When I was in high school, my mom and I moved into a house, just the two of us. My older (perfect) sister was away at college and my mom and I had been living at my grandparents while we waited to get enough money to pay and for the time it took to build it. It wasn’t a mansion by any means, but it was our home.

The day of our walkthrough, one of the builders came and every time we found something that needed repair or work, he stuck and orange dot on it. By the end of the walkthrough, we had amassed a small army of orange dots all over the house and were assured they’d be fixed shortly.

We were finally able to move in a week or so later and found that all the orange dots were still there. Not one flaw had been fixed, not one dot removed, but we were so ready to be in our new home that we ignored them, assuming they’d be fixed later.

Over the course of the 5 years we lived there, the house never got fixed. The stickers gradually faded until they were so light that you had to look closely to see that they were once orange. We had to peel them all off when we sold that house a few years ago, revealing all our home’s little blemishes, shortcomings.

Sometimes when I think about that house and those dots, I feel like my life has those same orange dots all over it. Sure, I don’t need paint or spackle, I don’t need a bolt tightened or a cabinet straightened, but I have flaws. Flaws that desperately need repair.

There is an orange dot on my schoolwork, on my energy to complete it. I’m still passing everything (that I know of), but my ability to push through, to keep trying, to not give up, is wearing down. I don’t know what the fix is, I don’t know how to repair this, but I see the problem and maybe that’s the first step.

There is an orange dot on our apartment. Even while on vacation, I haven’t been able to keep the mess contained. And so much of what I can’t do, my husband is forced to. He picks up so much of my slack, does so much more than he really should have to. And even still, it’s a stye.

There is an orange dot on my relationship with my family. There are members of my family that I still cannot bring myself to speak to, ones who I actively go out of my way to avoid seeing. There are others that I haven’t found the courage to tell all my truths to, and many of those truths are ones I’ve been dying to scream out for a very long time.

There is an orange dot on my marriage. We have a good marriage, I’m not complaining. But we have problems that our peers may never encounter. Having one half of a marriage be chronically in pain, chronically ill, chronically (gulp) disabled, isn’t just hard for the one in pain. As I’ve learned from finally sitting down and listening to Slappy is that it is intensely challenging to the “normal” one too. And it’s not made easier when the normal one has 80-90 hour work weeks and himself is run ragged all the time. It’s hard to make time for each other, it’s hard to find energy. I have a million excuses, but the bottom line is that it needs work.

There’s a huge orange dot over my mind, my sanity. I bear such guilt that sometimes I think I might sink right through the ground from its tremendous weight. I bear guilt for what I’ve done to myself, to other people, to my family and friends. I bear guilt for not being able to do everything I sign up for, for not being able to be everything I want to be for other people. For not being supportive enough, for not being happy enough.

There is an orange dot on my health whose size rivals the sun. I am doing everything I can to make the repair there, I will walk to the end of the earth if it means my health gets better, if it means I get to be me again. I have never wanted anything as much as I want to be without pain. Not just for me, but for my husband, for my mom and dad, for the people who rely on me.

There is an orange dot that is starting to show in my spirit. In my belief that things will get better. Doubt has crept in, it has invaded the back corners of my mind and it’s hard to push away. I struggle to stay in the present and not think about the rest of my life and how I’ll ever manage if things stay on the course they’re on now.

The more I look around, the more I see those orange dots stuck to so much of my life. And I’m fighting as hard as I can to find them all, to figure out what needs to be fixed, before they fade.

Before they fade into the background and things stay broken for good.

Today was the first time I’ve seen a brain doctor since January. I’m sure that doesn’t seem like an especially long time because, well, it’s not, but it has felt like an eternity, especially considering how much pain I’ve encountered since the last appointment.

They had conveniently scheduled an MRI for 12:30 (check in at noon) before my 1:30 appointment with the doctor. The scan would be immediately available to the doctor, no waiting. I appreciated this on a special level because that hospital? Almost 50 miles from my house. And saving me a trip is pretty much my favorite thing ever.

When I checked in, my information was there, but within a few minutes, the front desk realized there was a problem. I had an appointment, but they had no doctor’s orders. And then when they called the doctor, they couldn’t remember scheduling the MRI. Nothing like looking like the crazy MRI seeker in public.

