not gonna be on vacation anymore. This is Maren's last week, so next week you are going to be seeing me. Get ready to do some real work."

- "I just got done failing you." - after filling out the clinical performance instrument (CPI) for me that we both have to fill out at midterm and final.

- He suggested some self-help books and audio tapes for me that he thinks are really motivating. I said I would check my local library for them, but I doubt they have them so I might have to do the inter-library loan for them. My CI says, "Waterville library has them." I say, "I'm not sure I want to drive all the way to Waterville. It's out of the way for me now." My CI goes on a tyrade, "Well I guess I just wasted my time suggesting these books to you! That right there tells me that you're not serious and you are not interested, so I will just back off. If you're not willing to drive to Waterville for this information, I guess it's not that important to you is it?" About 30 minutes later he says......"Yeah I just go to Owens library to get these physical therapy books. I hate driving all the way to the MCO campus. It takes forever to get there."

- "I only wrote these comments on your CPI because I know that's what Amy wants to hear. That's not how I really feel, but she's kinda weird, so I just wrote what she would like to read."

- Wednesday, he had me see a patient that was on HIS caseload. They had been doing advanced core exercises, so I started working with the patient on the same advanced core exercises to see if he had mastered them. My CI comes running out screaming, "NO! NO! NO! He is NOT ready for those yet! See how he is shaking! He can't even do it! Have him do the basic core exercises that we give to everyone." So I start the patient with the basic core exercises (which include abdominal crunches). My CI comes running over and says, "NO! He is NOT ready for abdominal crunches! Have him do all of the core exercises except for those!"

- Today we had a Christmas pot luck with the people who work at the Occupational Health Dr's office next to us. I busted my butt last night making pasta salad for it when I really just wanted to go to bed and forget about it. We had a patient today from 11:45 - 12:30, but the people from the Dr's office started getting the food out at noon. They asked me why I wasn't coming in and I said, "because I have a patient." The nurse replied, "Well Mike said that you didn't have any patients until 12:30 so that's why we're starting now. Sorry about that!" I stayed in the gym, saw my patient while my CI gobbled down the food at the pot luck with everyone else. He came in at the end of the treatment and says, "All the food is gone." I finish seeing my patient and go in the little kitchen area to eat bits of leftovers all by myself. What a fun pot luck.

- In front of a patient, my CI says, "I was willing to sacrifice my body for you to be able to palpate the scalenes (neck muscles), but you never asked, so I guess you really don't care. You are going to wish you had asked me."

- "When I offer to let you practice on me, you act like you just want to rush right through it. I guess that means you really don't care about manual therapy." To this, I wanted to scream - WELL, that's because you make me palpate your PSIS and ischial tuberosities while you unbuckle your belt! Who wouldn't want to rush through that and forget about it. It's one thing if it's a patient, it's a whole other thing when it's your CI and the medical secretary walks in wondering what the heck is going on.

-"This book changed my life. I base all of my treatment sessions around this book. It's amazing." Really? Because I've never seen, heard of, or read this book in my entire life, but you want me to read your mind and be able to treat all the patients like I have seen this book before.

-"There is no such thing as a complex patient." When I asked him if it was ok to do soft tissue massage over a skin graft for a patient who had an overuse injury to her arm.

-"She (me) doesn't care. She's leaving after this week anyway." to several patients.

No complaints for once

God really does work in mysterious ways. I just found out that my last clinical is going to be in Montpelier. I am super excited about this, because it's only 20 minutes away from where I live. However, with all the stress of moving to Waterville and then moving back from Waterville, it looks like it all ended up working out for the best anyway! The drive from Waterville to Montpelier is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes one-way. Yep, it's safe to say that I'm pretty glad I got moved back to Fayette. Plus, with any luck, and please please cross your fingers, this will help me get hired in at either Bryan, Archbold, or Montpelier, as they are all affiliated with the Community Hospitals of Williams County and I have already done my 8-week acute care clinical at Bryan.

My scholarly project is officially done and out of my hair. It was pretty much done before, but my advisor just asked me to make some grammatical changes and little things, which I just finished doing and emailed it back to him. The 28 pages that took me 3 years to compile are now complete and anyone who wishes to read this paper can receive a copy via email if you so desire. However, I will warn you that it took me over 1 year to even understand the words I was typing on the pages.

I'd like to think that maybe some things are going to start working out in my favor. I really have no complaints at the moment, other than the fact that my car is acting up so I really need to make an appointment to have it looked at. Overall, I have nothing to whine about, which is refreshing. I only have one more week at my current clinical site. Despite the insanely long drive every day, I really am going to miss it. I am really starting to feel confident in my abilities and now that my CI is treating me like his colleage, it's really been nice to work there. Today, we were not that busy in the morning, so my CI and I spent that time having a good discussion. I have learned so much from him and I now feel like I can actually talk to him and respond intelligently to the things his says, rather than just smile and nod and pretend like I understand. I'm excited to take the things he has taught me and put them to use on my own. Even though I whined and complained at times over the past couple of months, I really have taken this clinical for granted. I know I am going to miss it.

However, this weekend I plan on doing a whole lot of relaxing and possibly starting some Christmas shopping on Sunday. The past couple of weekends have been so hectic and busy. It will be so nice to sleep in tomorrow and lay around doing nothing for one whole day. I can't wait.

another week (almost) down

It's almost the end of another week. Week 7 is just about in the books and I'm oh so close to having just one week left to go. How crazy is that? This clinical has gone by so fast, despite the long drives and craziness of moving twice during the 8 week time period. Looking back, as much as I have complained about this clinical experience, I have to say that I am very fortunate to have had it. There are not many clinics like this one, and I would give anything to have a job in the setting where I just completed my clinical internship. No job is perfect, but this one was pretty darn close. I realized this evening that I really shouldn't complain about it at all, even if we are super swamped and have to stay late, I should have enjoyed it more while it lasted. At least I have one more week to make the most of it.

My new apartment is pretty much feeling like home. Even if I do have the furnace only set at 62 degrees and it is SUPER cold in here. Everyone who comes in here is jealous of the fact that I have such an awesome place. You can bet that I really do feel fortunate for being able to live here. It was a chaotic road, but I'm glad I made it to where I'm at. I plan to stay here for a long time to come. With that said, I think I will go start the fireplace and relax for the remainder of the evening :)

another day in the books..

Why can't all days be as good as today? I went to work today with a positive attitude, knowing that we were going to be super busy. It actually turned out to be a great day! Being so busy this afternoon made it fly by so fast. My CI let me pretty much be THE PT and see all the patients. He just stepped in whenever necessary to do some of the specialized manual therapy that he does, but for any of the basic manual therapy and regular treatments, he let me just do my own thing. Not only did it make me feel like he trusts me enough to do that, but it made me feel like his colleage (sp?), rather than his student. It was a good day. I wish they all could be like this one. Tomorrow we are not so busy, so it's either going to be a looooong day, or the doctor that is working in the doctor's office next door will decide to send us a billion evals at the end of the day. Oh well...if so, it'll be a learning experience I guess. I will say, it was nice to come home at the end of the day today and turn on the TV to something other than PBS and check my email.

This morning was our first "snow" of the winter. I really need to quit watching channel 11 before I leave for work. I only watch it to see if there are any accidents on the turnpike that I need to avoid, since you really can't get off the turnpike easily if there's an accident ahead. But they were warning everyone that the roads were SOOOO bad and that everyone in Toledo was only driving 10 miles per hour because it was so snowy and that there were tons of accidents on 475 and I-75. So I rushed around to get ready and left 10 minutes early so that I would make it there on time and the only slippery spots the whole way there were the on and off ramps of the turnpike. Although, I will say that some people do drive like idiots when it's snowy and icy out and there actually were quite a bit of accidents on the expressway (or so I heard from patients). I wish people would just put things into perspective. Being late to work is less of a hastle than wrecking your car and not even making it to work.

Not much else is new with me. I just got an email from my scholarly project advisor telling me that my paper looks good and that I just need to make some "minor" changes here and there. Luckily I just need to make a few grammatical changes and that paper will be over and done with. I still don't know where my last clinical is going to be. It would be nice to know where I'm going. I'd like to think that I'll get to go to Montpelier, since that is so much closer to home. Let's all keep our fingers crossed and hold our breath. lol. I also really need to start studying for boards ASAP, but I'm pretty sure that after this clinical is over (in 9 more working days, but who's counting?) that I will take a full week to just lay around my apartment and do absolutely nothing besides watch mindless television and be lazy.

Finally

Well, I am all settled in to my new apartment, and after a couple of weeks of watching nothing but PBS and not being able to call anyone since our Alltel tower isn't working here in Fayette, I FINALLY have tv, internet, and phone service. Thank goodness. Even though I still have to call and cancel what I had before (they don't service here in Fayette) and I will probably have to pay a lot of money for that, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. The first night I was here, I had to "rough it" with no heat or water, so even though it wasn't very convenient to go without tv, internet, or phone service, I managed. I can be honest though and say that I really did not want to go any longer than this.

