What a supremely stressful few weeks

It's been a long time since I've posted. Mainly because I've been busy, but also because I've been a little overwhelmed as of late. For those of you who remember my posting about grandma being hospitalized a few weeks ago the update is as follows: She was discharged from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility earlier this week. She was only in the skilled nursing facility for twelve hours and her PEG tube (a feeding tube placed through the abdominal wall) started leaking. Come to find out, after ten or so hours in the ER on Tuesday, that she had pneumonia, and a staph infection. I had just done her advanced medical directive with her last week, so essentially we all knew this was the end of the road.
She passed this morning just after sunrise. I think she was ready to go. She told the minister Tuesday night that it was time to get this show on the road. Tuesday was her 85th birthday, and she was just so excited that she still got to have a birthday party. Apparently in 85 years of having birthdays, no one had ever thrown her a party. Granted, it wasn't the big party with her friends like she had originally been looking forward to, but at least she got to have one with her family.
There of course, has been more drama, but I don't have the energy to post now about any of it. Suffice to say, I'll be glad when this week is finally over.

Baby gifts already

Today two of my coworkers brought gifts for our baby to the meeting that we had over lunchtime. I just love baby stuff. They bought us toys from out registry, including the plush blocks, a prone activity mat, and two toys that attach to the stroller or car seat and kind of "jitter" and make noise when you pull on them. So cute. So I decided that as I unpackaged the stuff after work today, this would be a good day to start teaching the Max dog the difference between his toys and the baby's toys.
We'll see how it works out. He didn't really seem too interested in most of the baby's toys so far. He gave them the obligatory sniff and then walked away. The only one that held his attention was the yellow plush block, which when you squeeze it makes a quacking noise like a duck. This one he most certainly took issue with. I think he's grasped (for now) that this is not his toy thought, as he got scolded each time he tried to pick it up with his slobbery dog mouth. I'll just have to remember to wash that one before giving it to the baby. So now I'm off to write thank you notes. I figure the best defense in this case is a good offense and if I write the notes as the gifts come in, it's one less chore to deal with later on.

This may be the last week

for running prior to baby's arrival. I've been noticing after my last few runs on the treadmill that I've been having a lot of pelvic pressure and aching. I'm pretty sure that the baby has dropped down a bit over the past few weeks, as I've been feeling pain much more in my pelvis and lower back than in my ribs as I was initially. I'm going to see how I do with the remaining four runs this week and if the soreness post run continues I'll be dropping down to a walk for the remainder of the pregnancy. I'm figuring that it's almost time to stop running anyway, as I'll be thirty four weeks this Friday though...
Today we went and bought outfits for the baby to wear when we bring it home. I bought both a girls and a boys outfit since we won't know what we're having until it actually makes it's appearance. I figure I'll wash both outfits once it gets a little closer to the actual date of delivery, and whichever one we don't end up using will get given as a gift to one of the people that we know who are also having a kid in the next few months or so.
I also bought the book Baby Signs for Dummies. I've really been interested in some of the things I've heard about how teaching your infant sign language at a very young age makes it much easier to deal with them overall. It seems pretty basic stuff, and of course you're not looking to have a fluent conversation with them, but it allows then to communicate basic needs such as sleep, diaper change, milk, and more without becomming frustrated. According to the little bit of the book I read, it really doesn't kick in that they can communicate via this method until around six months, but they suggest that it's helpful to start signing with them around three months of age. I'll let you know how this works out for us.

I have an addiction

It's a big one...I simply cannot stop chewing ice. It's driving my husband crazy. I think he might kill me if I can't find a way to stop. Even knowing this, I still cannot stop chomping on ice cubes. Is there such a thing as Ice Eaters Annoymous?