After the doctor’s office faxed in the orders they finally remembered creating, the guy at the front desk lost them. And seriously, could not figure out where they went. He looked and looked and looked. They were no where. There’s just something really comforting about knowing that a piece of paper with all your personal and medical information is floating around a hospital. I mean really.

After all the hullaballoo, the MRI didn’t start until after 1. Which meant I had a snowball’s chance in hell of making my appointment on time. Which, really is fine, I haven’t been on time to anything in the last year anyways.

And then there was the scan itself. You remember that one time where I said I’m not going to have MRIs without sedating myself first? Yea, well, I didn’t until 10 minutes into the MRI. Oops. I was actually doing totally fine until she said that it was time for the “really loud” one, but what she neglected to mention was that the really loud one also bounces you around like you’re an kitten in a clothes dryer. Dear God.

And for whatever reason, the bouncing all around caused my brain to go totally fucking haywire.

I got hit with a wave of dizziness that rivals any I’ve ever had before. When the loud scan finally ended, the dizziness slowed. But as soon as the dizziness stopped, my eyes lost their shit and for the next 10 minutes my eyes danced from side to side, completely out of control (it’s called nystagmus and unfortunately is not a really new thing). They continued to wiggle back and forth through the gadolinium injection and all the way until the end of the last scan.

I walked out of the imaging center around 1:45 and made it to the office by 1:55. They agreed to see me late, which I was incredibly grateful for.

Despite a lengthy wait, the doctor hadn’t had much time to review my actual MRIs, but in the little time he had, he was able to identify pachymeningeal enhancements on my scan. Having done excessive amounts of research on the screwed upness that is my brain, I knew what he was talking about (sort of). It’s basically another nice objective sign that my body is dealing with low intracranial pressure and it’s a brand spanking new one.

And because of that and my ever decreasing pressure, he thinks that the problem really has to be a spinal fluid leak. Frankly, there just isn’t any alternative cause.

But the great part is that with this diagnosis, comes treatment. TREATMENT. He gave me two choices, but because of the cost and complications and time factors, only one option was really feasible.

Later this week, I’ll be having two high volume blood patches. They’ll do one down low in my spine and one a little higher, in an attempt to basically coat my entire spinal column (with blooooood) and clot holes that could be anywhere along it. He said that sadly they won’t double the Versed for the doubled patching. Tragic, really.

I’m more than a little scared, because, well, these blood patches hurt like a sonofabitch. But at the same time, I can’t even begin to tell you how nice it is to hear a doctor say that he thinks a treatment will work. It’s been a really long time since anyone has said that to me.

Probably since the last neurosurgeon prepared me for brain surgery. Hello, irony.

And I believe him. I believe that we’re looking at the first real possibility of relief. I think we have a plan that just might be the first thing in 7 months that will make a difference. The first thing that can give me even a piece of my version of normal back.

And for now we just wait, and hope.

And try not to spend much time dwelling on the irony that it’s going to take two REALLY BIG NEEDLES in my back to make me feel better.

Slappy and I got our first cat, Karma, in 2005. She was a teeny tiny kitten, and sweet as she could be. I loved her almost a ridiculous amount. Which is why it makes perfect sense that she’s mean and hates me. She’s possibly the grouchiest cat you’ll ever meet.

And from the day she became such a moody jerk, I begged Slappy to let me get a second cat. Because Karma? Loves Slappy. So I needed my own cat. And he said that when we moved, we could get a new one. So true to his word, about 10 minutes after we finished moving, we got a kitten. Jacques-Imo.

The transition with Karma was…loud. And stressful. Because the kitten so badly wanted to be Karma’s best friend, and Karma wanted to kill it when it slept.

Which was often, in case you wondered…

Thankfully, things have settled between the two of them. Because frankly, the kitten, who is really a cat now, is more than enough work. Never have I encountered a more mischievous animal in my life.

For example, easily half of the corners of carpet in our house have been torn up and shredded. Did you hear that? That was the sound of our deposit check being cashed. Or how he runs around the house at lightning speed knocking any foods or beverages that might be on a table top onto the ground. He’s especially gifted at knocking over the dark colored ones.

My personal favorite was the pomegranate juice. Do you know what gets pomegranate juice out of light colored carpet? NOTHING. Nothing gets it out.