Someday soon, although probably not until after this clinical is over, I will post some pictures of my new place. I really do like it here. I might have something different to say after I get my first gas and electricity bill, because I have a feeling that it's a little pricy to heat this place, but all in all, I'm glad to be living back in town and have a place of my own. It doesn't hurt to have a bar right downstairs and the grocery store within 20 ft. I have even managed to figure out how to work the fireplace, which was quite convenient since it was 17 degrees this morning when I dragged my butt out of bed (on a saturday) to go renew my CPR certification for 4 hours. Blah...but at least it's over and I passed.

My clinical is going pretty good. My CI still says some things sometimes that get under my skin, but for the most part, it's really going well and I feel like I have been learning a lot and making progress. It's hard to believe that there are only 2 weeks left. It has gone by so fast. I will definitely miss this outpatient clinic. I have a feeling that Wildwood (my next clinical) is going to be super fast paced and intimidating. I'm glad I had this experience first before heading there. On the plus side, Wildwood is only 40 minutes away, while my current clinical is 55 minutes one way and I am currently filling my gas tank every single day and paying $3.50/day on the turnpike. I'm getting robbed. Seriously.

All Moved In

I am all moved in to my new apartment! Still waiting on tv, internet, and phone service, but I at least have heat, electricity and water for now! I'll write a longer post after I get the internet of my own, which who knows when that will be...Stop on by if you want to see my new place! Just call my cell first so I can unlock the door.

Last post for a while

Well, yet again, this will probably be one of my last posts for a while. If all goes as planned, I'll be moving into my new apartment on Thursday and again, no internet for a while....Blah. I still have not called and cancelled what I have here. I'm scared to, because I don't even want to know what they're going to charge me to cancel it.

I still don't have a key to get into my new apartment, but I'm supposed to be getting one tomorrow (if they drop it off at the dr's office for my mom). With any luck (and I could REALLY use some), I should be able to start moving some smaller stuff Tuesday evening and the plan is to get all moved in officially on Thursday afternoon. Hectic craziness...that's all I can say. I've spent all morning this morning packing things up and getting everything organized and talking to people on the phone to get everything ready.

I am SUPER jealous of all of the people in my class who have both Thursday and Friday off this week, which is pretty much everyone except me. My CI tried telling me that we were going to be working on Thursday, and I told him that I was supposed to have that day off as a school holiday and he was like, "well this isn't school anymore." I was pretty much ready to flip out and tell him that even if that clinic was for some ridiculous reason open on Thursday when no patients would even want to schedule appointments anyway, there was no way on earth that I was going to be coming in and I was pretty much ready to notify my clinical coordinator that it was NOT GONNA HAPPEN. But then my CI checked the schedule and was "surprised" to see that we are in fact closed on Thursday. Well duh...what kind of outpatient clinic would even want to pay its employees to be there on a day when it's pretty much guaranteed that no patients would even show up. Ugh. But I do have to go in on Friday. I'm not thrilled at all, but at least I get the actual holiday off.

So tomorrow is going to be another stressful day. I have to call in the morning to verify that they're turning my electricity on, work all day, come home and keep packing, and call to cancel my current internet/tv/phone service. After I get moved, I'll be going to my mom's to use the internet, but I probably won't take the time to update everyone on all the excitement in my life until I actually get the internet of my own, which will be.....who knows when because Time Warner SUCKS.

Welcome to the real world honey..

This week's lesson: Trying to stop complaining.

If there was ever a time that I felt everything was going wrong, this would be it. I have to keep telling myself that there are plenty of people out there who have it much worse than I do and that I need to calm down and just relax. I don't know if I have ever been so stressed in my entire life!

I do feel very fortunate to be able to get an apartment set up so soon after finding out that I need to move out of here. I also feel very fortunate that I have a family member with a truck and a trailer who is willing to help me move all of my stuff. So don't get me wrong, I know I could have it a lot more stressful than I do. I am lucky that I will not be homeless in a couple of weeks.

On the stressful side, I found out last night at approximately 9pm that they were coming this morning to do the house inspection at the house I'm currently living in at 9am. I was told to "have the house as clean as possible" because the realitor has seen many sales fall through because of an "unkempt" house during the inspection. So, with less than 12 hours notice, I was frantically trying to scrub every inch of this house to get it spic and span.

I also had to call this morning to set up my gas and electricity at my new apartment. There is nothing more stressful than being put on hold for 25 minutes while trying to get everything set up while getting ready to leave for work while having a home inspector and home buyer asking you 1 million questions all at the same time. Luckily, my mom was able to go to the village today and get my water set up and thank goodness, because that is one less thing that is off my plate. I did get my gas set up and electricity, but apparently First Energy does this deal where you can go ahead and set up your cable and internet and phone while you are setting up your electricity. So I decided to go ahead and do that. They set me up with the package I wanted from Time Warner and set my installation date for next Saturday between 8:30 and 12pm. Well, I go to check my confirmation email tonight and they had the address completely wrong (of course), so I call the number and they said that I have to call Time Warner directly. So I call Time Warner the automated thing tells me that my installation is going to be a week from MONDAY from 8:15 to 12pm and the real live lady tells me that they apparently do not service N. Fayette St. I told her that was interesting because I know several people who live on that street who have Time Warner for their cable. Ugh.....So then she tells me that since my address is not in their system, they have to send a technician out to check the outside and make sure that it would be serviceable and then they will call me back SOMETIME and let me know. She said she "unfortunately" had no idea when this would occur, when I would be getting a phone call about it, and when I would even be able to have my service installed. I wanted to punch someone through the phone. I kept trying to explain my situation to her and she kept telling me how "unfortunately" it would have to wait and "unfortunately" someone would "eventually" call me back. If Time Warner didn't have such a freaking monopoly on cable in Fayette, I would have told her to just cancel the whole freaking thing. I have already arranged to have someone at the apartment next Saturday to wait for the installer to come and now they're not even coming and who knows when they even will.

Needless to day, that whole situation was a bit stressful. My clinical/internship situation is still a little stressful. I know Monday next week is ridiculously busy because none of our patients wanted to come on Friday since it's the day after Thanksgiving. Apparently my last clinical site (March-April) ended up cancelling so now me and my clinical coordinator have no idea where I am going to get sent, so I have no way of knowing if I am making the right decision about where to live or not (at least for those 2 months). The reality company called me today to tell me that they're sending someone over twice next week to put some sort of radon detector in the basement when I am not here and that is always stressful knowing that there are people coming in your house when your not even there. I still have not cancelled my current cable and internet service (they don't service Fayette) and who knows how much that is going to cost me to cancel.

Blah to all this craziness! I just want a magic fairy to come down and take care of EVERYTHING for me. Or I just want to be 5 years old again and not have any of these worries or stresses. Oh well. It's definitely time to put on my big girl pants and take it in stride. Welcome to the real world. It's not all peachy keen.

Stress!

You want to talk about stress? I just found out a couple of hours ago that my brother's house (that I am living in) has been sold (approximately 3 weeks after I moved into it). Not only did it sell, but I have to be out by December 10. Yep, that's a little stressful. I am so happy for him that it sold, don't get me wrong. I know he has had it for sale for a long time now and has put a lot of money into it in an attempt to get it sold. But now I just moved in and have to turn around and move back out in a couple of weeks! It's a little stressful to have to find a place in that short amount of time. Luckily I am pretty much over the flu and can somewhat think clearly, because I am going to have to be making decisions FAST.

My plan right now is to just go ahead and move back to Fayette. I know it will be a longer drive to and from my clinicals, but my plan all along was to move back there after graduation and find a job close to home. I am getting pretty sick of moving, so I just want to do one final last move and be done with it. Plus, I have a pretty good lead on a nice apartment in Fayette that I think I could get for a pretty decent price and it sounds like I could move into it fairly quickly. I really don't have the time to tour around apartments in Toledo and find a new place. I have already seen this apartment in Fayette and pretty much know what I would be getting into. I should find out tomorrow if that one is going to work out and if I can get a decent price for rent on it.

Now I'm left with the totally awkward situation of asking people to help me move again. I feel horrible doing that. I know it's the last thing anybody wants to do with their day off / weekends. I feel like crap saying, "oh can you bring your truck and trailer and help me get all my crap moved all over again?" especially since my couch and bed have to be totally taken apart in order to be moved.

I am also left with the stress of canceling my tv and internet service less than a month after I had it installed. My brother has been nice enough to tell me that he will help me cover the cost of canceling it, but it's just stressful to try to figure out how I can get that all taken care of in such a short amount of time.