Seriously late

But better late than never. It's the movie review of the new Die Hard...in a word, awesome. Bruce Willis is such a complete stud. The movie itself was pretty good, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much if it wasn't for Bruce Willis. But then again, things blowing up, people getting shot at, and a random bad guy getting knocked out of a helicopter that was pursuing Bruce Willis' character by a huge spout of water from a broken fire hydrant, what's not to love?
I've been staying busy, work is crazy...I'm really looking forward to the extra day off tomorrow, even though it does kind of suck that it's in the middle of the week. I really think that Independence Day should be a holiday like Thanksgiving and they should make it the first Friday or Monday of July every year. Who do you think I need to petition to get this changed?
I've been trying to stay caught up on the work stuff, which is tough, as it's already time to do midterm grades for the student who's interning at my clinic. Plus I've been busy with my grandma. My mom's mom has been in the hospital for about a week and a half now. Apparently she had a small bowel obstruction, which did not respond to non-invasive care. So, long story short, she had surgery last Friday and is now out of the ICU and back into a regular med/surg room. She looks much better, but is extremely confused. They're hoping to get her started on a regular diet later this week and hopefully get her transferrred to a rehab facility by the end of the weekend.
One of the major problems with this situation is that that my mom and dad are supposed to be leaving on Sunday to go to New York for five days...and my dad pretty much refuses to cancel the trip even though grandma is not really doing all that great yet and could potentially slide downhill pretty quickly. (what do you expect when an almost 85 year old has major surgery?) I personally think he's being kind of an ass about the whole thing, and that my mom needs to put her foot down and refuse to go, but then again I'm a lot more assertive than my mother ever has been.
So, needless to say, next week will be more of the same craziness around here, except I'll be expected to visit the hospital daily instead of every other day, as "there won't be anyone else to check on her". Plus there's the added fun of watching my parents' dog (who has a whole host of "nevous stomach" type issues) and working, and this little thing called being eight plus months pregnant....fun stuff.

Last ultrasound today...

Everything looks good. Development is right on schedule, almost to the day in fact when they measure the baby's abdominal cavity and femur length. The head however, is a different story. As of today, my kid's head is measuring almost two full weeks ahead of the rest of the development. It's not a problem, and doesn't indicate any type of dysfunction, as it appears to have a normal, proportional brain inside of it, but it's gonna be hell delivering this kid.
They were concerned that I was going to have to plan a C section or be induced early, as my abdomen has been measuring on the large side for the last two visits and I'm not exactly a large person to begin with, but it appears that the baby is right on track. Right now, it weighs about 4 pounds, 3 ounces per the calcuations, and the best gestimate at this time is that it's going to be about seven or eight pounds at birth.
So, everything looks good. I'm expecting based on today's calcuations to not have an activity restrictions if I want to keep running until the day I deliver. I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep it up though, as I'm starting to fatigue pretty quickly and I'm having some minor hip issues when I run. We'll see how it goes after I slow down a little more tomorrow.

Conspicously absent

that's me. I've been less than stellar about blogging lately...it probably has something to do with the fact that I'm a mere nine weeks away from evicting this kid from my body...or perhaps to do with the fact that I've been really, really busy (like crazy busy) with my J-O-B.
This week has been pretty much the week from hell. I've been helping to provide vacation coverage for another therapist all week, and thus have had to condense all of my own work into less than half of the time that it normally takes me. Monday morning I had a new student start at my clinic (thank God she's on the ball for the most part) and I saw fifteeen or sixteen patients in a five hour time span. Insane. Then I went to vacation dude's office. Tuesday was expanded hours at the other clinic to cover the vacationing guy's patients, Wednesday was normal (but packed) at my office, today was normal hours at the other clinic and tomorrow is split again between my own office (sixteen patients in four and a half hours) and vacation slacker's office. Insane again. I'll be so glad when tomorrow night rolls around.
Baby wise I'm doing pretty good. I'm still not sleeping well, I guess it's good practice for when the kid gets here...I just cannot get comfortable at all. I'm still running, but slower than dirt. We've got our last ultrasound scheduled for next Tuesday. Normally they only do two ultrasounds in my doctor's practice unless you have problems at some point, but they're doing a third for us since I've managed to stay active this far into it. They're going to be checking on fetal growth and as long as everything is still on track size wise I'll be given the green light to keep running as long as I'm comfortable. If the bambino is showing a slowdown in growth I'll be told to stop running.
My husband keeps teasing me that I'll be one of those people who waits till the last minute to go to the hospital once I'm in labor because I'll still have to get my run in for the day. I'm thinking that I'll go ahead to the hospital once labor starts, but if it's not moving along quick enough I'll head down to the PT gym to take a run on the treadmill...in reality this probably won't happen, but I think I'll mention it to my doc just to see his reaction.
In other news, our cousin just announced that she's also expecting. She's due three months after me, so that's pretty exciting that our kids will be almost the same age. Also, one of my coworkers (probably the one I like the most) just matched with a birth mother and is going to be moving forward with their adoption next month. Her baby's birth mom is due a month before me...this will create some scheduling conflicts at the office, but it a totally fantastic thing for her.
Lots of little people showing up in our lives in the next six months!

