Celebration!

Yesterday I had to break out the bottle to celebrate! After a long 15 months, I finally completed my Certificate of Christian Counseling program. I haven't received official results from my final test, but I have "attended" all the classes and taken all the tests. It is finished! It was a 30 hour program that I worked on sporadically for the past 15 months. I have two specialty areas, 30 hours each, that I hope to work on over the next few months. I'm hoping these next two rounds won't take as long to complete. I've found a creative way to complete my classes that is working very well for me. Let's just say understanding the fast New York conversations growing up is coming in handy these days.

**A little side bar about my bottle...first notice the pink wrap on the top...I supported Breast Cancer Research when I bought this...second you all know I don't drink so this is what I really have in my refrigerator waiting to be opened and downed:



My favorite part is that the young guy at the grocery store actually put this in a brown paper bag. What would the church folk say with me carrying around a bottle in a brown bag!?!?! It makes me laugh!

Long Road for a Slow Recovery

On Veteran's Day, I headed into the surgeon's office to get a lump removed from the back of my shoulder...

A little background...It had been there for awhile and got infected over the summer. It would hurt some when I swung too hard at volleyball or when my stressed neck muscles pulled on it. I visited my not usual doctor over the summer to deal with the infection...$20 for the visit and $50 for the medicine. He said that they should be able to remove it at the Medical Arts Clinic (where my usual doctor is). Went in for a bout of bronchitis and I asked about getting it removed. I was told that my usual doctor had to look at it before he attempted to take it out. Knowing my insane schedule I set up two appointments - one to have him look at it and another to have it removed. I went to the first appointment to have it looked at...chalk up another $20 for a two minute visit to be told that my doctor didn't want to do it. There was scar tissue involved and some other excuse to refer me to the surgeon's office. Then I had to attempt to find time again in my schedule to have this procedure done.

Back to my original thought...Veteran's Day...1:30 in the afternoon. Mom has taken off work to go with me because we're not sure how extensive the procedure is going to be. I have heard practically nothing from this office throughout the process. $40 co-pay on Tuesday. 20 minutes in the waiting room...45 minutes in the exam room...surgeon comes in and says "Yeah, that needs to come out. This is where we make an appointment for some day so we can take it out." I'm starting to BOIL!!! I wanted to say "Well duh it needs to come out. I didn't just pay money for you to tell me the same thing that three other doctors have told me. That's why they referred me to you!" What I actually said is "I was led to believe it was going to be done today." He tells me that he's too busy to do it today...he's just come in and is already behind (well what were you doing all morning doc?). I sit there and tell him that Wednesday is the only day I have available to get this taken care of. I continue to push this point until he agrees to see me first thing the next morning. Mom could tell when I was checking out that something was not right - could've been the steam coming out of my ears!

We returned the next morning for the actual procedure. I took the day off from school. The entire procedure took a total of twenty minutes. They numbed me, cut me, dug out some stuff and stitched me back up. I could've had the procedure three times in the amount of time I spent waiting on Tuesday. Then they charged me again...another $40...for the second visit...for now at least until my insurance company begins to question why I had so many visits. I got four stitches and a sore shoulder/neck for a few days. Nothing sleep and ibuprofen couldn't help.

Being me, I returned to school the next day. We had a volleyball game and I didn't want to miss that. My assistant coach abandoned me and I had to take the girls by myself. I survived through school. In volleyball practice on Monday, I managed to pop out two stitches (one for each serve I did). I lost another half stitch at some other point last week. I was hoping the rest would fall out so I wouldn't have to go back to the surgeon's office to get them removed.

My wish wasn't granted. I headed back to the surgeon's office on Friday. The surgeon told me after the procedure to just stop in when I could and someone would take the stitches out. The receptionist (who must've had a tough Friday) looked at me like I had a three heads. I needed an appointment for something like this. Again, I'm persuading someone in this office that it needs to get done NOW! They eventually decide to squeeze me into the schedule (with no one in the waiting room it shouldn't have been that hard - it's only 1 and 1/2 stitches!). I wait for 10-15 minutes and get a clinician to see me (not the surgeon). It takes her longer to walk me back to the exam room than it does to pop out the stitches. Made me wish I had friends in the medical field who could've done that for me! She put some strips on the wound to hold everything together for about another week. I was given instructions to take it easy for another week or so. Fortunately, I wasn't charged to talk to this lady! Maybe I should've talked to her first.

Needless to say the medical world is trying to milk me for all the money they can get out of me. I've taken more ibuprofen for the headaches they gave me than for the ache in my shoulder! Thanks for letting me rant and rave for a few minutes. I'll try to get on later in the week to share some more positive things. I'm going to have company throughout the Thanksgiving break so that should be interesting to have a roomie for a few days. I can't wait to eat Thanksgiving dinner! The Macy's Parade! Looking at the sales paper and laughing at any thought of getting up early to shop! Hopefully getting Christmas decorations out and up around the house! Good things coming this week! Mostly I'm thankful to be AWAY FROM SCHOOL AND VOLLEYBALL!

Only Tuesday

Now if this was Dad's hospital staff I would've taken another day off to sit with Mom in the waiting room!

The grandparents and Aunt D came into town last Wednesday. They just left this morning. The reason they came into town was because of Dad's inability to simply have his gallbladder out and not make things complicated. They found some swollen lymphnodes and the surgeon did a bibopsy (as they call them on My Big, Fat Greek Wedding) early Monday morning. They did determine before they sent them away to be fully analyzed that it is NOT cancer. There are many diseases on that side of the family that shows itself through swollen lymphnodes, so we were all holding our breath on this one. Dad is wiped out. He's got all kinds of holes in his chest and stomach area from either of the two procedures. Pray for him if you think about it!

Volleyball is okay. I cut the team on Friday. We went to our scrimmage yesterday. We did better than I expected which is a major plus. I got to see some things that we definitely need to be working on in practice this week. This is going to be the team that practices really well but struggles to translate that onto the floor during a match. Today it was a totally different team on the floor than what I saw last night. Boy are they out of shape too! We've got conditioning to do. They're not overweight kids, just totally not in volleyball shape. Our first real game is Monday at home against our arch-rival (in my opinion) North Lincoln. We'll be ready, even though we won't be able to practice on Friday because of the STUPID school dance!

Finally, I'm avoiding my TV for tonight. I did my civic duty a few weeks ago. I was actually returning some library books. My library doubles as an early voting place once a year. There were no lines so I went ahead and voted. I wish because of that I could've been removed from the campaign calls. Every day for the last two weeks I've come home to see my answering machine blinking at me. I get excited because I think someone has called to say hello or wants to go do something this weekend. It was like when I used to get excited about missed phone calls on the cell phone only to not have the person leave a message. Sigh...no more messages until next election time! I do look forward to NO MORE POLITICAL ADS! Whomever wins, I know God is in control and hopefully our future President will seek Him for guidance.

PS - April is in Africa for three weeks on a medical mission trip. She's in Nairobi, Kenya. Joe and Kali are lost without her! Pray for her and her team as they attempt to make records on all the little kids in the area. She says she might bring one home...that's a whole 'nother discussion around the Procita's dinner table last week. I do love it when family is in town!

In case you needed a visual aid to see where Ape is working. I needed to look it up. I want to go to "Ug" some day!