YOUR HEAD A SPLODE

I really meant to post an update somewhere along the way in the past month. Sorry. I've been way too busy to do the little things like sleeping and blogging, which is really too bad, given that stuff has actually happened now.

First things first: July 2, 2009 was the first day of 24-hour gaming and $100 bet limits in Colorado casinos. I was off that day. July 3 was a madhouse. I'm not scheduled to work later than 2 on any day, which is pretty much the same schedule I had when we closed at 2. The difference is that with 24-hour operation I have the chance to be kept late if we're busy, and we definitely were. I should have seen that coming, what with it being the start of all this new gambling and a holiday weekend... I left at 5:00 Friday (the 3rd; scheduled until 2), 4:30 Saturday (scheduled to 1), 2:45 Sunday (instead of 1), and 4:30 Monday (instead of 2). Last Friday I left at 4:30, and last night I set a new personal best by working 5 p.m. to 5:15 a.m. On the one hand, I'm making much, much more money than I ever have. On the other hand, I'm squeezing 40+ hours into four days of work when I'm scheduled for 31 and I'm seeing the sunrise more often that not. It's just a good thing I took a part-time schedule, because those full-time dealers are getting really hosed.

Anyway, on last Saturday the big packet from the school finally arrived. A lot of it was advertisements and order forms for various books, lab coats, study guides, and the like that we can buy from different student organizations at the school, but it also included all of the instructions for the week-and-a-half of orientation that starts in just 33 days. It looks like that week will be a nice, gentle easing into school, which is nice since I've taken just 4 credits in the last academic year. The same day my financial aid award letter arrived, too. It looks like I'm going to have enough to pay the mortgage, which is fine. Between Jaime and my own hours at the casino and/or my intern job, we should be able to put food on the table and keep the lights on. I hope. I'm a lot more relaxed about it than I have been because 1) I'm making a killing right now, 2) Jaime finished her internship and can start looking for a job, and 3) We hacked the crap out of the budget and got it a lot more manageable. I don't know that taking on new debt to pay existing debt is a great idea, but sometimes you gotta do some weird stuff to get by.

Xander turned one a week ago. He's so BIG! We had a really nice party for him at the house, and then I put on my uniform and worked a 10-hour shift. I can do this for a while, so I guess I'm not complaining, and if I can put away a few bucks this month I won't have to work so much over the next four, so... yeah, it's worth it.

I should be able to post a little more often over the next few weeks as school gets closer. Thanks for reading!

2 months to go!

My cat's been hunting. A couple days before we left for Hawai'i, he left this on the floor by the front door (inside). I don't know what he thought we wanted to do with it, but apparently it was only fun while it was still alive. Then the next day I found another one in the driveway, with the same squish out the back but otherwise pretty much intact. Gross, huh?

Hawai'i was exactly what I needed. I feel so refreshed. It also knocked almost two weeks off my countdown. We're two months to the day from our first day of class. Tomorrow will be 60 days. Friday will be eight weeks.

How about those Rockies? If me going out of town is all they need to start playing better, I'll leave more often. Today's win gives them 11 in a row, which is enough to close the gap in their division to a measly ten and a half games. They probably shouldn't have lost so many earlier. My precious Cubs are a different story altogether... I started growing a "rally beard" - basically not shaving until the Cubs are back in first place - and they promptly started losing. The Rox helped them out, too, sweeping the Cardinals and the Brewers. I'm starting to think I'll never shave again. If I have two months' growth at orientation, I'm going to be known as the guy with the crazy beard. So, let's go Cubbies!

Apparently the first people to submit their aid paperwork are now getting their award packages. I'm looking for mine in the mail every day now. It'll relieve some stress once I know what our financial situation will be for next year, and by extension, how much I have to work. I'm pulling for none, but if you've read my earlier posts, you know that's just not possible. Well, maybe I can win some sort of large cash prize between now and August 14th.

Sunday will be my first Father's Day as a father. I'm excited for that. I love being a dad, and I'm especially looking forward to future Father's Days and getting cards made by Xander (and hopefully by his future brothers and sisters, too) in that sloppy kid handwriting. I know that's not too far away. I just hope pharmacy school doesn't make me so busy that I miss all of that stuff. I would hate to have a four-year block of Xander's childhood missing from my memory, and even worse, to have four years of his childhood missing a dad in his life. I keep telling myself that won't happen unless I let it, but it still frightens me. I guess just being scared by that is enough to prove it won't happen. At the very least, I'm glad I'm doing this now and not when he's a few years older. If I disappear from his life for the next four years he'll barely remember it by the time he's 10.

Tomorrow I get an EMG on my legs. I don't even know what an EMG is, really. At my physical in April, I mentioned to the doc that I've been feeling a sort of uncomfortable pressure in my legs, especially after sitting for a few hours in a row, but lasting long after I stand up. I was worried it might be a blood clot. First thing they tried was an venous ultrasound; that didn't show anything. Oddly enough, the feeling went away for about a month after the ultrasound. It's been back the last couple of days, coinciding with my return to work from vacation. My self diagnosis is that it's a chiropractic issue, and that pressure on the nerves in my spine is creating a phantom sensation. If the EMG doesn't show anything, I'm going to get an adjustment and see what happens.

This has been a really long entry! Congrats if you've made it this far. I'd better stop here for now. I'll be back for a 50 day update, if not sooner.

Poked and prodded

On Monday afternoon I allowed a very nice, competent, and tiny medical assistant to stab me in both arms, inject something into my forearm, prick my index finger, and suck blood out of my elbow. I took all of this lying down. Literally.

I'm a bit of a fainter.

Why all the torture, you ask? Apparently, working in the medical profession requires quite a few immunizations. Luckily, I got the complete MMR series as a child and I've had the chicken pox so that's two I don't need to get. But the right arm was a tetanus booster (DTaP, actually), the left arm was Hepatits B (I need two more of those - grrr). The injection in my forearm is a TB test. I really hope I pass that one! The finger prick and the blood draw aren't related to pharmacy school; that was just for blood work as part of my physical. We'll come back to that.

This felt like a big step to me. A week before I mailed off my deposit and various acceptance- and residency-related forms, but certainly all these needles mark the most painful part of the pre-pharmacy process for me. That tetanus injection site is still sore. It's completely sunk in for me now - I am going to pharmacy school in less than three months. In fact, I have a lot of work left to do to get all those ducks in a row.

Anyway, welcome to my new blog. I'm going to try to keep posting throughout the school year for all four years of the process. Maybe that can offer a bit of a unique perspective for incoming pharmacy students in the future. And maybe I'll continue it after graduation. We'll see. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy listening to me. It's not always going to be about pharmacy school, but I'll try to keep that as the major thread that sort of drives the blog.

Oh, and the blood work came back with some disturbing results. I have really high cholesterol. So high they want to put me on a statin drug. I'm only 26. I sort of guessed this would happen, because my dad suffered a mild heart attack earlier in the year and has dealt with high cholesterol for the past decade, but it still sucks. I'm 6 feet tall (with shoes on - apparently I'm only 5'11", officially) and weight only 165 pounds (naked out of the shower - apparently I'm 170 in the doctor's office). You wouldn't look at me and think anything was wrong. In fact, my medical history is spotless. No surgeries, no chronic conditions, no medications, no allergies... well, now I have a history of high cholesterol and will be taking Lipitor or something like that. My hope is that a few months on the drugs with some drastic diet changes and an increase in exercise will bring those numbers into check and I'll be able to drop the drugs. I don't really want to start taking pills for the rest of my life starting this early in the game.