Biggest load of crap ever...

lives right here.
This is without a doubt the biggest load of garbage I've ever read. So what if I like to run with my ipod sometimes? Or if I'm going to load my kid into a tricked out jogging stroller the second it's old enough for one and hit the road? Yes, I log some of my weekly mileage on a treadmill (okay, I log it all on a treadmill now), I'm still a runner damnit.
Let it be known that I'm never buying any type of Pearl Izumi shoes or athletic gear...for the rest of my life. I'm not quite sure what they hoped to accomplish with this ad, other than pissing real runners off. I'm thinking that it's kind of ironic that so many people that I would definitely consider real runners fall into the "jogger" cateogory by this ad's standards.
I'm also finding it kind of interesting that I don't see too many elite runners wearing Pearl Izumi stuff...in fact, I only ever see it on high school girls who run track...and most of them that I've met I've met during the course of my job...meaning that they have some kind of orthopedic issue, which miraculously enough, goes away as soon as they stop wearing the Izumis. How's that for coincidence.
I'm off to compose an irate email to their advertising department.

Movie review...

It's been a long time since I've posted a movie review. It's not been that I haven't seen anything recently, it's just that I haven't felt much like posting recently. We saw Ocean's Thirteen yesterday. It rocked. Of course, I'm biased, because I do love George Clooney, but even so, it was a clever movie.
We didn't do much this weekend outside of the movie. We had to help my grandma get her television set up yesterday morning, we rented All the Kings Men (which I don't recommend) and today we just lounged around the house and did some chores.
We did go to Barnes and Noble today to look for a few classic children's books for the baby. I have a major shopping jones right now. I just want to go buy stuff, but am trying to hold back. We're not sure if either side of our families are throwing this baby a shower, but figure if we go buy stuff now and then they throw us one, we'll just have to take a ton of stuff back later. I found four of the ones that I loved when I was a kid, but am still looking for about five or six more.
I picked up Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, the Little Engine That Could, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, and Goodnight Moon. I was really surprised to see that the bookstore didn't carry the Little Golden Book line anymore. I thought that these books were staples of every little kid's library. I'm wondering if I might have more success looking for this line of books at Target or Walmart.

Wouldn't you think I'd have learned my lesson the first time?

I went to the lab this morning. Routine blood work, actually a gestational diabetes test, which are standard in the early third trimester. I was supposed to drink this small bottle of orange stuff that kind of tasted like sno cone syrup. This was supposed to be the worst part of the whole experience, as I don't like orange anything and it was early morning.
My story starts off at slightly after seven this morning, when I figured the lab would be almost empty...not so much. There must have been twenty people waiting to have work done. So thirty minutes after my arrival, they finally call my name. I go into the treatment room, and hand the girl my paperwork only to hear her say "oh good, just a simple glucose fast blood draw." She starts getting her blood draw stuff ready, at which point I decide it's in my best interest to ask some questions, such as "don't I have to drink the sugar syrup first?"
She proceeds to tell me that I'd already drank it, which I was pretty sure that I hadn't done, so we spent a few minutes discussing why I hadn't drank the syrup yet (uhm, how 'bout cause they didn't give it to me at the doctor's office and I can't buy it at the store?) After several minutes of discussion they figured out that the nurse at my doctor's office hadn't checked the right box on the lab requisition.
Sound familiar anyone? The same thing happened when I had my quad screen ten weeks ago.
So, long story short, I called the exchange, because of course the doctor's office was still closed, forty five long minutes later, they called me back. I drank the goo, which was pretty gross, and then had to sit in the waiting room for another hour while my body processed the sugar solution. Hopefully I passed so that I don't have to take the three hour test later this month. How much would that suck?