At this point, I just have to step back and tell myself that there are people in the world who have it worse than I do and I should just stop complaining. I can only pray that my family members are willing to help me out YET AGAIN to get my stuff moved out of here and into another new place. I hate being a burden to them. It makes me feel so worthless. Ugh.

But, on the plus side, my brother sold his house and he doesn't have to worry about making two mortgage payments at once, along with all the other bills he has had to pay to try to get this place sold. It will be nice for him to at least be rid of the stress of this place.

Sickness Saga

This cold/flu is really kicking my butt! Thank goodness for TamiFlu, because I'm pretty sure I would be feeling miserable without it. I did tough it out and go to work yesterday, since the syllabus for this internship clearly states that we are only allowed to miss one day of the clinical and after that, we have to make it up "in succession," meaning that I would have to make it up over Christmas. No thanks. I still had some body aches and cough, but I was pretty sure I didn't have a fever, so I went to work. I pretty much had to anyway because we were double booked with patients all afternoon and since my CI is the only PT in the clinic, he had no one else to cover the double-booked patients unless I came in.

About 15 minutes after I got there, the phone rang and it was my clinical coordinator calling my CI about some forms that he still needs to fill out for my midterm review. She apparently mentioned to him over the phone that I was supposed to be fever-free for 24 hours before coming back to work (I had emailed her that I was sick and missed Thursday because we are required to let her know). It would have been nice if she had told me that I was supposed to be fever-free for 24 hours, because I never knew that. But my CI just laughed about it and said not to worry about it.

We had a meeting at the hospital yesterday afternoon, so while we were on the way, I noticed that I had a voicemail. I checked it and it was from my clinical coordinator. She was calling to tell me that I should not have gone into work yesterday because I should have been fever-free without any medicine for 24 hours. I'm not sure where these rules are coming from, but I've never heard any of them! And here's the kicker - she goes on to say that she would have been lenient with me for the days that I missed and that I probably wouldn't have had to make them up if I had stayed home an extra day. UGH! I definitely would have stayed home if I had known all of this! I love how she waited until I was already at work to call me and let me know this! So frustrating. So then I felt like crap for even going in to work, because apparently that was the wrong decision. So I tell my CI what the voicemail said and he just laughed and said not to worry about it and that he would just let me leave an hour early after we were done seeing the double-booked patients and all my charting was done.

So we get to the meeting at the hospital and I start feeling miserable. I'm getting stomach aches and nausea again throughout the entire thing. Bleh. After it was over, the rehab director came over and asked me if I was going to this seminar thing that they are putting on this weekend (today and tomorrow from 8-5). I told her that I was not going because I was still feeling a little sick and felt it would be better to just stay home and rest. She agreed and told me to "stay away" from the seminar.

We get back to the clinic after the meeting and my CI asks me if I am going to the seminar. I tell him that I am not because I am still not feeling that great and I think I should just stay home and rest. He starts giving me a guilt trip - BIG TIME. Telling me, "well...if you really don't think you need to be there..But I really think it's good to expose yourself to as much new information as possible so that you keep an open mind about new techniques." and "remember, this is a $300 course that you get to go to for free." um...HELLO?! Did I happen to mention that I feel like absolute crap and that I could quite possibly have H1N1?! Yeah, let me just spend my entire weekend at some seminar where I will not earn any CEUs and waste my time with muscle energy techniques that I will not even remember in the long run while I get everyone at the seminar sick with whatever I have. Ugh. Well, guess what? I didn't go today. And I'm not going tomorrow either.

So about an hour into seeing patients yesterday afternoon, my CI starts coughing and hacking. He begins to realize that he is getting whatever sickness that I have (and maybe he will finally realize that it wasn't just all in my head and thinking positive isn't going to cure it). He starts blaming me for getting him sick and going on and on and on about how he caught whatever I have. Well guess what? That's why I called off yesterday. And he's the one that told me to stay yesterday after my clinical coordinator told me to go home, so I refuse to feel sorry for him. He spent the whole afternoon holding his head and talking about how miserable he felt. Welcome to the club! I tried not to whine about it because I knew he would get annoyed, but all I did yesterday afternoon was listen to him go on and on about it. Well, I still left about 45 minutes early after I got my charting done. There was only one patient left for the day anyway and that patient hadn't even shown up, so I'm assuming he was a "no-show" and my CI got to go home early also.

Last night I went to bed about 10pm and woke up this morning at 9:45. That's the way it's been going lately. I either go to bed around 8pm and wake up at 8am or somewhere around there. It would be nice if I could get to the point where I don't need to sleep 12 hours/night because I feel that's all I do. Today I actually felt good enough to go to Kroger and get some much needed groceries. Although I am still hacking and coughing and occasionally feeling crappy and need to lay down.

I'm not sure if this flu is changing the way I taste food or if it's just giving me weird cravings, but I have been wanting to eat the weirdest foods lately (weird for me anyway). The week before I got this flu, all the sounded good to me was BLTs (with the T), and I used to hate tomatoes, but now I want to put them on every sandwich I eat. Crazy. After I got sick, I couldn't eat anything at all for a couple days (except for one peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie...weird I know) and then last night I finally felt ready to eat my first meal. There was only one thing in the world that sounded like it was even worth eating and that was a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese and fries. Now, that doesn't sound so weird, but I HATE American cheese on my hamburgers and the quarter pounder comes with 2 slices. And it tasted soo good. Today, the only thing that has sounded good was vanilla ice cream topped with some homemade peaches that my cousin Paula canned for me, and some whipped cream. So, I went to Kroger for the ice cream and whipped cream and that's what I had for lunch. Crazy! Although, it did make my sore throat feel much better.

One bright spot to my day was the fact that when I returned from Kroger, my neighbor came over and introduced himself and his daughter. He lives in the condo that is attached to mine and we haven't really had a chance to meet since I moved in because I haven't had time to get out and about with my weird clinical hours. He is a super nice guy. He told me that if I ever need anything to just let him or his wife know. He said they'd be willing to take care of anything that I need and if I ever go away for a few days and need someone to take care of Ramona, they would do that also. It was so reassuring to know that I have nice neighbors who are willing to help me out. It made me feel better to know that there's someone kind of "looking out" for me next door.

So my plan for the rest of the weekend is to just sit back and relax. I wish I had some chairs to sit outside, since it's such a beautiful day out, but I just opened a window and I'll have to enjoy it that way for now. I do have clinical homework to get done, but it's technically not due until Wednesday and I just might have to procrastinate on it and do it Tuesday night, because I really do need a couple days of just rest and relaxation.

Sicky Sicky

Why am I posting in the middle of the day when I should be at work? Because I am sick...ugh. I really thought I could make it through this clinical without catching whatever it is that's going around, but no such luck. It started with body aches on Tuesday, which I attributed to lack of sleep the night before. Yesterday I was hacking and coughing all day, but the body aches weren't too bad. Today I woke up feeling horrible. The body aches are back, I'm literally tasting my lungs every time I cough, and I'm pretty sure I have a fever off and on, but I wouldn't know since I don't have a thermometer. Needless to say, I ended up having to call in sick. I called this morning and left my CI a voicemail that I would not be able to make it in. I feel horrible for calling off, especially when my CI thinks that every sickness and ache and pain is "psychological" and if you just stop thinking about it, you'll feel better. I agree with this to an extent, but when you're truly sick, you're truly sick. And I didn't want him trying to convince me that I needed to come in when I can barely hold my head up (I am currently laying on my stretched out futon watching Food Network and getting nauseous every now and then when they make something nasty - for example, Emeril just made clams).

I'm pretty sure I don't have the H1N1, but luckily I was able to start taking TamiFlu this morning and some prescription cough syrup, so keep your fingers crossed that I will feel 100% better by tomorrow, because we're only allowed to miss one day of our clinical rotation and this is my one day (lame, I know). But, instead of complaining further, I think I will sign off and attempt to sleep away this crap.

Another week, another dollar (spent)

Is another weekend almost already over? It's tough to see the weekend end when it's 70 and sunny outside! It's also tough not knowing if I am going to be required to go to a seminar next weekend that St. Luke's is having on Saturday and Sunday from 8-5 both days. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I do not have to go, but if my CI thinks that I need to be there, then I will have to go, meaning that I will end up working Monday thru Friday, sitting at an all day seminar on Saturday and Sunday, and then working the next Monday thru Friday. Boo that...especially knowing that we are double-booked all day tomorrow. Don't get me wrong, I like being busy and having the day go by super-fast, but I am not a big fan of busting my butt all week only to have to sit at a seminar all weekend long.

In other news, I'm contemplating going to a seminar in Orlando from January 7-10. The seminar is actually on January 8 and 9, but I would probably go on the 7th and come home on the 10th, if I go. It's at the Hilton Orlando and it's for continuing credits for my CSCS. I could use the credits, and the price is reduced drastically for student members of the NSCA (which I am currently a student member and obviously won't be a student member after May 2010). I only have until 2011 to get all my CEUs in and since I'm on "Christmas break" until January 11, I'm thinking of going to the seminar, especially after I went on expedia.com and saw that roundtrip flights from Detroit to Orlando are only $120 for that time. I haven't decided for sure yet, but I might sign up. I have until Nov. 14th to decide and get the discounted rate, so I need to make up my mind soon.

