Valhalla

Tuesday

I'm upside down in this week.  Tomorrow is Independence Day, so I have the day off, thankfully. The rest of the week is filled with school work.

I've got a handful of seminars to attend this week, four days worth, two of which are done. Monday we had a talk from a group of women who work for Indian Health Services that made me think that I should go and work for Indian Health Services. And then we had a talk from the director of one of the emergency departments that made me think that I should go work in the ED. Today our speakers were a director of public health (I'm not particularly interested in working in public health, although I know it's important) and a woman who specializes in wound care at the local VA hospital (that was the one that interested me the most).

Our group meets in a tiny, hot, stuffy room. It's torturous by the time the outside temperature starts to climb up into the 90s. Today I cradled a bottle of cold water trying to keep cool.

I've got a sinus infection and so I've been running a temperature, which doesn't help. The cold that David brought back from NYC seemed like it was healing up and then today seemed like it rallied and returned with some new symptoms. We're both under stress, which is making things worse.

And speaking of stress: Gray Kitty had surgery today to remove a rather large stone from his bladder. He was fine and came home and ate more than the vet said we should let him eat. It'll be torture to keep him inside for the two weeks we're supposed to keep him inside.

It's been a year, almost to the day, since Saba died. Gray Kitty having surgery right now was tough because it brought back all the reminders of our little warrior kitty who fought so valiantly and who we still miss so fiercely.

Wednesday

A lazy day, spent mostly in bed. I couldn't sleep last night for anything, so I just stayed up and watched episodes of The Sopranos and Frasier and youtube videos. I also did a bit of reading from a textbook recommended by the person I'll be shadowing in the ED starting next week.

I got up with Dave around 7:30 this morning (he had to get up to give Gray Kitty his pain meds) and then returned to bed and slept for awhile. The next time I got up was to make lunch (chickpea pasta with cherry tomato sauce, served with the leftover guacamole). It was good and filling and then I went back to bed.

I mentioned that I have a sinus infection. One of the symptoms is a constant bad smell, like acrid smoke in my nose. I've had it happen once before and it took days to go away. So that's fun. When it gets overwhelming, I put some menthol rub on a tissue and drape it over my nose and mouth. The menthol cuts through the smoke smell or at least drowns it out for awhile.

Dave and I are planning on a Target sometime today. His birthday is Friday and I'm going to make him some t-shirts. (Not sew them, but either add iron-on or painted motifs to them.) I've been doing that for the last couple of decades, on and off.