Moving day

for my Grandma. She's moving from the house that she's lived in for over fifty years to a senior citizen's retirement community. My mother has been organizing/coordinating the move. For those of you who've never met my mother, she's not exactly the most organized person in the free world. In fact, my dad often tells her that she would not be very successful at organizing a one car funeral. This is a pretty accurate statement. So it was no surprise when we showed up today to help move Grandma and pretty much nothing was packed.
The boxes where there, but they were all empty. The closets were still completely full, the cabinets were full, the basement was still jam packed, and pretty much nothing was ready to go. We were told to be at Grandma's old house around eleven. (I told my mom that I didn't want to get started really early...meaning nine o'clock or later would be fine...she told everyone to show up late morning.) Then she and my dad were over thirty minutes late to the whole thing anyway. Then my dad decided that the lawn needed to be mowed...right then. That had to take priority over what we were actually there to do. Fine. So we loaded my car full of stuff and got ready to leave. I think my mom actually wanted us to wait until they were done and ready to go to the new house too...but I really don't see the point in sitting around wasting time while my dad does a chore that could be done tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day....
My aunt, uncle and two cousins were suppposed to be helping...when we left at eleven forty five with a carload of crap they still hadn't shown up. We stopped for lunch on our way to the new house, by the time we got to the new house, there still was no sign of my aunt, uncle, or cousins. We unloaded our car and got to work hanging blinds, and my aunt finally showed up. So we helped her unload her car and put stuff away in the bathroom and kitchen. My parents still had not left Grandma's old house when we were finished at the new house.
All in all, the entire day was pretty much a cluster. I'm pretty sure that by the time everything is done, my mom and her sister won't be talking, my grandma and my mom won't be talking, and everyone will just be totally pissed at everyone else. Good times, eh?

I love long weekends

But I don't get nearly enough of them. I love that going to bed on Sunday night knowing that you get one more day to sleep in and not have to work. Even though we didn't do too much this weekend, it was still nice and relaxing. We rented a bunch of movies on Friday night. I highly recommend Deja Vu with Denzel Washington. The rest of the movies weren't quite as memorable (and included the Justin Timberlake film debut ...Alpha Dog). Saturday we lounged around, barbequed with the neighbors, and just generally did nothing much. Yesterday I got up early, but felt like ass, so went back to bed until almost eleven. This never happens, so to say I was shocked at what time the clock read when I finally woke back up is an understatement.
We caught the late morning showing of the new Pirates of the Caribbean, which I was pretty disappointed in. Part of my disappointment comes from the fact that the kid behind me kept kicking my chair, but the largest part of it was that the movie just really wasn't that good.
Today we slept in, then took the dog to a new park near the house. We thought the park would be really crowded since it's a holiday weekend, but there were only about a half dozen other people there. It was a pretty nice park, kind of off the beaten path. Most of the park is still under construction, and the rain from last night had closed the main trail. The poor dog was exhausted after visiting the park. He was so tired he actually slept in the car on the way home. Normally he's a barking, whining spaz in the car, so this was a rare treat. We took the long way home, down these little two lane country roads, instead of taking the highway. We found some really nice pieces of property...if only we could afford to buy.

Thank God for this

The rib pain that I've been experiencing pretty much nonstop for the past week seems better today. Now granted, today is only the first day that it's been better, but it was so much better today that I can't help but be encouraged by this. I actually didn't have any soreness until around five this evening. Usually it kicks in by lunch time.
I'm a little more sore now, but I also just got done with my three miles on the treadmill and have been sitting here at the computer for the last thirty minutes or so...using less than stellar posture. Huh, maybe there's a connection? Nah.