Not much else is going on, I spent the day today laying around with all the windows open enjoying the warm weather! I even went outside and went for a short run! It was nice. It's too bad these sunny days aren't going to continue. It looks like tomorrow is going to be nice like today, and then the highs are only in the 50s for the rest of the week. Oh well...you can't ask for much better in the middle of November! Speaking of the middle of November, I am just about ready to put up my Christmas tree and decorations! I'm telling myself that I will at least wait until next weekend to start, but it's going to be tough. I'm ready for the radio stations to start playing Christmas music!

A Great Week

I still can't believe what a turn-around it's been with my internship. The first week was crazy and intimidating and frustrating, while this week it was the exact opposite. Don't get me wrong, it was still a bit intimidating at times, but not at all like it was that first week. I'm so glad my CI has realized that I am not ready to learn all of the specialized techniques that he have taken him 4 years to learn (after PT school) and that I just need to refine the skills that I have already practiced. This week, I have started seeing "my own" patients and I am beginning to build up a caseload of my own. I've also started doing the evals on my own, but just the history taking. Next week I get to start actually doing the assessments and treatments on my own from the start. It's a little scary, sure, but my CI has been really understanding about that and he's made it clear that he will be available for me to ask questions or go to him with any concerns I may have before I start a specific treatment. That is so reassuring. I'm grateful to have a clinical/internship where I can build up my confidence with treating patients on my own, while knowing that there is someone there to guide me and give me feedback, but who's willing to let me take the lead.

The only downside now is that I have been seeing another patient who tries to flirt with me (I had one at my last clinical in Bryan also). I hate situations like this. I am one of those people who hates awkward silences, so I really try to make conversation with my patients because I hate just sitting there staring at them the entire time. So, I usually bring the people in and start asking them all kinds of questions to get them talking. Most patients seem to like this because it makes therapy a little less boring and takes their mind off of any pain that they might be having that day. Well, some patients take that attempt to make conversation as a way to flirt with me and "give me the eye." I have one now who is well into his 40s or maybe in 50, married, and still tries to flirt with me. He comes in for all of his appointments drenched in cologne and sits there smiling at me and staring at me the entire time. I still try to make conversation with him, but now I feel like I need to think of even more things to talk about because whenever there is an awkward silence, he tries to catch my eye and stare into them. I am beginning to dread seeing his name on the schedule and hoping that he will cancel, and I hate feeling that way about a patient! I can only keep my fingers crossed that he will realize over the weekend that he needs to knock it off. This is literally the only part of my day today that I dreaded.

Other than my internship, I really don't have much of a life. I'm cleaning all night tonight because they're showing my brother's house in the morning. Go figure, they would decide to show it on a Saturday morning when all I really want to do is just sleep in. But I do have some errands to run in Maumee, so I guess I'll just stop being lazy and get off my butt and get that done in the morning. No excuses. I have come to realize that, in the real world, when you work Monday through Friday, some things just have to be taken care of on Saturday mornings. Boo that...

:)

Things are still going good this week at my clinical/internship. I am extremely grateful that my CI "saw the light" over the weekend. I am now able to work with most of the patients on my own to an extent. I pretty much work with the ones who I can treat with techniques I learned in school and then my CI steps in if they need any type of advanced manual therapy. It's been a pretty good arrangement so far this week. We're also starting to really pick up with patients and the days are getting booked solid so we are super busy, which is great. I am learning a ton from the variety of cases we're getting and the days are going by so fast. I didn't even have time to look at the clock at all today.

I have to say that I was a bit intimidated by my first patient from East-side Toledo today. My first clinical was in Sylvania and the other was in Bryan. Although I experienced "interesting" patients at each, I never had a patient from east Toledo before. I hate to stereotype East Toledoans, because I'm sure they're not all the same, but....my patient today did absolutely nothing to convince me that my stereotype is unwarranted. She was 46 years old and had no teeth. She smelled like stale smoke. The very first thing she said was, "Before you even say anything, this is my husband to be, not my son. He's 24 and I'm 46. You got a problem with that?" She spent the entire eval giving one-word answers and acting like anything we did was causing her excruciating pain. She can not lay on her back or her stomach, yet she expects us to treat her neck pain, in addition to her shoulder pain. For those of you who know the biomechanics of the neck, it would be pretty obvious that there is really no way to treat a patient for neck pain if the patient can not tolerate laying supine or prone. So....this patient will be interesting.

Despite this exception, most of the patients I've met so far have been very nice, fun to work with, and easy to get along with. It's kind of funny how you develop relationships with them differently than the acute care setting. In acute care, you only see them for 15 to 20 minutes at a time plus they're only there for a few days and then gone, so you don't get attached to them. In outpatient, you see them for 45 to 60 minutes at a time and for 2-3 days / week for 2-3 weeks. I am already going to miss some of my patients when they get discharged.

In other news, yesterday I went back to Fayette to vote, since my cousin was running for township trustee. He ended up winning by plenty of votes. It was pretty cool to see this morning online that he not only won, but beat everyone in the category. I'm glad that I live close enough and got out of work early enough yesterday to be able to go back home and vote, but the drive made me realize how glad I am to have a shorter commute every day. Although I am really enjoying my clinical/internship right now, I don't know how I would survive it if I had to drive an hour and a half to get there every morning and then an hour and a half home.

Can't complain

After all that craziness last week and worrying about my clinical, today went really well. My CI came in this morning and told me that he realized that he was overwhelming me with tons of information at once and that I should just focus on what I already know. He said he is going to let me get more involved with treating the patients with techniques I already know and then he is going to just show me some of his techniques that I don't already know. He is going to let me do evals by myself and pretty much let me do my own thing and then he's going to step in when necessary to help out and do added manual therapy techniques that I haven't learned. It was such a huge relief. Today went extremely well and I felt so much better about the clinical as a whole. He told me today that I was "for sure going to pass" and not to worry about it, so I won't. I am a little bummed that I have to go in early Wednesday morning for a meeting, but I got to leave 15 minutes early today, so I won't complain too much. In all honestly, as much as I complained about my clinical in the last post, I can already tell that outpatient orthopedics is definitely what I want to do. I don't dread my work-day every morning and I love being there and getting to know the patients. Most of them are super friendly and nice. Now that I am on the same page with my CI, I think this clinical is going to go by super fast.

New city, New job.

I finally have the internet and TV up and running here in "my" new house. It was a long week without any connection to the outside world beyond my clinical! It was quite the transition to go from checking my Facebook page every 15 minutes to not checking it for 3 days at a time, but I managed.

I'm settling in here pretty good. It helps to be busy with my clinical and not just laying around doing nothing all day long. I have been a bit homesick at times, but not as much as I thought I would be. The commute to Perrysburg is only 15 to 25 minutes depending on the day, which saves me so much gas money. I could also really get used to having a 2 car garage and huge bathroom and a dishwasher and a refrigerator that makes its own ice.

My clinical is going ok so far. It was going really good for the first few days. My CI seemed to be really understanding about how intimidating it can be to start a new clinical and get used to all the new documentation and computer system. Yesterday, however, was NOT good day. I will back up though and just give a little bit of background info as to how my week has gone.

First of all, I am my CI's first student ever. He's been out of school for just a couple of years and he's been working in outpatient for only 4 months. He is foreign and English is not his first language (although he speaks it very well and technically is an American citizen), so there is a cultural difference between us. I am not sure if he is Italian or Romanian, but I think it would be rude to ask, so I haven't. He is very knowledgeable and excited to share his knowledge. He also really really really really really really really likes to talk.

One of my pet peeves is interrupting people or being interrupted. Thus, I try not to ever interrupt anyone. This means that my CI talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and I never get a word in edgewise. He also jumps from topic to topic and subject to subject in the middle of sentences. He is also very blunt. So, this is pretty much how every day goes: I get to work. I start putting my stuff away and he starts talking to me, "Hi, how are you? Good. Don't be nervous. All this information will come to you. I just want to share this with you. Let's put this CD in the computer for you to watch. Can you print out today's schedule? Oh, here, let me print this article for you first. Don't worry about reading all of this at once. It will be too much for you. Did you get a chance to read that article I gave you yesterday? Here is this book I brought for you to look at. Ok so let's look at the spine and I will show you what I mean by an ERSL. You would treat it by - Oh our next patient is here." We will go see the patient while he continues to talk to me like this and I can't focus on ANYTHING because he is constantly changing the subject and confusing the heck out of me. I just have to keep reminding myself that I am his first student ever.