He’s also food obsessed. He’ll eat any and everything, whether you offer it or not. He has stolen pears, chips, crackers, entire strips of chicken, tomatoes (which are horrible for cats, I KNOW), cookies (sugar and chocolate chip) and basically every food except the one thing the vet told me to give him for an upset stomach (likely related to one of the cookie incidents), pumpkin. Of course.

(This was from when he stuck his whole head in an open box of Ritz Crackers and ran away with one.)

But mostly, he’s become the most loving cat ever. He snuggles and cuddles and purs, and unlike the other cat, doesn’t stand on you, commanding attention but then biting the ever living shit out of you when you give it.

And if you need proof that he’s really my cat, look no further. He’s already excellent at twitter.

Though he struggles with the character count. But then again, don’t we all?

I was reading Daisy’s blog the other day, and she was talking trash about processed food. Well, she was talking trash about it until it literally blew up in her face (karma?). Her post got my mind turning, because, well, I think she’s crazy. But for the record, this post is not about her, it’s about the crazy people who refuse to eat food because someone else made it easier on them.

Seriously. You’re doing it wrong.

I love me some processed foods. There I said it. I love homemade and homegrown and organic too, but if given the choice between making a sort of homemade tortilla soup with canned diced tomatoes and chiles and a chicken cooked by the lovely people at my grocery store (like I did tonight, it was delicious) or do it all from scratch, I’m pretty much always going to choose the former.

I can almost see some arguments about hormones. Almost. And I’m sure that I’ll change my tune later when I have kids and have to really worry about those hormones and all that crap, but for now, I worry about getting a semi-balanced diet, I worry about fitting into my clothes and paying my bills. And if that means my cheap apples are grown somewhere with chemicals, well, guess what, I’ll wash them with my really organic water.

Speaking of which, the label of “organic” is also doing. it. wrong.

I picked up a can of pumpkin from the grocery story and pointed out to Slappy that it was organic. Without missing a beat he replied, “well, I hope so.” It took me a second to realize what he was saying. And then it hit me. IT’S PUMPKIN. IT’S ORGANIC BY DEFINITION OF WHAT A PUMPKIN IS. How do you have inorganic pumpkin? I mean really.

Someone is going to have to explain to me why one section of the produce is organic and the rest is not. IT’S FRUIT. How is it not organic?

But more than that, if my blood pressure, cholesterol, and basically everything (*cough*except my brain*cough*) are perfectly fine, why shouldn’t I eat food that is already processed or partially cooked? Because really, that preservative laden Lean Pocket in my freezer is delicious. Why do I care that it can last for decades? Isn’t that the sign of a good product? Longevity? Come on now.

Maybe preservatives are the key to a long life? You don’t know. I could be right. I’m married to a doctor, you know.

In the end, I think that what matters most is that we make our own choices, the choices that are right for us. You might think I’m lazy for eating processed foods (you would be right). I might think you’re crazy for spending twice as much on “organic” fruit (I might be right). But if it’s that’s what’s right for me or for you, then what’s there to argue about?

You know, except the totally incorrect use of the word organic.

Because dude, just no.

I called my neurosurgeon last Friday and cried uncle. Things had gotten out of hand with the pain and the dizziness and I knew it was time to pick up the phone, so I did. But on the message I left, I was vague about what was going on. And so it was late Monday before I got a call back.

And then I uttered the magic words. Face tingling.

Wow. You’d have thought I said that I had a bomb strapped to my chest that I would detonate in a kitten farm if they didn’t deal with me in that moment. There was a conference with the neurosurgeon right then and there, wherein they decided that I didn’t just need to be seen, I needed a brain MRI first. I was told someone would call me back to schedule that day.

I finally called them today (the nurse was really confused because she swore someone called me) and I got an appointment for an MRI at noon on Tuesday and an appointment with the neurosurgeon at 1:30 the same day. We’re doing it wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am style this time. No waiting for results, just image and appointment.

I fully expect this MRI to come back clear, I’m not worried, except maybe about the cost. The MRIs always come back clear, and so before we scheduled I questioned the need to have another one. They assured me that it was time to do another one of my brain because it’s been a while, so I gave in and agreed. What’s another few thousand dollars between friends?