A different experience

Yesterday we were searching for something to do. That is, we had a ton of stuff that we needed to do around the house, but wanted to find something kind of fun and definitely outside since it was only about seventy degrees here yesterday.
I'm not sure which one of us came up with the idea, but we decided to check out the Renaissance Fair in the local town. My husband had been to one of these as a kid, but I'd never gone. From the way he described the one he went to as a child, it sounded pretty cool.
The woods of the county fairground have all of these wooden "huts" in them. Permenent structures built specifically for the six weekends of the year that this fair is here. All of these structures house merchants, crafters, and food vendors during the weekends of the fair. We thought that they'd also have blacksmith strations, sword making demos, and all kinds of other "medival" crafts.
Instead, it was like a giant craft show, with entertainment dispersed in between. Some of the entertainment was pretty cool.
We caught a juggling act, a belly dancing troupe and the high joust. Which is exactly what it sounds like. Two men, in armour on horses trying to knock the crap out of each other. Pretty good stuff. Especially considering that it was a "joust until the " and the losing knight had bladders concealed in his clothing which he popped open as he was "stabbed".
So, although the booths and vendors were disappointing, the entertainment was pretty interesting. The crowds in attendance were also interesting, as apparently there is a huge subset of the population that likes to get dressed up in period clothing and pretend that they're in medival France. There were definitely some unusual characters there.
Oh well, I've been now, and don't ever really need to go back.

That pretty much sucks

Yesterday I got a letter at work stating that the VA had been using my employer identifier number (which is also my SSN) and my birthdate in connection with Medicare services to do some type of research regarding how veteran's seek healthcare. Wouldn't you know it, the doofus supervising the project used an external harddrive to back up his or her work and then proceeded to lose the harddrive. So...they're not sure, but they felt obligated to tell me that they'd misplaced enough information about me to potentially allow someone else to steal my identity and potentially ruin my credit. Happy Wednesday to me.
So last night we had to run off a copy of my current credit report, which looks fine. Then this morning I spent about twenty mintues on the phone trying to place a fraud alert on my accounts. Fun stuff. Once I figured out exactly who I was supposed to call, it was pretty easy, but it took me at least fifteen of those twenty minutes to figure out who to call.

I can't seem to keep up with the whole blog thing...

In fact, it's been so long since I've blogged that I actually had to really search my brain to figure out what my login name and password were to write this post. That's sad. In my defense, I've been busy.
We've been trying to get some last minute projects finished up around the house before this baby shows up. So this past weekend we got started on the cedar chest that we've been talking about refinishing for oh, seven or so years now. I wasn't able to do much of the work, as I couldn't be around the chemicals that my husband used to strip the old finish off, nor could I be around the stain that he used to finish the chest. I did get to help with the sanding though. I love that power sander! The chest is finished now, and it looks great. We're just waiting for it to finish drying and then I can put everything away in it. Now we've just got a china cabinet to refinish and replace the glass in, and then pretty much all of our projects will be done.
My student intern is starting to get the hang of things. She's still kind of hesitant to push patients aggressively, and her documentation needs some serious work, but I see improvement from last week, and it's been helpful to have an extra set of hands and eyes in the office, especially since the pregnant chick aches and pains have started in earnest. I swear, my ribs feel like they're broken. Apparently, I've got some instability in my right rib cage due to cartilage softening and ligaments loosening all over my body. Let me just share how painful this is. It feels like I'm being stabbed over and over again just below my shoulderblade. No bueno. I can't get comfortable to sleep so I'm cranky most of the time.
The only thing that really seems to alleviate my pain is a short run. I'm slowing the pace down again, as I've been a little short of breath lately, yeah, even walking up the stairs can take my breath away if I try to go too fast...but at least I'm staying active.
Last week some doofus at our corporate office told me that my kid was going to have shaken baby syndrome from my running while pregnant. I love the random comments that people make now. I was actually so stunned by this one that I didn't even have a snappy comeback.