Another thing - My CI things that every single patient has psychological issues. One of the doctors at the clinic studies the psychological issues associated with chronic pain. He made the mistake of telling my CI some of his thoughts about it one day and now my CI thinks that every single patient who comes to our clinic has psychological issues due to their pain. Thus, we are not allowed to empathize with any patients, because it feeds into their psychological issues.

Also, My CI uses 99.999999999% manual therapy for his treatment and 0.000000001% therapeutic exercise. Thus, I am learning absolutely nothing about how to progress a therapeutic exercise program, but I am learning manual therapy techniques that I have never even heard of before. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing. My CI does get results with his patients and he does an excellent job helping them to get better fast. But, I feel like we aren't doing anything that I learned in class and if I ever get a job somewhere that I feel like using therapeutic exercise to treat my patients, I will have no idea what to do since I didn't do it on my clinical. This clinical is technically supposed to be "outpatient orthopedics" and it is actually "outpatient manual therapy." I'm not knocking it. I think it works. I just wish I could learn a little bit more about ther ex also.

My main complaint - My CI treats me like I don't know how to do anything. It's true, I don't know how to do all the manual therapy that he does. But I DO know how to take a patient's history during an initial eval. He asked me to do that yesterday and then interrupted me at least 50 times in front of the patients to ask questions that I hadn't gotten to yet. It made me look really stupid in front of the patients and I was really embarrassed. He says he was doing that to "help me out" but I did not need his help with that and I told him so. He told me to not be so defensive and that he would just leave me alone with the patients from now on. At first I felt bad about that, but the more I think about it now, I don't feel bad. I did not appreciate being treated like an idiot in front of the patients and I would rather work with them on my own than have him sitting behind me interrupting me every 2 seconds to ask a question that I was going to ask next. Ugh. It was horrible. Although, I will say, that after that happened yesterday, he spent the rest of the day praising my documentation and the day did end well. So maybe it won't be so bad after all. I could go into so much more detail about my concerns and issues with this clinical, but I think for now it's best to just leave it at that. I should just be appreciative of the fact that I am finally working with outpatients who do not have IVs and bed pans and that it only takes me 20 minutes to get to work every day. Yep, I'll just leave it at that.

Scared and Nervous...

Well, I'm making the big move tomorrow (as long as it doesn't rain). I am pretty scared. I shouldn't be, because it's only 45 minutes away from home and I am just being a big baby. But, I know I'm going to be homesick. There are two types of people who grow up in Fayette - those than can't wait to leave and those that never want to leave. I am the second type. But...the time has come for me to change. No one in their right mind would turn down an opportunity like this. It would have been so foolish to say no. I know I can make this work. However, my first week or so will be without tv or internet...talk about lonely. I'm going back to the dark ages of radio for a while.....or several DVDs played in a row.

Things I am telling myself to alleviate my homesickness:

• I will only be 45-50 minutes away from home.
• My cousin and his family live 30 seconds away.
• I will be closer to my PT friends and can finally hang out with them!
• I will be so much closer to my next clinical.
• Although my cat will not like moving, she did used to live in this house, so maybe she will get re-acquainted with it faster (yes I am really worried about my cat...I love her so much). Plus she will have more room to run around and play.
• If I find a job in May that is closer to home, I will just move back.
• My brother said I can call him if anything goes wrong and he will take care of it, so I don't have to!
• I will be living in a safe neighborhood with old rich people as my neighbors.
• Kroger is one block away.
• I will be able to park both of my cars in the garage for the wintertime.
• My mom has a key and will come visit me (or at least she says she will).
• I can come home and visit my mom whenever I want to (or at least she says I can).
• My refrigerator has an ice maker on the outside.
• I will have a dish washer (although I do not know how to use one).

So, these are all the things I will be telling myself over and over again for the next couple of months while I get used to such a big move. I could have made a list of all the things I'm scared about or all the things that will make me homesick, but that will just make me sad, so I am going to focus on the positives. Plus, Thanksgiving is coming up and I will definitely need a big family get-together about that time. So, since I won't have the internet for a while after tomorrow (as long as it doesn't rain and I do get moved), wish me luck and the next time I post, I should be settled in.

New Endeavors

Well, I never thought I would be doing this. Never in a million years. But I received an offer this week that I just couldn't turn down. It's not going to be easy to do this at all, but I am moving out of Fayette. It's going to be so hard. But, my brother hasn't been able to sell his house in Waterville (which is just outside of Toledo) and he called me this week to see if I'd be willing to live there so that he doesn't have to leave it empty for another winter. As much as I want to stay in Fayette, I think it's the right thing for me to move into his house. It's so much closer to my remaining clinicals, so I won't have to drive so far in the winter. Plus, I park my Mustang there in the winter-time anyway and this will give me a 2-car garage to park both of my cars in all winter long. And my cat will have more room to run and play! Plus, I do have a cousin who lives just down the road, so I won't be in Waterville all by myself (although it will still probably seem that way sometimes).

So...this gives me a lot of planning to do in a very short period of time. My clinical starts on Monday, and after that, I'll be working Monday through Friday, with no option to take days off. Somehow, I have to get moved and get my cable and internet set up ASAP since 99% of the assignments that I have to do for my clinical are due by email or WebCT. I have to figure out if I can even get moved this weekend or if I need to wait and move in next weekend. I have to figure out how I am even going to get all of this stuff packed up and ready to move in the first place. My mind is kind of spinning right now with all the decisions to be made.

Although I'm pretty sure that I am doing the right thing, I'm still pretty scared about it. The house is in a really good neighborhood, so I'm not scared because of that, but I am scared to leave my family in Fayette. I just have to keep telling myself that I will only be an hour away and that I can come back whenever I need/want to. I know I am going to be a bit lonely. I'll probably even cry. But I can't keep driving so far every day and I do want to help my brother out (although I think, in reality, he is helping me out more than I am helping him). This is a huge step for me. HUGE. You wouldn't think moving 50 miles away would be that big of a deal, but it definitely is!

I am the talus. I am the stupidest bone in the body, but I'm still smarter than Joe Girardi.

I'm finding it so difficult to concentrate on any type of review that I wanted to do before this next clinical. It's so tempting to just lay around and do nothing! About all I can make myself do is color in my anatomy coloring book and read about 3 paragraphs at a time in my orthopedics book. Ugh....I need to get motivated!

I finally got my hair cut and colored to cover up all the gray hairs that school gave me. Well, the girl who did my hair said that I only had one gray hair, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better about it, ha. I was pretty happy though because I finally found someone who can actually cut, highlight, and style my hair. For example, highlights do not always have to be blonde. Finally I found someone who realized this. Also, just because my hair is wavy does not mean I want it to be that way. If I came in with it straightened, I want to leave with it straightened. It's about time someone took the time to actually style my hair like I want it done and not just scrunched up because that's "easier." I know these things sound petty, but when you have been disappointed with hair cuts and highlights for 27 years, it's kind of nice to actually find someone who does it right.

Not a whole lot else has happened so far this week...my Yankees lost yesterday, leaving me feeling pretty bummed out for the rest of the night. They better make a serious comeback tonight. It would be nice if at least one of my sports teams became world champions. It hasn't happened since the Colts won the super bowl like 3 years ago. That being said, I better go attempt to review some more before the game comes on tonight.

PT school = gray hair

I have thoroughly been enjoying my time off before the start of my next clinical. My mom and I spent a day shopping in Ft. Wayne and it was very much needed. I sold my elliptical a week ago (I couldn't use it anymore because of my knees) so I had extra shopping money. It's always a good trip when you have to walk back to the car to unload your heavy bags halfway through. The only sad part of the day was getting into Indiana on the way there and seeing snow covering people's parked cars. Ugh. I'm really not ready for snow. I even had to buy a new winter coat, which was on sale from $210 to $130 :) so at least I saved money.

I found out last week that my next clinical did get moved to Perrysburg. I wasn't thrilled, because that's even farther away. But...it's just off of I75, so it might not be as bad of a drive since I can avoid all the city traffic. It is going to cost me $150 in turnpike tolls though, that is only if I get around to purchasing the sensor thing for the EasyPass so I save 50 cents each way. I also found out my hours. Mon/Wed/Fri I work 10-6:30 and Tues/Thurs I work 7-3:30. I'm not too sure how I feel about these hours yet. For example, Monday nights, I won't get home until after 8pm and then I'll have to get up by 5am to get back there on Tuesday. But, I will get to be home somewhat early on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we'll see how it goes. The only thing I really am looking forward to is finally doing a clinical in an outpatient orthopedic setting. No more IVs and gaping hospital gowns. Plus, my CI seems pretty cool (at least from when he talked to our class), so it should be a good experience.