Here’s how it’s going to go- I’m going to have the MRI, I’m going to walk to the doctor’s office. He’s going to hem and haw a little and then say that everything looks normal. And then we’re going to sit there, awkwardly, in the silent void, while he thinks of things to suggest and I think of how frustrating this process is.

Aside from this MRI, I think we’re done with tests. We just sort of ran out of them.

We know I have low pressure, in fact, we know I have pressure that is getting lower and lower. It started at 8, which is moderately low and at last check it was 4, which is outside of the norm low. It’s not fixing itself and the headaches sure as hell aren’t improving. I now have dizziness as a constant companion and the ear ringing is at an all time annoyance peak.

So I have this low pressure, but we’ve done every test there is to do and I don’t have a spinal fluid leak, which is literally the only documented cause of intracranial hypotension. Go ahead, google it. I have. Over and over. There’s nothing else. I have a condition but I don’t have the only documented cause. Isn’t that special?

And now it’s time to treat it. I honestly have no earthly idea of what the treatments could include, because all the literature seems to indicate that I’m an anomaly (which is pretty much my favorite thing to be). But there must be something. There has to be some drug, some diet, some change I can make to increase my pressure and I’m ready to try just about anything.

When I told my husband that I knew he was right and that it was time to stop having tests done I sobbed and sobbed because it felt like defeat. It felt like I was giving up and letting my pain control everything. It felt like, if we quit looking I was accepting that this was my life, forever.

But I’m not.

Because I’m not walking away, I’m not accepting defeat or this fate. I’m just trying to find a way to control it. It doesn’t matter if it’s caused by a leak or my body being defective. It’s just time to fix it, however, with whatever, and at any cost.

And that will be my mantra on Tuesday.

It’s time to try something, anything, because I’m just not willing to lose another 7 months of my life to pain.

I truly don’t know if I can continue on like this and I’m scared to think about the alternative.

I knew that March 1st was coming up, but I buried my head in the sand. I didn’t want to think about this day. I didn’t want to think about you.

The 1st came and went. It was a horrible day, which seems fitting, because March 1st is always a terrible day in my mind, in my memories.

I called your daughter last week and said that I wanted to go to Ventura. I have 3 weeks of vacation and I just needed to be there. You always loved Ventura and every time I go there, I feel like I can remember a little more about you. We spent every summer there, the whole family in a crowded house with costco tubs of food and candy, with deafening noise and seemingly endless bouts of laughter.

I remember it so clearly. I remember early morning walks where you warned me not to step on the tar, because it would never come off my feet. I remember scouring the shore line for sand dollars and how each year there seemed to be fewer and fewer. I remember sitting on the rocks and watching the waves crash in front of us.

Yesterday, as I sat on the same stretch of beach in front of the same jetty of rocks we used to sit on, I couldn’t help but think of you. I remember all the summers where we played blitz for candy and quarters. I remember the donuts from the donut store. I remember the patio. I remember the bunk beds you were terrified of us sleeping in. I remember how worried you when the tide carried us a little to one side or the other and how much the threat of an undertoe tormented your mind.

Your youngest daughter, your youngest grandchild and I spent our day in Ventura yesterday. Your sister came out for a little while too and I was taken aback at how much she looks like you. I guess I’d never really noticed before.

Yesterday was Evan’s first time at the beach where he could really enjoy it, and the 4 of us played together, making new memories, but painfully aware of the ones we had made in this very place years ago. We talked about you, how much we missed you and how life was different.

I thought about what you would say if you were there.

You probably would’ve worried about the temperature. You definitely would’ve worried about the quantity of sand your grandson ingested. If it makes you feel better, I tried to discourage him, but he got your headstrong stubbornness, to be sure.

But more than anything, I know that if you were there with us, you would’ve been happy. You would’ve worried and hemmed some, but you would’ve smiled and laughed and loved every moment of it. We were on our beach. We were together, a small bit of our large family. And family was always what mattered most to you.

You never got to meet your two youngest grandchildren, and the third youngest was only 3 months old when you died. But you would love them. Zachary is 8 now. He’s smart, but mischievous. He loves his baby brother in the sweetest way ever, and is really spectacularly good at taunting his sister. While he doesn’t remember you, he has pictures from those first 3 months. And I made sure that the first book I ever gave him was the one you read me whenever I slept over, Caps for Sale. He’s old enough to read it himself now.

