Easter and CHEMO

Yay, I finally have five minutes to update my blog! OMG.

Easter weekend was super nice--I got out of class at noon last Wednesday and I got right on the highway back to the great Mountain that is Mt. Morris. My whole family was back in the house again (this only happens about three times a year now) so it was crazy! As usual, I got to eat lots of yummy Mommy-things and spend some quality time with the siblings and parents. Since Christmas, my Dad, Mom, and sister Kristen have all had their birthdays (actually, Mom's is tomorrow but close enough) so I had lots of gift-giving to do as well, and I love that stuff. :)

I performed embarrassingly bad in Mariokart. D: I know! My sister is gaining skill and now I pretty much get raped for the win by her triple red shells (damn you Koopa!), which leaves the finish line wide open for Chris (who matches me in skill). In fact, in one marathon I lost as many times as I won, which is unheard of. *ASHAMED* It was still a blast though, and I wish I got to play with them more often. Kristen had also purchased several seasons of Knight Rider, one of my most favorite shows growing up! It's so futuristic, so Hoff, so ..... eighties!! Seriously, it was so bad it was good! And K.I.T.T. is still the hottest thing on four wheels. ;)

I came back home Sunday evening and I was not excited even in the most microscopic way to return to class and studying.

I broke Benzie's fishbowl on Sunday night, which is a horrible thing because it hangs from a special "lamp" and looks awesome. So now I have the lamp and... no fishbowl. He's in my water purifier pitcher now, being his usual angry self. Ha, at least now he has something to be pissy about. ;)

Oh, and just because I haven't complained enough about Chemo, here we go. Chemo is killing me. Seriously. It's making me hate school. I bitch and moan a lot about all the studying and crap I have to do, but the bottom line has always been that I've enjoyed pharmacy school, and I feel very fortunate to be in such a program. Until now. Now I want to yell and scream at the Dean and threaten to not give any money back as an alumni simply because of CHEMO. OMG. I've been a very hard working student my whole life, and I know that I'm meant to be challenged along the way. But when someone as dedicated as me is working this hard just to pass, I think that speaks more of the professor's unreasonable expectations than it does of my intelligence. Yesterday, on top of all the notes I take four days a week, extra readings on five separate websites, and another four chapters from the textbook, Dr. Krueger casually mentions an additional 120 pages from our course pack to be covered on the next exam. I was so immediately overwhelmed that I didn't even know how to get upset about it. I just sat there numbly in my seat, wanting to strangle myself quickly.

Oh geez. That's one big paragraph of bitching. *FEELS HORRIBLE* Sorry, my wonderful readers, I love you for this.

"Back" to School

Well Spring Break is over and I'm back at school.... but not really because I only have one hour of class tomorrow and then I have a four day weekend. :D Sweeeeeeet. So I'm going back home for Easter to destroy my siblings in Mariokart, hang out with the family and eat my parents' food, and in general act like pharmacy school isn't eating my soul. Which, by the way, it is.

Chemo was even more terrible than usual today. We've learned about fifty new drugs for this upcoming exam, and today he tells us there are 32 anti-HIV agents he still wants to get through, followed by vaccinations. Add that on top of another 150 pages to read from the text, and four different websites with multiple tables/charts/summaries to read on my own and it all makes me want to DIE!!! I wish that was a joke, seriously.

Today in Pharmacology we talked about Dr. Potter's erectile dysfunction, and that was delightful. Not.

I got the invites for my White Coat Ceremony, and homan, I can't wait for that.

My weekend with Mike was pretty awesome! We went to a spaghetti dinner fund raiser at his school, watched ridiculous amounts of LOST, and went shopping. He even drove all the way to Traverse City to buy me tulips. *fuzzy feelings*

I promise you, my faithful Blog Readers, that if I survive this Chemo bullshit, I will smother you all with happy, positive blog posts!!! :D

I'm Bloggin' That

Mike: I think I might wear these jeans again tomorrow.
Me: Okay.
Mike: They're not that dirty... and they make my cock look big.

Um, cold?

Yeah... so last night Jim-bo turned the heat down to 60 degrees, which meant it was about 55 in the basement. This would explain the more than usual amount of shivering I did while sleeping, and my state of complete anger all morning over being forced into such unethical conditions.

.....

The only people I want to live with from now on will come from the following three categories:

• family
• husband
• people I give birth to

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Spring Breakin' It

Oh man, I guess it's been a while. *sheepish*

I lived through eight weeks of class to make it to Spring Break, and boy was I happy when I got out of class last Friday! At that point I had gone through five exams in two weeks, and I was SO ready for a break from the books. I drove up to Mike's to spend the weekend, and I had a great time mall-shopping, eating a fancy dinner, and watching lots of LOST of course! I also visited him at his school on Monday to bring him lunch, and I did some homework while he was at work.

Tuesday morning I drove back down to Big Rapids to drop off a program Mike was giving Branden, and then I drove alllll the way down to Kalamazoo!! It was a blast--I miss that city so much! I finally signed my lease for my new apartment next year, and I got to see the one I'm actually living in, which was nice. I can't wait to move in! I'm living right next to the bus stop, so I can take the bus to school and save myself $300 by not buying a parking pass! :D I also have the laundry room this time inside my building, so I don't have to brave the weather to wash my clothes--yay!