I'm planning to spend this upcoming week preparing for the clinical and studying up on a lot of my anatomy (since my CI said "know your anatomy" at least 20 times in the class lecture) and orthopedics. I'm also going to finish up my resume and get my cover letters ready. Even though it sounds like we won't officially be able to start working until June (if and when I pass my boards), I'm ready to get out there and find a job and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need an early start since our economy is so crappy. I also have a hair appointment on Monday to cover up all of the gray hairs that inevitably started coming in a couple of weeks ago :( I knew I'd probably start getting gray hairs soon, and probably all the stress from the last few weeks of class didn't help. I'm not sure what all I am going to do with my hair yet, but you can bet, I won't just sit back and let it all turn white and think that it's "pretty."

It's Official

I am now "officially" done with all of my coursework. Scholarly project presentations were last night. I gave a poster presentation, which means that I stood by a poster I made that displayed an overview of my entire project. Since my project was insanely complicated and ridiculous, most people just read the title and kept walking, which was fine by me! I think I was only asked about 5 questions total the entire night. I'm a little mad that I had to give my poster to the school to have it displayed at main campus. I really don't think that UT "owns" my poster, considering the fact that it's MY work, but whatever. I'm also annoyed because not all of my credentials are listed with my name on the poster (because my advisor wouldn't let me put them). That's kind of a slap in the face. You work so hard to get those credentials and then they're not even listed with your work. Oh well...it's over.

I'm a little nervous about my upcoming clinical. It starts in a couple weeks and I still have no idea what is going on. Last night at the presentations, one of the PT's who came as a guest speaker for class came up to me and told me that supposedly St. Luke's sent out an email asking someone to be my CI and no one responded so he said he'd do it. The problem is, he doesn't work in the Maumee office (I could be wrong, but I think he works in Perrysburg, which is even farther). So he told me he would email me and that I should call St. Luke's to get everything figured out. Well, I called this morning and they said they would call me back. Of course, no one has called me back, so I really have no idea what's going on or where my clinical is even going to be. This could have been solved very easily by putting me at the Swanton office like I requested, but oh no..everything's got to be as complicated as possible. Awesome.

So until then, I am just going to enjoy the next week and a half of days off by relaxing and trying not to stress out too much. I probably will do some orthopedics review since I feel pretty intimidated by it all. I might even watch the Gary Gray lumbar spine dvd today if I get really bored. Or I might just take a break from physical therapy for today and watch some mindless TV.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Tomorrow is scholarly project presentations. It's "officially" the end of classes, since our class will be leaving campus for good tomorrow night. I have a feeling it will be bittersweet. I'm sad that we won't be sitting in class together anymore. It made me feel like I was in high school again, having a small class and knowing everyone in it. Now, it's over. I'm relieved that the busy-work and paper writing is over. I'm also relieved that I will never have to deal with a certain instructor ever again. I'm nervous, yet excited, about the upcoming clinicals and finding a job.

We had a meeting today to discuss everything that we would need to know about registering to take the boards and laws exams. It was a little frustrating that our program director is going to be out of town on the day that they want us to come back and discuss any changes that we want made to the program (although she has a good excuse for being gone). It is frustrating to know that none of my suggestions will be given to the person that they actually should be given to. And it's a little ironic that they suddenly decided not to do formal exit interviews this year. Supposedly we are going to be given some forms to fill out that we can write suggestions on, but I'm not holding my breath.

I spent the afternoon today meeting with my SP advisor to finally get my poster finished for tomorrow. Of course then the printer ran out of ink before we could print it. More ink is supposed to come tomorrow and I'm supposed to be able to pick up my poster right before the actual presentations. There's nothing like leaving everything until the very last possible minute. I hate procrastinating and I have not enjoyed being advised by someone who does. But....tomorrow it's over.

Other than school (and the lessons I have learned in the past 2 weeks about dealing with difficult people), I just learned a very valuable lesson about living in a small town. I really wish that yesterday's sermon at church had come a couple of weeks earlier so that I could have learned the lesson of "not gossiping." Now I'm paying for it. Basically, I overheard someone bad-mouthing one of my friends on Saturday and it made me pretty mad. So I told someone about how mad I was about it and that person told my friend. Now my friend is making a HUGE deal about it and getting me involved. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be disliked by many people now for it. Just when I thought that everyone in this town had finally stopped bad-mouthing ME, they're going to start again...all because I got angry over someone's gossip and then gossiped myself about it. So...the lesson to be learned here is to NOT repeat things that other people tell you, even if they are not true and they make you angry. Just keep them to yourself. I'm pretty sure I'll be paying for this one for quite some time. And just when I thought that I was going to have a nice long relaxing vacation....ugh....

PT classes = done!

Goodbye forever PT school / grad school classes!!!! Goodbye exams! Goodbye lectures! I should probably not be so excited about this, considering the fact that I now have to put on my big girl panties and join the real world of working (and for 7 long months, paying to do so). But the past two weeks of terror that has been reigned down on my PT class by a certain instructor, I can't help but be elated about the fact that classes are officially over for good! After my meeting on Monday and presenting my scholarly project on Tuesday night, I can say officially say goodbye to the Scott Park Campus and my increased risk of being shot/stabbed by having classes there.

I am not even thinking about my scholarly project at the moment. Yes, I am frustrated about it, but it's basically done, so who cares? It's time for me to get out there and do what I was put on this earth to do - help other people. I can't wait! Of course, it's not going to be easy and I'll still have to do some studying, but I'm finally putting my skills to use in the setting that I really want to work in someday! Although my next clinical is a super long commute (it's at St. Luke's outpatient/ortho in Maumee), I've been told by so many people that it's a great setting, that I'll learn so much, and that the people are awesome to work with. We had a guest speaker in class this semester who works there and he told me that I will never get put on the spot by being asked random anatomy questions or anything to make me feel stupid - which is a huge plus! I have to say that I am so excited to finally be doing a clinical in orthopedics!

The phrase, "no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks" has never meant more to me than it does right now. I can't help but point out the fact we only had 2 instructors this semester. One of them took the time today to tell us how much he appreciated having us as a class and what a delight to teach us as a class. The other just handed out her test and glared at all of us. It's a little disheartening to have been treated so poorly for the past few weeks by this certain person and to leave on a bad note with her, but on the positive side, by the time anyone I know might be interested in applying to PT school at this program, she will for sure have retired they won't have to be subjected to the treatment I (an my classmates) was subjected to. That's pretty much all I have to say about it for good...because, other than the presentations on Tuesday and graduation in May, I will never see her again.

I still can't believe all the work of 3 long years is coming to a close! What a huge relief! NO MORE CLASSES!

Being busy might not bring out the best in me.

Well, as most already know, today is my birthday...I am officially going to be 27 years old in about an hour. I wish I could say that I did something fun and exciting, but this morning I worked on a project, then I went to class, now I am home and feeling like I should be working on more projects. I did order a medium pizza all to myself and stopped at Circle K for some celebratory beverages, unfortunately, I probably won't drink them because I decided to try "Bud Light Golden Wheat," which would taste better if it actually tasted like golden wheat...instead of oranges. I do plan on watching the Packers vs. Vikings game tonight, but I am pretty torn on who I want to win. I like Brett Favre, but I can't help but root for the Packers since my brother and his family live so close to their stadium. In the end, I'll probably root for the Packers, just because they're the underdog.

In other news, I'm trying to decide if I am a "mean" person or not. I don't think that I am. I think that I've gotten a lot better actually, but recent events have got me thinking - Have I really become a nicer person? or am I just pretending? I really don't know the answer....With all of the school stress that has gotten me so worked up lately, I've still made a conscious effort to be nice to the instructor in question. I don't know if it's getting me anywhere, but I feel like it couldn't hurt to just suck it up and get all the schoolwork over with.

But what I'm really talking about is the whole "dating situation" that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. I had gone out on a date with a guy from a nearby town and had been over to his house once afterward to watch a football game, but the whole time, I was sitting there thinking, "I'm really just not that into this." I felt that this guy deserved a chance, because there is really truly nothing wrong with him. I'm just not that into him. I thought maybe if I went out on a couple of dates with him, I could force myself into being more excited about it, but I couldn't do it. Then....I got bombarded with all the schoolwork. I explained to him that I wasn't going to be able to see him for a couple of weeks. He said he understood (which was nice), but then he just kept texting me and basically asking me if I was sure I was busy. Well, the really impatient part of me came out and I finally told him today that I'm just not ready for a relationship and that I think it would be best if we stayed friends. I'm hoping that isn't mean, because I did make an effort to be very nice about it. But in all honesty, I was very suffocated in my last relationship, and even though it was a year ago, I just can not handle being with someone who wants to take up all my free time. I suppose that is pretty selfish, but right now, I just need to concentrate on finishing school and finding a job. I'd like to find a job around here, but who knows if I really will be able to? And how unfair would it be for me to start a relationship with someone only to find out that I am taking a job 200 miles away? So...you can call me "mean," but I broke it off.