Mary Kathryn, who is named after you and me, is a perfect mix of the two of us, which is to say that she’s a humongous hand full. She’s headstrong, stubborn, incredibly intelligent, and beautiful. She loves her baby brother with such ferocity that it’s sometimes scary. She has your passion and your sense of humor. You would love her. I think she probably would’ve ousted me as your favorite grandchild.

Evan is only 14 months old, but he is the happiest child I’ve ever known. His blue eyes are piercing and his smile could light up the world. I don’t think you ever would’ve gotten enough of him.

I don’t have the words to tell you how sad I am that I can’t remember the sound of your voice anymore. Or how I can’t quite remember the way your hot dish tasted. Or that I never said goodbye to you. But mostly, I’m sad that it’s been 8 years since I last heard you laugh. Since I hugged you. Since you saw your family, pulled us together and reminded us to love one another. It’s been 8 years since the doctor said it was cancer, a cancer you never got the chance to fight. It’s been 8 years now since you died. It used to feel like yesterday, but lately, it seems like forever.

Grandma, I know that you are at peace, in a place without cancer, without fear, without pain. I just hope that you know that you are as loved today as you were 8 years ago. And this family that you brought together, that you built, that you anchored, misses you in a way that cannot be written in words.

We miss you in a way that can only be felt in the deepest parts of our hearts, the part that you cultivated, that you nurtured.

The part where we keep our memories of you.

Today, I screwed up.

I woke up this morning to a phone call that set my mood for the day. It doesn’t much matter what it was about, it was a phone call, nothing more. But from that moment on, as the day progressed, I only thought about all the things that were wrong with this day, and paid no attention to the things that were right.

In retrospect, I have done more things wrong today than possibly any other day on record, or at least any other day that I can recall. The mistakes were many and they were vast. They were not intentional, but they were done, by me, nevertheless.

They happened.

I let my emotions control my actions. I let things pile up and grow bigger than they really were. I let the sum be bigger than the parts. I let the whole become so much larger than the pieces that added up to it, that the small things that were really the issues were indistinguishable by the end. They were warped bloated versions of themselves.

I did today wrong.

And no matter how many times I close my eyes and wish I could start over, could do something different, could change even one small part of it, the reality is that I can’t. I want to pick up the pieces and put them back together. I want to fill in the cracks with glue so that you’ll never be able to see what I’ve shattered, what I’ve broken, but I can’t.

I can’t fix it. And that might be what hurts the most.

I have to live with what I did today. I have to realize that what happened, happened. That what was said, was said. That there’s no re-do, that there’s no way to start over or to go back in time. I have to realize that my words, my thoughts, my actions have ramifications and that it’s my turn to face them. And they are considerable.

My New Year’s Resolution was to stop regretting, but as I type this, I know I’ll regret this day forever. I know that this day will always stand out as a day that I did wrong, that I destroyed. That today is a day that I ruined with my words, my actions, my inability to see what I was doing. A day where I lost track of reality and poured my misconstrued version of it onto those who didn’t deserve it.

If there was a gift that I could buy that showed how sorry I am that I ruined things, I would have bought the entire lot. Or if there was a card that said, I wish today had never happened, I’d clear out every store and mail a new one every day, just as a reminder. If there was a way to fix this, it would be already fixed.

But there is no gift, no card. There is no solution tonight. There is no do-over.

There are no excuses.

There are regrets. There are tears. There are profound heartfelt apologies, ones whose words hardly even can contain the truth that they bear.

There is pain, both inside my heart and in the heart of those I’ve hurt.

There is no going back.

All that’s left is tomorrow.

And hopefully, at some point, forgiveness.

This weekend has long been scheduled as a weekend of preparation. I am packing a suitcase and make travel plans.

Back in December I found out that my request had been accepted and I would be completing my first 2 week clinical experience at a facility in New Orleans that I was familiar with. I was ecstatic. I chose it because I knew that I could learn there and not feel the awkwardness that I would at other facilities, I knew it would be a great first clinical experience. I marked it on my calendar. I made plans.

I let myself get excited.

And then January happened.

The instant that the nurse handed me the post-op instructions from the neurosurgeon, I knew there would be a problem. I knew that March 1st through 12th fell well within the 2 months of not lifting more than 5 pounds. I also knew that in the profession I’m going into, few things that I’ll do will require lifting less than 5 pounds.

