I couldn't fall asleep until after four. I woke up before 7:30. I am about to scream bloody murder because the eczema on my feet is not responding to anything normal (i.e. steroid cream) and I want to take sandpaper to them. One foot and one toe in particular. I wonder if I've developed a tolerance to this particular cream.

Doctor's office isn't open for another hour. AAAAAAAAARGH!

As it is, I've somehow managed to add a 1.5cm long crack in one toe that looks about .25cm deep, maybe a little less, that I have no idea how it can ever heal, given where it is, right at the joint on the plantar side, but at a weird diagonal. I'm about a half second away from taking a Benadryl and not caring if it knocks me out for the day, except work might be the only thing that'd actually distract me from this insanity. Also, it'd be nice if I could be conscious in an hour to call the doc and beg to be seen.

*glares @ foot*

Developing an "alteration in skin integrity" was not on my to-do list, dammit!

/whine

... because I'm starting to loathe the acronym URI (upper respiratory infection).

It's still debatable whether we caught this round of bronchitis in time to avoid a long-term asthma exacerbation like the last round, but efforts have definitely been made. This was complicated by my PCP's office being closed for New Year's yesterday, but thankfully I was able to find a walk-in that was open and had a doc who would listen to me and believe me when I said, "No, I can't produce more verging-on-green phlegm on demand, but I swear that's why I'm here. I'm not stupid enough to want antibiotics for a plain old chest cold."

Antibiotics - check
Secondary inhaler to go with the rescue - check
Cough syrup so's I can sleep - check
Probiotics to offset the GI damage due to antibiotics - check
Garlic soup and hot toddies for general comfort and hopefully at least some killing of germs - check

Incidentally, I'm hugely grateful to lariopefic for introducing me to Firewhisky Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey at Aeternitas. It makes one hell of a great hot toddy. Now if only I could remember the ingredients for Pepper-up Potion. (It was not Fireball and Rumpleminze, which results in something tasting like the nastiest cough syrup imaginable.)

Patsfan wants to take me out for pizza. This may be better than having him cook, but I don't actually want to go out feeling like this. That and I'm down to one week to cough up (heh) 7500 words of rough draft for tw_classic_bb, of which I've just cut about a thousand words and rewritten them. That was probably not the best idea but the fic took a surprise left turn and leaving the old stuff in there that no longer fit was confusing me. Oh well, guess pizza's a good break food.

Actually, first off, apologies to those who had commented on my last post that I just replied to. I didn't know they were there. *kicks LJ and Yahoo!Mail both, as either could be at fault*

( TMI )

In other news, the semester's almost over. Had my stats final Friday, which seemed absurdly easy. Most of my tutees had their finals today or will do tomorrow. Then I'm off until at least Memorial Day, possibly June, depending on some budgeting decisions. I've registered for the 1-credit yoga course this summer to keep my student status. Only 5 in it so far, so it's debatable whether it'll run. *crossing fingers that either I get a nursing job before summer starts or the course runs* Stats made sense, as most post-ADN nursing degrees require it. Yoga is obviously just me sacrificing the equivalent of two weeks' pay for the potential to work another 10 weeks or until I (hopefully long before that point, FFS) find a damned job. Paying for more than a single credit, though, when the course doesn't count towards anything, would be kind of pointless.

At least, my shoulder's current wonkiness is textbook supraspinatus tendon impingement syndrome according to my chiropractor. This would be why the line of sharp pain going from directly where my collarbone and shoulderblade meet down to a bit above the insertion point of the deltoid muscle feels almost exactly like plantar fasciitis except in my shoulder. I sincerely hope that doesn't mean there's a bone spur to match my heel spurs.

Inflammation's finally down enough that I have exercises to do. I hope that makes the difference, and quickly. It's already been about a month of this nonsense.

Meanwhile, not exactly related, but I missed the gym today. Woke up late, did remember to throw things into the gym bag, but failed to remember to actually *bring* the gym bag. And they won't let you even just use the treadmill in jeans. Tomorrow then.

In entirely unrelated news, I decided to check out Tumblr. So far as I can tell, it's mainly a source of lots of fannish macros. Amusing, but I still don't really get it.

This time, I brought music. I definitely need to plan better what I'm going to listen to, because a couple of songs got me going way too fast, and I shot my heart rate into the 160s, which is a bit too high. So, um, Chinese Burn is out until I'm in a bit better shape, for example.

