Thank you!

Thank you blogger friends!  You know those days where you reach your limit of cr@p!  Well I was there.  My stress and anxiety had been building for about a month, and with my implosion during my first exam, I crumbled.  

I most definitely do have test anxiety.  It is a very real thing.  I have meant to go to the Student Success centre after each series of testing and get myself a game plan on how to deal with this and overcome it, but it seems my schedule does not leave a ton of time for extra meetings.   The program I am in is extremely demanding.  It is an accelerated version of a University degree in Computer Science / Engineering.  And I am not a naturally gifted student (by any means).  I have to work very hard to retain/understand the material.  And honestly I haven't worked hard enough.   But I have 2 very little children and I should be allowed to sleep and spend a couple of hours here and there with them.  

My train wreck performance in exams has continued.  Not nearly as horrible, but I'm still not acing them.  Now let me just say that my teachers this semester are some of the hardest we've encountered (group consensus). But I'm trying to deal with the anxiety... I've taken many moments where I've shut my eyes, taken 5 deep breaths, and told myself that it's okay, that I can do this, etc...  And it has worked.  My prof last night let us get up and leave the room to get fresh air.  He also gave us extra time, so I wrote my exam for 4.5 hours.  When I submitted last night I made sure I wrote him note of thank you, expressing how valuable that was to me as I was able to keep my anxiety in check.  My prof has ADHD and suffers from test anxiety as well, so he is one that picked up on my issue after the midterm.  

Oh well...Just one more exam this afternoon, then tonight 2 assignments to complete and I'm done!  

WaaaHooo!

And onto Miss Lucy.  Oh boy!  The terrible two's!  One of you commented that even though my first never did this, it is not unusual to have this behaviour happen.  And you are SO right!  This is very typical 2 year old behaviour.  And no Lola didn't do this.  BUT we had Lucy when Lola was two.  So Lola was busy competing for attention and loving on her new sister.  And well Lucy McGoosey has a very strong willed independent personality, and has since day 1.   I'm usually pretty good with handling her behaviour, but every now and again it just wears you down.  Especially since for the last 4-5 weeks I'm only really seeing them on Saturday and Sunday other than a 1/2 hour in the morning.  I'm at school so late that I miss bed time.  Lately it has been a lot of Daddy time and Nana picks them up Tuesday nights, so really I'm not around a lot lately.  And THIS might explain why her nose is so out of joint with me...maybe..?   But we Skype as much as possible when I'm stuck at school.  I'm really trying...  

Onto the health issues I've had all year.  My ribs...are finally healed!  Oh my GAWD!  That took forever.  I was re-fracturing them every time I ran.  4 weeks before vegas I ran 9 miles and had the crackling start again in one rib, so I took the week off, then I got a sinus infection / flu and was knocked down for 3 weeks.  Well I didn't run.  Then it's time for the Vegas trip which we were going because we had signed up to run the Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon.  I had no idea how I was going to do it with 4 weeks off from running.  But I approached it with a whatever attitude.  I would run as long as I could (easy pace) and if we walked it we walked it?!  I mean we couldn't expect much considering we had been drinking for 3 days straight before hand.  And dang nammit I ran the whole dang thing.  Not a great time (my slowest ever by 16 minutes) but the weather was awful and it was a night run which always gives me a slower pace.  So ribs healed!  Hopefully not ever going to fracture them again (likelihood is high it will happen again).  

Now the kidneys...ARGH!  This is not going to go away.  It is a birth defect that once issues begin the pain becomes an increasingly present issue.  I have discovered how to try to elevate some though without narcotics.  WATER WATER WATER!!!  I MUST drink minimum 3 litres of water a day to flush the kidneys, if I run I need to add at minimum 1 litre more.  Avoid pops, teas, coffee, etc...  Anything that has the possibility to dehydrate.  There is one other issue that I still haven't dealt with.  There is like a cloak of crystallization on the exterior of the kidney, but inside the shell around the kidney, that the Urologist is confused by.  It's not stones, it's like a wallpaper of crystals.  He believes it is a metabolic disorder.  And I need to do a 24 hour urine sample.  The sample takes a month to get back to him (testing).  And with my schedule...I think you can see why I have failed to complete this test.  As a matter of fact I have't even gone to the lab yet to get the jug.  Yup!  Need to get on top of that.  But I definitely need to be home for 24 hours to do the test and that just isn't happening at the moment.  The pain with the kidneys is okay.  It's more of a tenderness now when I wake up.  But I pound 1 ltr of water while I do my hair and that seems to make it better.  I still feel my left kidney when I sleep (feels like a golfball in my flank) but I think that could be a little bit of damage left over from stone-agedon!  Lol!

If your still reading this novel...thanks for staying with me!  

Again I truly appreciate your words the other day.  

I miss this space and finding the time to write out what's happening in my day to day.  Hopefully with working I'll be on a better schedule where I can fit blogging back into my life.

Much Love!
ks