And just to point out how "sure" I am that I'm busy, here's the rest of this week's schedule:

Tuesday: finish the final draft of my business plan in the am, class till 6:30, then work on my final project

Wednesday: work on my final project and study for a final exam...and my scholarly project poster is due this day also (which I still need to format)

Thursday: final exam then home to work on my final project

Friday: final project due by 5pm

Saturday: work at the Habitat for Humanity house 8am to 4pm, my cousin's b-day party at 5, and then I got signed up for a "competition" at Buckboard at 11pm

Sunday: I just found out that my brother, his fiance, and my nephew are coming home this weekend, so I will be spending all day Sunday with them!

Monday: meetings all day with our program director and my scholarly project advisor

Tuesday: scholarly project presentations and finally DONE!!!

just breathe.

I've pretty much lost all the motivation I had to get things done, after working all day yesterday on papers and projects. I am finished with all of the papers, my scholarly project final draft is done (well, I think it is...I'll explain later), my scholarly project poster is formatted and almost complete, and I am almost finished with one of the remaining projects. That list below had dwindled down to this:

• finish the business/marketing plan
• write up the final project for Advanced eval/interventions
• study for a trauma rehab exam
• edit my scholarly project poster

That still sounds like a lot to me, but it's much better than it was before, especially after the week I just endured. I can't even elaborate on it without getting all worked up, so I'll just leave it at the fact that....it was a horrible week.

In addition to all of the stress, I feel like my scholarly project advisor never wants to make time to go over my manuscript. It's technically not due until October 16, but our last day to be on campus is October 13 (the day we present the posters and platform presentations). I told him that I want to have the manuscript completed by October 12, so that I can enjoy the remainder of the week, without having to worry about finishing it up. Well, he just went over my first draft last Wednesday and told me that I "don't need to be in a hurry to make the changes." Well, guess what? I really felt that I needed to hurry because I want the final draft complete by Monday, October 12. And I told him that. So yesterday, I worked all day last Wednesday and half the day yesterday to get all the changes and improvements made and send it back to him. He responded to my email with - "Thanks...we'll communicate later." If I don't hear anything back from him until Monday October 12 when we have our final meeting, you can bet that I will not be making any more changes to this manuscript. It is DONE at that point. And by the way, I did not cure diabetes with my research. The conclusion is: "more research is needed." ha...who's surprised?

I guess that's about all that's new with me. I have had absolutely no social life this past week and probably won't have one this coming week. I found it ironic that our clinical coordinator told us in our meeting on Thursday that we needed to always "take time for ourselves," no matter how busy we feel. I suppose she never had a week as bad as the one we all did, because last night was the first night in a long time that I just layed around and watched TV for a couple hours to get away from all of the projects for a while. I'm contemplating taking the day off today as well to just relax and watch football, but I really hate the feeling of not doing something that I know eventually needs to get done. I suppose I can use the fact that all of my emails to a certain instructor were ignored yesterday to justify the fact that I will ignore her work today. hmm....

Positive attitude? Please come back!

Horrible Week...

What an emotionally exhausting and draining week...After being given the guidelines for a majority of the assignments in the previous post just 5 days ago (and please note the due dates), those who acted on behalf of the class to propose suggestions to ease the stress of the papers and projects (that were given extremely late) were called names of profanity by the instructor who gave the assignments. Luckily, I wasn't one of those who tried to advocate for my classmates, because I think I would have really blown a gasket if I had been called the B-word by one of my instructors. All I can say at this point is: I'm going to sit here and crank out all of the papers and projects, get my scholarly project done, and keep very specific documentation of everything that has happened with the instructor in question over the past week. When exit interviews are conducted in May, you can bet that I will be presenting all of the documentation to our program director and explaining to her that this past week alone was enough for me to tell anyone who is considering coming to our program for PT school to go somewhere else until this particular instructor retires. I feel that the entire UT DPT class of 2010 is owed an apology for what we endured this week (which includes a multitude of comments that I will not take the time to post) and I can only hope that no further classes that go through this program ever have to feel the same way as I feel at this very moment.

Schedule

I probably won't be able to post much for the next couple of weeks. Here's why:

• September 29: Short Essay Due
• September 30: Meet with my scholarly project advisor to finish up my project
• October 1: 2 hour clinical education meeting to go over things we already know
• October 5: my birthday (happy birthday to me *sigh* see below)
• October 6: Paper due
• October 7: Paper due
• October 8: Final exam and Business plan project due
• October 9: Advanced Eval project due and Paper due
• October 13: Scholarly project presentations
• October 14: 2 hour meeting

All of this is in addition to class and I just found out about 90% of it over the weekend. I can't even type one more sentence without going into a huge rant about it, so I think I'll stop here and go get to work on some of this before class.

Perspective

I'm currently procrastinating on writing the conclusion to my scholarly project. Although it's still a rough draft and won't be finished completely, it'll still be a relief to have it done. My goal was to get it done this morning before class, but I'm not sure I can make myself work that hard. I've been feeling pretty unmotivated this week, and that's really going to come back and bite me. There are only 2 more weeks of class after this and a lot of things to accomplish in that time. I know I can get it done, but I really have to get focused!

This weekend is the big Fayette Fall Fest, although it is supposed to rain that day :( I don't know if I'll even get to spend much time up there, other than to eat lunch and maybe walk around once. I probably will stop up at the softball tournament though. They're having a softball tournament that day for a boy (well, he's a teenager) in our town that has leukemia. It's a pretty sad situation, but this kid is amazing. He has kept good spirits the entire time since he was diagnosed. I know it's got to be difficult to have to miss school and make so many trips to the hospital. But he's kept a good attitude throughout it all. This situation really puts things into perspective. A lot of times, we complain about little things in our lives that really aren't that big of a deal, yet here is a 14 year old kid keeping a positive attitude throughout chemo treatments and trips in and out of the hospital. We are having a 24 hour prayer vigil for him at church this Saturday/Sunday. I signed up for 11:30pm. I highly recommend that anyone from around Fayette come whenever you can, even if it is just for 5 minutes. We want to have at least one person in the church for the whole 24 hour period. And trust me, if anyone would like to stay the night there, I am more than willing to stay too, just to make sure those 12am to 7am hours are covered!

With that being said, I have no complaints for this post. And the positive note for the day is - I am so blessed to live in such a loving community.

Monday Monday

It's gonna be a long week...Thank goodness I'm almost caught up on all the papers that are due. I hate leaving things for the last minute, even though I do my best work under pressure. I'd rather get all of this out of the way, so I can focus on finishing up this scholarly project that I've been avoiding. I think when it is complete, I will throw myself a huge celebration. Even if I am the only one celebrating, I will be so relieved.

My "date" Friday night went well. I had a good time, but I am really not looking for a relationship where I have to spend every single waking moment with someone else. And it seems like anyone I ever go out with wants that from me. I feel bad, because this makes me sound like a mean person and I have really been trying not to be mean and negative. I guess it just comes from growing up as an only child. I spent a lot of time by myself and I liked it that way. I like having "me time" to just sit around and watch tv by myself or be lazy by myself. I don't always need to have someone else around. It's not that I don't ever want a relationship, it's just that I'm perfectly happy with the way things are. That's why, when this guy asked me to come over again on Saturday, I had to say no thanks and explain to him that I don't want to rush right into anything. I think he took it pretty hard and that made me feel bad, but you know what? If you can't take it slow with me and respect the fact that I need some time to myself to do what I want to do with my day, then I guess it's just not meant to be. I am hanging out with him again on Thursday, so we will see what happens. I want to get to know him better, but not by spending every single second of all of my free time with him. I guess that makes me sound pretty selfish...but it will never work if I get suffocated.

Today will be a long day. I'm driving to Toledo for class, then to Montpelier to the eye doctor, and then finally home. There's nothing like spending $20 on gas in one day. I have a feeling the eye doctor is going to tell me that I need glasses for driving at night...which won't make me very happy since my insurance plan didn't offer vision insurance. Let's keep our fingers crossed that these eyes are working just fine. Let's also keep our fingers crossed that my eye doctor never retires. I will probably cry if/when he does. Seriously.

"Attitudes count more than achievements"

This is my new motto. I read it in a book this week, and I really like it. What good is being a DPT and CSCS if you have a bad attitude about it? The whole point of pursuing this career was to help other people. Why wouldn't I want to get the best I can out of my education so that I can do the best I can with that knowledge when I start working? Three big clinicals are coming up and it will be time for me to "show my stuff" by putting my knowledge to work. If I really want to help people, I need to have a good attitude about it. I really feel like God put me on this earth to help others and from now on, I'm going to try my hardest to always have a good attitude about it.

As far as school goes, it's pretty hectic right now. There are approximately 3 weeks until I am done with classes forever (excluding continuing ed courses). That is a good feeling. It won't be long until I'm sending out resumes and scheduling Boards.

