Update

These past fews weeks have been pretty interesting for sure. First of course, was the car accident on the 19th of February. I am feeling much better from that and most of my bruises are gone or a lovely shade of yellow. The only problem is that my right arm still hurts. It does feel like it's getting better but still hurts if I try to do anything like picking up heavy objects or pushing semi-heavy doors. So I went to see my doc and he wanted to do an MRI on my shoulder to make sure nothing is torn. So tomorrow morning at 11am I am going to get an MRI done. I will be glad to know if something is wrong or not so I can hopefully be done with all this stuff. I am deciding if I want to go to my chiropracter or not. My neck and back have been bothering me a little but I want to make sure nothing is going on with my arm before I let a chiropracter pop me and push on me. I don't want to exacerbate anything in my shoulder. I miss being able to pick up my nephew and hug him!

So after the accident and resting all weekend. Early Monday morning I woke up in horrible pain. I have felt the pain in the past when I had kidney stones. So I woke Steve up and told him I needed him to take me to the emergency room. He got up and got dressed and took me on a not bumpy route this time. It seemed like it took forever to get checked in but they were good about getting me some pain meds and an IV because I was really really dry. They did a CT scan because I was concerned that something else could be wrong since I was in a car accident just four days before that. It was just a kidney stone and was apparently getting ready to be passed. So I had yet another day off of work on Monday.

I took Wednesday off so that Steve and I could go get our new cars. We started at 8:30am and headed to the dealership to tell the guy that we wanted both vehicles that we had been looking at. We talked to him for awhile about trading my truck in and prices on the vehicles. They were reasonably priced to begin with but we wanted to see if he would come down a little in price so that we could afford them. At one point we had to walk away because he wasn't willing to come down on my truck. It was more than what I could really afford to pay and I thought we should get a good deal since we were buying two cars on one day. So we left and brought back the Focus that Steve wanted from our mechanic who was checking it out. When we got back, the dealer came out on the lot and talked to us a little more and was willing to meet me in the middle of our price difference. I was happy with what he proposed so we got the deals written up. I got a black '07 Ford Escape XLT and Steve got a silver '05 Ford Focus hatchback. They are both very nice vehicles and we are very happy with our choices.

Weight wise I have gained a few pounds back and was starting to get worried. However, when I weighed in this morning I had lost 4 lbs since last week. So that is a big plus. Once I get all this car accident stuff figured out, hopefully I can get back to working out. I don't want to risk further damanging myself right now.

Eric got an apartment in the town where he works. He has been living with us since we bought the house. It has worked out pretty well and provided us with some extra money to pay bills. But I think it is time that he wants to have his own space and we would like to have more privacy back. I am planning on using his room as a guest bedroom/craft room. It will be nice to have some space to do my craft projects and not shove them in the closet. It will open a lot of space downstairs as well and that will be nice. I think he will like being closer to work as well.

So that's what's been going on with me. Exciting right!

Frustrations

It's so frustrating sometime that I am not licensed yet. Iowa is one of those states where you have to be licensed to do almost anything in mental health. I get the reason why - don't want unlicensed people seeing your patients. But, if they have to have so much experience to get licensed - how are they going to do it?? So basically I get to see people who are on the sliding fee scale (Lee Co. funding), people with EAPs (free sessions through their work), and people who have Blue Cross Blue Shield (only because they are able to bill me under my boss's name basically). It's frustrating to know that I have way too much free time at work (and that it affects my salary) but I can't really do anything to control it. I have been seeing a lady for the past three months or so because she had free sessions with her husband's EAP. However, she has run out of free sessions and I am not able to bill under her insurance. So she will have to start over with someone else. It's frustrating for her and for me as well.

My truck is still running like a champ. Good news there at least.

I got a call from my credit card company recently that someone used my credit card number to try to buy something from a K-Mart in California and someone used it to withdrawl money from a bank in Pennsylvania. Needless to say, it was either me or Steve so somehow someone got the card information. So the credit card company shut down the account and will re-issue us new cards with a new account. It's our emergency credit card so we never use it. I have heard that it's common for card that rarely get used to somehow get stolen. I don't know how it works but whatever. At least it's taken care of and we aren't responsible for some jerk's use of our card.

I will be flying to Arizona next Wednesday (the 27th) to be with Jenn while she is undergoing some surgery. It's not exactly a major thing but she won't be feeling good and will need a driver and someone to take care of her. So I will be there until Monday the 1st which is Labor Day so I didn't have to work anyways. I am looking forward to a bit of a vacation though I am going to miss my hubby quite a bit. I won't really be available by phone so everyone will have to catch me online.

I woke up in really horrible pain on Saturday morning. After dealing with it for a few minutes and then having to throw up because I hurt so bad, I woke Steve up and told him I needed to go to the emergency room. Turns out, it was yet another kidney stone. They gave me some Demoral and did a urinalysis, Xray, and Sonagram of my kidneys. They think I have already passed it because they couldn't find it. I haven't had any more pain so I hope that I actually have passed it and it isn't just waiting around in my bladder to try to kill me. I do have good pain meds just in case though - that's a plus.

And lastly - Happy Birthday Wil!!