On my first day off I took a look at the study guide for the math test I was supposed to take today and realized I wasn't ready to take it, so I postponed it till next Thursday. I spent a few hours on the diagnostics and realized I really need to review and study. I haven't had geometry in over 30 years! That's a long time. At the same time, I realized the study guide is just that, a guide, and it doesn't have the actual content I need. It took me a while but I came around to the idea of just stopping by the school and picking up some student textbook CDs, which I did yesterday. They are installed and everything, but I haven't "mathed" much since I installed them, because:
I started the day bright and early with a dentist appointment (8am!) followed by an appointment with my endocrinologist. All clear on the dental front, and the endo noted my weight loss and had my labs and everything's good except my T4 is a little high but she feels that it's not too bad and she's leaving my meds alone for now. Unbelievably, we're starting the approval process for my Thyrogen trial in October already. After that I went over to the school and picked up my stepladder which I had left behind and got the math CDs, too. Then I had to get home to pick up DS1 for his dentist appointment -- it was too cruel to make him get up early, and there was no reason to drag him to my endo appointment.
After I picked up the younger two kids from school (this is their last week), DS1 asked if I could him clean his room - friends are coming over later this week. You have to understand, the entire contents of his dorm room were piled into a corner of his room in front of his closet. Somewhere between 3 and 4 hours later, his room is quite livable. I always say, start with throwing away the trash, which helped. Then we went through all his drawers and his closet and made piles of things to donate and things to just throw away. The donate pile was huge. I introduced him to the joys of Swiffer dusters and even vacuumed. I believe the last time his room was this clean was before his sophomore year of high school when I painted his room while he was in debate camp. It was very satisfying work, but exhausting.
Somewhere in there, the gyn's office called back and left these results for me: "The results of your urine culture were negative. Your PAP smear was also negative. There were no cysts on your ovaries. If you are still having pain, see your PCP." This message was infuriating for so many reasons. One, they had already told me the results of the urine culture. Second, they did not do a PAP smear, I don't even have anything to test! Ridiculous. Third, fine, ok, no cysts on the ovaries, did they even bother to look to see if there was anything else that could be causing my symptoms? It was a 30-second ultrasound. I am so done with that practice! Fortunately, I called my PCP and I got an appointment for this morning, which explains why I haven't mathed much.
My appointment was at 9:30 but I knew the car was already loaded up with DS1's stuff-to-be-donated, so I got up early and went through my own closet, and the linen closet, and added even more stuff. I am moderately embarrassed to admit that there were still crib sheets in my linen closet. (DS2 is 15 years old, it has been quite a while since I had a crib in the house!) Anyway, now DS1 has plenty of room, the linen closet is in much better shape, and my closet is a bit better, too. So I loaded up all that stuff, and then headed out.
My doctor is, bless him, a great listener, and he was amazingly professional in not slagging on my gyn for being a slacker. He did a thorough exam and suggested a couple of possibilities, including spinal/nerve stuff, or scar tissue. He sent me for an x-ray of my lower spine (quick, cheap, easy) just to see if anything obvious comes up there, and is getting authorization for a CT scan.
Perversely, I would be relieved if it's nerve-related, but it really feels as if there's something in there, and I have a hard time getting away from that feeling.
Anyway, dropped off the donations, got my x-ray, picked up the kids, got them lunch, and then took DS2 and myself to the dermatologist. His acne is back so he'll be starting up treatment, and I needed a spot check - all clear. *whew*
Back home, managed to have a great conversation with my sister about all this medical stuff, and then it was dinner and then I didn't feel like working, so I didn't. I have a little over a week to get my act together. I think tomorrow will be easier because I don't have any appointments in the morning so I can work while the kids are at school. I haven't been a complete slug, though, because I'm making great progress on one of the books for my history of science class, a biography of Alexander Humboldt which is really great.
I set myself back a bit by looking over my end-of-the-year paperwork from school and figuring out that the odds of reaching 'highly effective' are very slim (at least 90% of my students would have to meet or exceed on the AIMS test, and the highest I've ever had was 85%.) I pretty peeved about that, since it is essentially halving my (potential) bonus, and sentencing me to another year of additional administrative oversight. I'm wondering if it's worth saying anything, since I'm only missing this because of 2 lousy points on my last formal evaluation. Every time I think about it, I get annoyed, because there are so many teachers who just come in and punch the clock in and then out and they're done, and they get the highly effective tag. I'm feeling as if I will never be a success in my district, and it's not a good feeling, especially when I'm doing this whole teaching math thing literally for them. Why? Mainly because I made the commitment. There's also the fact that I don't have another job lined up.
Pain was bad on and off today. I would really like it to resolve itself and then I wouldn't have to have so many doctor's appointments.Things I know it's not: a urinary tract or bladder infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, kidney stones, anything digestion related. My labs were stellar, and any or all of those would have shown up somehow. Here's hoping we'll find out what it is, and that it won't be terrible.
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