Busy weekend

Yesterday was the Girls on the Run 5k at Tower Grove Park in South St. Louis. It was a great race. The girl I ran with was actually able to run the whole way...she's one of our kids who's never run much before and we'd not seen any glimmers of this running ability in any of our practice sessions. I was really surprised and pleased by her performance. She was pretty cute, the kids know that I'm expecting, and my belly is starting to be the first thing you notice about me when I walk into a room, so she kept asking me if I was doing okay or if I needed to slow down...we averaged just over a ten minute per mile pace, which is still well within my comfort zone.
All in all, we had sixteen of our twenty four girls run/walk the race and every single one of them was able to finish it!
Yesterday evening we went to see The Invisible. This looked like a great movie in the previews, but actually was pretty disappointing in reality. This is the movie where the kid gets jumped on his way home from a party and his assailants think they've killed him, so they hide the body...but he's not really dead. The whole movie is about him being stuck in this "in between place" and trying to convince people to go find him before he actually does die. It didn't have any big name actors or actresses in it, which was fine by me, but it wasn't nearly as well scripted as it potentially could have been. In summary, wait for the DVD, it wasn't worth the price of admission.
Today we just worked around the house, did the grocery shopping, slept in, and went to the library. Have I mentioned lately how much I love the library? I put in a reserve/request for a book I read a review of in Runner's World or the Running Times (I can't remember which one). It's a semi-factual account of a kid who was on his way back from a track meet when a bus accident took the lives of all of his teammates and coaches. Sounds pretty interesting.
On the work front, things are starting to pick up a bit...knock on wood. Tomorrow looks decent, as does every other day this coming week except for Friday, but that's a long way away still...
I have a student intern who's first day will be tomorrow. Let's hope she's good. This will be her first internship ever, as in, she's never touched or spoken to a patient ever...hopefully she'll learn the ropes quickly and we'll have a good six weeks together.

Just when you thought it couldn't get weirder

My mother in law shared our neice's new baby's middle name with us today. The first name now spelled differently (Amidy versus Amnity) which is totally a made-up name that isn't in the books...but at least it's not the Amnityville Horror anymore, even though it's pronounced the same way. The middle name is almost as bad. This poor baby's middle name is Jolee...yep, as in Angelina, only spelled differently. They're going to call her AJ for short. I repeat, poor kid.
On the upside, she is an awfully cute baby, so maybe she'll get past this dreadful name.

Anthony Hopkins = one scary dude

Yep, there's a reason I love this guy. He is quite possibly the scariest actor in Hollywood. Every movie he's in creeps me out. We saw his latest, Fracture, this morning. It was creepy, but completely entertaining. I loved the ending, but will refrain from saying much more about it due to not wanting to ruin it for anyone else.
In other news, work is still slow...really, really slow. Hopefully it picks up soon, as I have a student intern who starts a week from tomorrow and it would be kind of nice to have some work for her to do.
Running continues, albeit at a slow, slow pace. I'm finding it difficult to get myself psyched up for my regular runs, even though they're short and painless. I'm still exhausted by the end of every day, so this whole running in the evening thing is really taking a toll on me, but I can't seem to motivate myself to get up and run in the mornings.
My husband's niece (the one who's fifteen) had her baby yesterday. It's a long, complicated story, that pretty much belongs on Jerry Springer or at the very least the Maury show, but she and the baby are doing fine. Unfortunately, she named the baby the most good awful name I've ever heard...Amity. Yep, like the Amnityville Horror. Apparently it means friendship in Latin, and in the niece's defense, she's probably too young to have even heard of this movie...but that poor kid. As if her life wasn't already going to be hard enough.
So, that's the weekend update in a very condensed form.

High maintenance much?

Yes, I think so. My first week of Tuesday/Thursday afternoons at the other office is complete. It went fine. It was kind of like a homecoming of sorts, as this is the office that I was originally in when I first started working for this company.
The low point of the afternoons is the office manager. How can I phrase this nicely? She's an OCD control freak...in the worst way. Today I had my charts and charge sheets (those little forms that we fill out that says what we did with each patient so that they know what to bill them for) all organized and sitting on my desk...neatly in a pile. She proceeded to come along while I was away from my desk and "unorganize" them. I like all my charts in one pile in the order the patients are scheduled, and all my charge sheets in a corresponding pile. She separated them all out, so that all of the charts were with the appropriate charge sheet and they were lined up in a row along the entire length of my desk...thus preventing from using my desk for pretty much anything else.
I didn't say anything, but put everything back the way that I like it. Then it happened again...so I was forced to say something to her about liking it the other way. The response I got was "well, that's not how we do things here." Seriously? Does it really matter? I'm the one doing the work, it's my desk, so let's just leave it the way I like it.
I won that battle by the way.
Then, as she was leaving, there was the whole discussion about turning off the lights, locking the doors, turning off the radio, etc...Uhmmm, I'm almost thirty years old. I think I can handle flipping a few switches and locking a couple of doors. I'm pretty sure I don't need step by step instructions with a drawn out diagram...Ugh.