In other news, I have a date tonight with a guy from W.U. I've known him for a long time, just kind of lost touch for the past few years. It should be fun. We're supposed to be going to the Williams County fair. Although, I would just like to point out that one date does not make a relationship and I have certainly not been searching for a relationship, so we'll see how it goes!

Is there a limit to the number of TB skin tests a person can get?

Well, I guess I really got what I asked for when I wrote that post about needing more patience. The guest speaker didn't show up for class yesterday at 2, so class was "cancelled" after we had all shown up for it, and we didn't have another class until 4:30. I could have whined and been annoyed about this (on the inside I was) but instead, I took the opportunity to sit down in the "LRC" (yes, we have an LRC at Scott Park campus - just like the old Fayette High School! ha) and add 4 more pages to my 8-9 page paper that is due next week. So I am making progress in my goal to become a more patient person.

And speaking of papers, I have three to get done by the weekend. Awesome. Not only that, but my email inbox has been bombarded with other busy work to get done by October: schedule a CPR renewal, get another physical done and TB skin test for my health form (which I just did in April), etc. Luckily, my SP is almost done, otherwise I would really be stressed out right now.

In other news, I got called for jury duty yesterday. Luckily, it was just for Fulton county and there is some form included that I can fill out stating that I can't serve because I am a full-time student. Sadly, I would almost rather serve on jury duty than sit in class for 4 more weeks, but I have to fill out the form because I have been called for September - December and that conflicts with clinicals :(

Positive note for yesterday: The Biggest Loser started up again!

Countdown to Scholarly Project completion

If I learned anything at all today, it is that I seriously need more patience. Although I have gotten better, I have a long way to go. I had a frustrating morning driving all over Toledo from campus to campus all to get some papers signed for my clinical. After all that fun, I had a meeting with my SP advisor and then class from 2-4. Although we lucked out today and only had class until 4, it was still pretty frustrating to sit there until 4:15 as the guest speaker went over. In the grand scheme of things, 15 minutes is not that big of a deal (and I keep trying to tell myself this), but I couldn't help but be frustrated. I really need to grow out of this ASAP, because I am 100% certain that working in health care means that you don't leave work on time very often.

On the plus side, I don't meet with my SP advisor again until October 1st! Apparently, I either really impressed him with the amount of work I've gotten done so far or he just doesn't care about my project anymore since it didn't get accepted for the OPTA conference. Either way, we both agreed today that I'm almost done with it! yay! I can't wait until that project is completed.

On the downside, I have three papers to write this week...and a looming "PT business plan" to get done by the end of the semester (three weeks from now). No more being lazy, it's time to get to work! My goal is to really crank out the papers this week so that I can enjoy my weekend and then focus on finishing my SP next week. We'll see if I really accomplish that goal or not. All I got done tonight was setting up the format for each paper and saving the files. And now that football is on, that's all I will get accomplished tonight. My goal is to have a very productive Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!

Keeping with the theme I started last week - Today's positive note was: although there were 70 cattle loose on US20 today, I did not hit any of them!

Gleaned vs. Gleamed

Well, I can't even make myself work on my scholarly project anymore. I got my chart done and got EndNote installed. That's all the work I can manage to do in two weeks time. I don't even know how to use EndNote in combination with Word (which my paper is in), so I guess I'll just stop here until someone shows me how to do it.

The trauma rehab observation went well yesterday morning. I thought it would be a lot more "traumatic" than it really was. I did realize that I could never work there though. I was lost in about 5 minutes of walking around and the parking garage was pretty annoying. Usually you can exit without having to go around and around every single floor, but not this one. You have to wind around and around and around through every floor and through construction on every floor until you can exit. I was only on the 3rd floor, but by the time I got out, I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

Other than school, my plans for this weekend are to watch a lot of football. My plans should include writing an 8-9 page paper for advanced exam/eval, but that won't happen. I really don't see how I can outline treatment plans for patients who don't even have a weight-bearing status. Plus, I don't really feel like gleaming and gleaning (two of Dr. H's words of choice for how we should write this paper). So...I'm pretty sure I'll end up ignoring the paper for the weekend just relaxing yet again.

I'd like to put the "End" in EndNote

I STRONGLY dislike the EndNote software. Although I must say, I am very grateful to my friend, Amber, for letting me borrow the disk to install it for Mac. UT is amazingly ignorant and thinks that every student has a PC. They like to brag about how "convenient" they've made the download and installation of EndNote for their students by making it a link on the myUT website, but really, it's not "convenience" at all for those of us who have a Mac.

Even so, I am getting pretty frustrated with trying to make EndNote add the "et al." into my citations. Ugh. I know it will automatically put this in for APA format if you just add ALL the authors names, but since I typed up my own bibliography, I don't KNOW all the authors names. I only know 3 of the authors and then "et al.," which you should be able to manually add, but I can't seem to figure out how. Nice.

I did manage to find a bright side to yesterday and today, despite the frustration over scholarly project.

Yesterday: My CI from Bryan hospital agreed to be one of my references for my resume next year!

Today: My official certificate came today stating that I am a CSCS. I can officially put those letters behind my name and start designing workout programs! yay!

Countdown to May...or maybe just October 13

Well, I probably won't get too many updates in this week. It's going to be a hectic one. Although, it was nice to have the day off today. I had a great weekend with my nephew and the rest of my brother's family. It was so good to see them and meet baby Wyatt. He is an adorable baby!

Now it's back to the real world, or as real as it gets in PT grad school I guess. I have a lot of work to accomplish on my scholarly project, a trauma rehab observation at Toledo Hospital at 8:30 am Thursday morning followed by a 4 hour break and then class till 6:30 pm, and (unfortunately) I see that we're doing a lot of group work this week in class...sigh. It's going to take a lot of caffeine to keep me motivated. I think I need a countdown of the number of days left until my scholarly project is due. Maybe that will give me a kick in the behind to get it finished.

There is nothing much else new with me at all. I feel like I've been pretty anti-social lately. It all started with the major study marathon for the CSCS exam, but now I can't decide if I'm just being lazy or if my idea of "fun" has changed over the past month or two. Maybe it's a little bit of both. I think trying to save money has a little something to do with it also. Either way, I've been perfectly happy just sitting at home watching tv on Friday and Saturday nights. This is either a pathetic or wise decision...haha.

However, I have decided that from now on, I will find something positive about each day, even if that day has been rough. Today's positive note has to do with the fact that I found an "error" in my registration at UT last week. We are supposed to do our own registration, but our faculty decided to change it at the last minute and add a class and drop a class. They did this as a "batch registration" for us. Well, come to find out, I was never de-registered from the class that I was supposed to be de-registered from. Since we're considered full time status anyway, I didn't think it would make much difference in the amount I paid for my tuition, but I sent an email about it just in case. You never know, sometimes those classes cost $400+! Well, the error was resolved and I received my refund check in the mail this weekend. I opened it today and it was a whopping $5! But hey, it was $5 that I didn't have before. With that $5, I can get a $5 footlong, a 6-pack of 24 oz. pepsi bottles at the grocery store, or two new ringtones for my cell phone.

The cutest baby ever has come to NW Ohio

Since I am being extremely lazy and non-productive this morning, I might as well update everyone on the events of the weekend. My brother and his family are here! I got to meet my nephew, who is by far the cutest baby ever! He is getting baptized this afternoon. I will be sad to see them leave tomorrow. They actually got here a bit early on Thursday so I got to spend some time with them that evening, and yesterday we got to spend time with a lot of family all together. It was nice.

Although, yesterday was somewhat of a stressful day for me. I spent 2 hours on the phone with the customer service people at Schwinn fitness about my exercise bike. Ugh. On Thursday, they told me that it was all taken care of and they were going to ship me the parts that I needed (two parts were distorted and the seat wouldn't lock). Yesterday, they called back and said they couldn't replace them and I had to ship the whole bike back - AFTER telling me to dispose of the distorted parts (which I did). So, obviously, I couldn't ship the whole bike back if I don't have all the parts and since THEY told me to dispose of those parts, it is THEIR fault. Ugh...So frustrating! I tried to be nice but the guy I was talking to was so mean and rude. For example, he asked me to take pictures of the distorted parts.....UMMMM....how do you take pictures of parts you have disposed of??? Needless to say, I was pretty stressed. They are supposed to let me know in 7-10 business days if they can ship me a new bike or not. Apparently, they can not ship the individual parts, THEY HAVE to ship a whole bike at a time. Who knows why...It makes no sense. If they can't ship me a bike, I am out $250. Nice.

But, for now, I refuse to focus on that. Today is going to be a GOOD day. My nephew gets baptized and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a good day for Michigan football too! GO BLUE! Other good things about the day: I get to eat at The Barn (it's a restaurant - I'm not that hillbilly) and my mom ordered a cake from Kristie's and it's NOT chocolate! Yay! (FYI - I don't like chocolate cake, lol).

I'll post a few pictures later!