After the lease-signing I went to Sindecuse Health Center Pharmacy--the first pharmacy I ever worked at back when I was in pre-Pharm at WMU! My old co-workers were really happy to see me, and I stayed and chatted with them for over a half an hour. It was great to see everyone again. :)

For the remainder of the evening I was with the spectacular Shruti! We went out for some Mexican food (where Shruti actually spoke Spanish with our waiter), hit the mall for some shopping, and then went to Mongolian BBQ for ice cream! I got to hang out with her for several hours and it was great fun--I miss that girl a whole lot. She's got two more interviews with med schools (one in Chicago, and the other MSU!) so everyone keep their fingers crossed that she'll be a med student in a few months! I had to leave around 10 o'clock to come back to Big Rapids, and I was very sad to say goodbye. :(

Since yesterday I've just been doing a lot of laundry and a LOT of homework! By the time the next chemo exam comes around, I will have read 500 pages of my 580 page textbook! OMG! Shoot me. But it's really nice to just not go to class and have more crap piled on everyday.

Tonight I'm going back to Mike's for the weekend! I'm SO EXCITED!! :D :D What a great way to end my break. :) After that I have three days of class, and then a four day weekend for Easter!! I'll be back home for that, and I'm really excited to see my family (and eat candy candy candy).

Well, I better get busy not going to school again. ;)

The Epic Tuesday

I sucked at pretty much everything today.

When my alarm went off at 6 am, instead of hitting the usual snooze, I decided (in my blinky, sleepy stupor) to just turn it off instead. I woke up almost an hour and a half later, at 7:20, and realized immediately that I had ten minutes to get my little car out of the garage and on the road to make it in time for lab at 8. O_O And it was Tuesday morning traffic, which meant I spent most of the ride cursing at slow people who work for a living and go the speed limit even if they're late.

*shakes fist*

We have to dress pretty and stuff for lab day, so needless to say I wasn't as "polished" as usual. I pretty much looked like I rolled out of bed and came to lab, like some pajama-pants wearing freshmen or something. But my outfit looked awesome! :D

I made it just in time. Just in time to perform my solo lab assignment, which is worth quite a bit and is a point we've been working towards in lab for the past four weeks. I was given a prescription with multiple drugs on it and I had to collect and organize all my patient counseling information, check for drug/allergy/disease state interactions, speak with the doctor, the patient, and fill out a counseling form/dispensing form/label for each drug. The last four weeks we've been doing this in pairs, so it's been easy to catch everything (because there's always some sort of major conflict) and make sure we don't kill the patient, but doing it alone meant I had to rely only on myself to be as thorough as possible and make sure everything left the pharmacy A-ok. So, I guess in summary, me missing this lab due to sleeping past my alarm would've been unacceptable and punishable by public flogging.

I got out of lab by 10:30, and I had a Clinical Passport meeting at noon. I hadn't showered, didn't have my other books or my lunch, so I booked it back to my house, took the fastest shower in recorded history (and I even had time to do my hair! :D) and then booked it back to campus to make it in time for the meeting. But of course I get in my car and my gas gauge is on... empty. Not just empty, but epically empty. So empty that I'm sure I coasted into that station on fumes, but I did make it. And I made it to the meeting on time.

Clinical Passport informed me I need another TB test done, by Friday, OMG! And I have to complete another Blood Born Pathogen and HIPAA training online (again) by March 15th. During Spring Break! Oh, and I have to pay $34 for a criminal background check, just so they can find out I haven't broken the law. -_-

After that I had Chemo, and well... you can guess how that was. It was mostly, "Blah blah TEXT blah TEXT TEXT READ THIS IN YOUR TEXT blah blah." Something about anti-fungals and Amphotericin B being really renal toxic (shocker), blah blah, "I haven't finished grading your exams yet but I'm sure you all FAILED MISERABLY!!" And then we wrapped it up with inhibiting ergosterol synthesis. It was a great time, and I wanted to die afterwards, as usual.

Oh, and my left eyelid is all puffy and sore because I stabbed myself with my finger last night! I don't know why. I DON'T KNOW WHY!!!!

Back to the Surface

Mike: Sweetie, this plant is dead.
Me: Yeah... must've been the vodka.
_________________________

I guess I could complain about the usual brutal treatment of pharmacy school, and how I have no life, no time to blog, and I want to throw myself off a building occasionally, but I'm four more school days and one last exam away from Spring Break, so I guess I can stifle the whines. Don't thank me, it's nothing.

Aside from studying every subject nearly nonstop for the last three weeks, I've also recently become somewhat obsessed with that series LOST which I think must be in its fourth season right now. I don't have cable so I can't watch it, but Mike has the first three seasons and we're currently about halfway through the second. A ton of people I know love this show too, but I've always been kind of angst about it, you know, the "everybody loves it so I refuse to even give it a chance" sort of attitude. Anyway, Mike watched it on his own for a while and then got me hooked too. Now every weekend consists of studying during the day and watching hours of LOST at night! So, I guess I've joined the sheep-like herd of LOST fans. Oooooooook.

I chipped my tooth this weekend. Throughout my whole life I kind of thought I had decent teeth. They're pretty white, have never given me any sort of pain, they don't wiggle and they aren't sticking out in weird directions (though they are VERY small....), and I haven't had any cavities so far. And then my tooth chips on I don't even know what, and now I'm afraid my teeth will start literally falling out of my mouth. O_O

Jim-bo is starting to get to me. It's so friggin' cold down here, it just makes me mad. And what bugs me worst of all is that he knows I'm cold and seems unconcerned about it. I've taken to keeping my bedroom door shut with the space-heater on, only surfacing to shower, work out, and eat. I'm like... a hermit or something. Or a small, furry little spider that bites in the night. >:-D

Spring Break is coming up next week, so I'm going to visit Mike a whole lot, see Shruti down in Kzoo and hopefully sign a new lease, and, also hopefully, interview with Kroger again for my summer internship. After that it's Easter break with the family, and after that... it's friggin' April! That's almost the end of school!

:D :D :D