This time I also used the machine correctly, but failed to bring anything to write down the data on. I also couldn't figure out how to create a note on my new-to-me phone. Didn't think I could text myself, so what brilliant idea did I have? Tweet it of course. *eyeroll* What? I was under pressure. The machine only gives you a minute or two before it wipes everything. Yeah, that was ridiculous. *headdesk*

But! I'm still proud of myself. I did the full hour this time and did almost 3 miles (2.88).

Other things accomplished: did some NCLEX studying with the Saunders book and (gasp!) some housework. Now to try and do some writing.

Went to a family function last night. Once the DJ moved beyond disco into some rock and generic functiony dance music (attempted once again to get people to do the Electric Slide on beat, unsuccessfully), the dancing was fun. Until, y'know, the asthma decided to act up.

Grrr. You know, having to use the inhaler every so often has become less annoying as it has become more familiar. But when it interferes with dancing, I just get mad. ( Venting and trying to work out just what went wrong there. )

Ah well. Time to see if I can't move up that check-up, because clearly this has moved into the "we need to be doing more about this" zone. And "don't dance" is not, I repeat NOT an option. Dance more and build the stamina back up would be a far, far preferable verdict.

I was annoyed with myself earlier for picking up the Good Friday day shift, grousing that working 24 hours out of a span of 40 is dumb. Then I realized: I do nearly the same thing every Thursday evening through Saturday morning, just split across two jobs and two hours less, and usually with 8 hours of clinical first on Thursday. I really do have this mental block in which I think I'm still 19 and don't really need sleep. Ah well. Took the rest of the Thursday evening shifts off for April, because it was clearly getting to be too much, so that's something. Definitely have to remember when planning summer tutoring though: no Friday hours. Working during the day on Friday = badness. It was nice, though, if hectic and crazy-making, to work a day shift at my primary job, which I'd not done in probably over a year.

Side note re: clinical - I ended up calling out sick for it this week. Horrible cold + already sick patients = badness. This means I'll have a make-up to do in May, which is kind of a bummer, but also kind of unavoidable. I'm just glad that the class as a whole has worked around the other two make-up days already, so I should still be done with clinical before the final exam. Meanwhile, this cold is trying to turn into bronchitis, and I'm glad I went to the doc Thurs after all, even though I felt lame at the time. I just had a feeling it was going to go bad and didn't want to be stuck using the ER on a holiday weekend. She trusted me that I wasn't being ridiculous and really do know antibiotics are useless for a cold. In fact, I was only asking for a scrip (for antibiotics and an inhaler) to hold in case it turned into bronchitis over the weekend. Instead, I got told to just start the Z-pack immediately, because the cough was already starting, and in me that's usually a half-step away from bronchitis, so why not just make it unlikely for bacteria to set up housekeeping before they settle in. I still almost held off, but am glad I didn't, as it is moving down inexorably into my bronchi, as I'd sort of expected, creating a lovely environment for random bacteria to take over, except HA! they should not be able to do so. Since I was filling that, I went ahead and filled the inhaler too. Haven't needed it yet. Don't want to use it. (Because, dude, if caffeine makes my heart do the Macarena, can you just see what albuterol will do? PVC party!) But it's reassuring to have it just in case. She stuck a bunch of refills on it too. Guess she was getting antsy about me not routinely carrying one, which I'd kind of picked up on over past visits, even though I've yet to have a full-on "asthma attack." Probably just as well to stop tempting fate.

This may yet result in cancellation of Easter plans for the same reason I called out of clinical. My Dad is almost as compromised a cardiac patient as anyone on the floor at clinical, so even though I shouldn't be carrying any bacterial pathogens to pass around, what with the antibiotics, if I'm still sneezing and coughing, I have to assume I'm shedding cold viruses, which he doesn't need either. Not sure how I feel about that. Mixed, I guess, because there's family dysfunction and religious dissonance (I'd so much rather be doing Delphinia at HTAZP than celebrating a holiday that's no longer part of my faith) on the one hand and the definite sense that I may not get that many more visits with him on the other. Ah well. We'll see how it goes.

Will resume trying to read flist after I finally get to see the second part of EoT, because even half the spoiler cuts in various comms are using spoilery text. Meanwhile, memery.

( How I fared with 2009's goals and what I'm setting for 2010. )

( The past decade in review. )

Okay, that's just about enough navel gazing. Happy new year, all!