I tried to stay positive. I focused on the good. I was getting better, the spinal headache was gone, I was going to be able to return to school. All good things. On my second day back I sat down with my faculty advisor and got the first inkling that my optimism was useless. He scheduled a meeting for me with the program director that afternoon.

As I sat down in her office, I was prepared to fight. I wanted this. I had worked hard for this spot at this clinic, hell, I’d worked hard just to finish the 1st semester. These 2 weeks in New Orleans were among the few things that kept me going last semester when I wanted to quit. I didn’t want to let down the people at that clinic, the people who were working to find a way to let me come learn from them. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

But as the conversation began, it became clear that I was going down, fight or not. The program director told me what I already knew. There was no way to complete the clinical without lifting more than 5 pounds. And observing instead of doing hands on work wouldn’t allow me to meet the objectives of the rotation.

As I used every ounce of strength I had to keep the tears from pouring down my cheeks, I asked her what I was supposed to do. Deep down I was terrified that she was going to tell me that it was finally time to drop to half-time status and add an extra year to my 3 year degree. It is something she’d suggested in November and something I had absolutely refused to do.

Thankfully they already had a plan for me, they’d just add one more week to my 6 week clinical this summer and one more to my spring clinical next year. She assured me that this was the best time this could happen.

I nodded and said okay. I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight.

I left her office and walked to the library for class, feeling my warm salty tears pour down my face as the cool wind whipped around me. I was overcome with emotion, with pain. Frustration of more plans being ruined burned in my head. Jealousy of my classmates, for the normalcy they take for granted seared through my heart. Anger over the lack of control over my body coursed through my veins. But mostly sadness and regret washed over me, rendering all the other emotions quiet and small.

I was all at once a small, quiet person, drowning in tears, in pain.

I kept walking and crying. I kept thinking how I wished I could go back in time and somehow undo this. Somehow change something to stop this chain of events from getting me to where I was that day, where I am today.

Because I am packing. But I’m not going to New Orleans. I couldn’t stop this from happening.

I’m going home to spend a week with my family, and then I have two more weeks of vacation. I realize that 3 weeks of vacation sounds glorious, and on some level that I have yet to reach and appreciate, it is. But I would gladly give up 10 of those days to be in New Orleans, doing what I’m supposed to be doing. The realization that I just spent hours and weeks catching up with my classmates so that I could be 2 weeks behind again is painful to accept. I feel like I’m fighting a perpetual uphill battle and most days I can’t decide if I want to rest or just quit and fall all the way down the hill.

But so for 3 weeks, I’ll be doing the former. I’ll be resting. I’ll be visiting family, I’ll be baking and relaxing. I’ll be having a few small pity parties here and there and writing a few papers that are due in late March. I’ll be wishing that things were different but knowing that there’s nothing that can be done about it.

I’ll be trying to find a way to acknowledge that though these 3 weeks of vacation are not at all what I want, perhaps they’re what I need.

After 5 days filled to the brim with stress, papers, powerpoints, word documents and mostly hours and hours of exams, the week my classmates have nicknamed “hell week” is officially over. I completed 6 exams in those 5 days, and only had to push one back to the end of the semester because it was a practical exam that would require lifting more than 5 pounds.

In case you wondered, EVERYTHING weighs more than 5 pounds.

Last night was probably the most stressfull of nights because to really finish off hell week with a bang, the two biggest exams were today, one at 8:30 and one at 2.

The afternoon exam was one that all the second and third year students had warned us we would fail and when it came down to prioritizing to study Thursday, that second exam? Well, it fell low on the list. Just every so slightly below getting sleep. And the almost 4 hours I got were pretty glorious.

The morning exam didn’t go perfectly, but it went MUCH better than any of us anticipated.

The afternoon one? Um. No.

The only way I can describe that exam and frankly this day and week is as a giant shit show. I sat down to take the exam, knowing full well that I was unprepared, but not yet aware of the magnitude of the situation. Ignorance, it was bliss.

