Fridazed

Friday was a long day.

In the morning I had to attend an orientation for part of the program I'm going into. It was held by the officious sounding Office of Compliance, which basically handles all the paperwork for the things that I'll need to do clinicals (background checks, immunizations, drug tests, CPR and other certifications, and on and on). I have about a month to get all that stuff in line. Sigh.

That was this morning. I had a few hours to kill after that, so I walked over to the library and had a decaf latte and did some reading. I ate lunch (a sandwich I had packed for myself in the morning), then I had to go to class.

As part of the effort to become more compliant, I took a class that in one fell swoop netted me several certifications and my CPR card. Most of the work was online, but there was one four hour class that served as a practical for the CPR part. I've had CPR training, three or four times starting when I was an eleven- or twelve-year-old Girl Scout, but the last time was when I was in my late 20s. The new training is interesting. Gone is the part where you perform any kind of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Instead, we practiced with pocket masks and what the AHA calls "gas bag masks." We practiced one and two person CPR, with and without automated external defibrillators, on adult and infant manikins. Then we took tests for our certification. It was interesting and kind of nerve-wracking.

When class let out, I texted Dave to come and pick me up and then went and stood inside a random building to escape the freezing cold wind. Brrr.

After he picked me up, we drove across town to the compounding pharmacy that makes Saba's anti-fungal medication. She will be on it for a long, long time (fungal infections are particularly tough to cure) and we're already on our second bottle. Then we came home, fed her and gave her her medication (the feeding tube makes it a bit easier). She is doing better slowly, slowly. On Thursday, the ophthalmologist checked her eyes--they're improving, but the stitches have to stay in another two weeks. But she is sitting up more, gaining a bit of weight and regaining some strength in her legs. She is also starting to get some of her old sassiness back. She doesn't just lie there, limp, looking like she feels miserable every second. But there is still a long road ahead of us. I'll be so glad when we're through it.

But we weren't done with the day. We had to go to two more pharmacies for two more prescriptions--one for Dave, one for my brother. Then we stopped by my brother's place.

Finally it was time to come home and have dinner--vegetarian chili dogs--and I collapsed for a couple of hours until it was time to help change the bandage around Saba's feeding tube. (It takes two of us since she is in an E collar to prevent her from pawing at the stitches in her eyelids and one of us has to hold her while the collar is off.) That's always fun, but we're all getting used to the routine.

I'm exhausted now, but in that way that makes it impossible to sleep. It's just one of those things. I could make it worse by going on Twitter and seeing what fresh new hell our "president-elect" is visiting upon us today, but I probably shouldn't. Maybe I'll try to find a movie or something to watch on Netflix instead.