Another Week

It's early. The dogs are outside barking at hot air balloons. It must be October.

Today I have a lot of homework to do, then I have to study for two exams I have this week.

This past week: Meh.

Tuesday, our hot water heater was replaced. Dave stayed home to deal with the plumber while I went to class.  Wednesday, I just wasn't feeling it, so I stayed home from class.

Thursday and Friday were clinical days. I don't like the facility any better than I did last week, but I did like most of the people I worked with. That already makes it a better week.

However, as per usual during clinical days, I did not get enough sleep. Wednesday night, I managed to sleep about four hours before having to get up at 4 a.m. to be at the clinical site at 6:15. Thursday night, I got about three and a half hours of sleep before arriving, zombie-like, at the clinical site for a long, on my feet, work day. Seven and a half hours of sleep every 48 hours is not enough. I was so exhausted on Friday morning that I was dreading the pre-dawn soporific, half-hour drive to the clinical site. I played loud music and blasted the AC in the car despite the cold, just to keep myself awake on the drive. When I got to the hospital, I was so tired that I set the alarm on my phone and tried, unsuccessfully, to take a 15 minute nap before I went in. From then it was a matter of trying to slam enough caffeine to start my day. (Once the day gets rolling I barely have enough time to slam a cup of water every three or so hours and certainly no time for coffee--or even to go to the bathroom, really, which I can sometimes manage once a shift, if I'm lucky.)

Adding to all that, Dave and I are running in different directions right now,  split between our own casita and two places where we are house- and dog-sitting. We are responsible for three houses, three dogs, a cat, and, to add to it, on Thursday night, Dave's elderly mother got sick, so then he had to assume responsibility for her and her house--she lives half an hour from us--and her dog and her two horses. Dave's mother is already a fall risk because she has Parkinson's disease so she is slow and unsteady on her feet and she fell recently and injured her knee and she has an infection that is making her confused and she lives alone and she has refused to get any kind of help or home health care and she has no one to call on to take care of her animals in the event of an emergency. Yes, the whole situation pisses me off. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, Dave's mother is entirely Dave's responsibility--along with her dog and horses--because she and I don't get along and I haven't spoken to her in well over a decade and I have no intention of changing that situation no matter how sick she gets. She definitely has the means to take care of all this and to make arrangements for someone to take care of what she can't or doesn't want to, but I think she's expecting that Dave will just drop everything and take care of her when she needs it. Which. Don't get me started. It's not my business anymore.

Me? I feel stretched thin with my own responsibilities right now between clinicals and school. It's better this morning since I got a decent amount--eight hours!--of sleep last night and I am spending the morning having a lie-in rather than working on some homework that is due this evening. (I tried to get back to sleep after feeding everyone, but the dogs fueled up on breakfast and then went outside to expend all their newly acquired energy on barking at hot air balloons outside the bedroom window.) No matter. I'm still staying in bed for another couple of hours before I get up and shower and start working. I've definitely got to be out of bed by noon....