The exam was supposed to take 2 hours, though I get time and a half for my slow processing brain, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take. After flipping through the test once, I realized that it wouldn’t take much time at all. In case you didn’t know, it doesn’t take long to play eeny-meeny-miney-mo on multiple choice questions that may as well be written in a completely different language. At some point I should probably learn what pleiotrophism is, since it was a choice for almost every question.

I finished in 45 minutes, not just feeling like I hadn’t done well, but rather knowing that I have failed it. I know that I have cried wolf enough times that none of you really believe me when I saw that I failed, but I can assure you that without a curve, I did not pass that test. I did know even a single answer.

It was my fault, I could’ve studied more. But I reached a point and I made a choice. 6 exams in 5 days is hard, especially with classes in between tests and a 6 month old especially ugly headache. Now I have to wait and see if all my classmates did as poorly as they said and what the curve looks like.

But the reason I’m blogging about it at at all is because even though I failed a test, I’m not dwelling on it. I’m not letting it get me down.

Tonight, despite an astoundingly awful headache, I am celebrating 2 things:
1. I have 3 weeks to rest, see my family and did I mention rest?
2. I’m caught up. I have learned all the information I missed from the first half of this semester, a feat that I truly wasn’t sure was possible. I missed more than 1/3 of the first half of the semester and aside from this one test, I believe I passed.

It may not seem like much, the act of catching up and making Cs on exams, but it feels like I ran a marathon. I am exhausted, I am worn down, but I managed to do what people thought I couldn’t. And this feeling is worth more than any grade I could’ve possibly earned on a test.

I have regrets unrelated to the tests, which I’m sure will find their way into writing soon, but for now, I’m just feeling proud. And really, really tired.

We’re officially half-way through the week of hell, with three midterms down and just three little midterms ahead. And by little, I mean the exact opposite. The last two exams on Friday are the mothers of all exams. The second of which we have all been told we will fail. Which really? Makes me not want to study for it AT ALL.

But, I’m not going to complain about the exams because I’m trying to stay positive about their passability, and frankly, I’ve chosen a different calamity to attack.

You see, yesterday after my morning exam, I went to a friend’s house to nap relax between the morning ass-kicking exam and worthless afternoon classes. When I woke up from, um, relaxing, I grabbed the salad I’d bought earlier and sat down to read emails.

The salad dressing was an asian dressing in a little container with a plastic lid that had to be peeled off. And without paying much attention, I picked it up and pulled back a corner of the plastic. And before I even realized it, there was a big splash of salad dressing on my laptop keyboard. The splash hit the entire top right part of the keyboard. I cleaned it up as quickly as I could with copious paper towels and turned the computer upside down to help drain as much as possible while I was in my afternoon classes.

When I got back after class I had planned to make a study guide using my computer for the test I had this afternoon. A test which I had devoted precisely ZERO time to by that point.

So you can imagine my delight when I started typing and realized that several of my keys weren’t working. At first it was just the delete key (I say just there with a hint of sarcasm because THE DELETE KEY. It’s a little important). As the evening progressed and I continued to try to type, more and more keys stopped working. When I woke up this morning to do more work, even more keys were out.

So far the y, i, o, l, 0, +/=, delete, g, h, ;/:, “/’, ENTER and the right side of the spacebar are not working at all. The u is finicky and there are a few more that are getting really hard to make work consistently.

The irony here is almost too much. My oil based salad dressing made it physically impossible for me to type the word oily.

Well played Karma.

I can’t check my school email anymore because my username AND password require letters that don’t work, and I can’t even use most of the internet because, hey, guess what? That enter key? It’s REALLY rather important. Seriously, just try to type in a web address…and then what? Because willing it to open isn’t working yet.

But what makes this so especially painful is that, if you’ll recall my husband very recently dropped his computer in a bathtub and had to replace it. And while it may be a great shock to some of you, I definitely dished out A LOT of jokes in his direction. A. LOT. And may have insinuated that he was a *little* bit irresponsible with his really expensive computer.

In case you wondered, being a hypocrite stings.

I can’t make it to the Apple store until this weekend, so until then I’m using my phone, Slappy’s brand spanking new computer and every bit of patience I have in using my own computer to type the words that I can.

While it wasn’t that much oil I have some substantial concerns about the fixability of the computer. Because apparently the motherboard is like sort of close to the keyboard. And unlike water, oil doesn’t just dry up. It sits there and stays all NOT DRY. And while I may or may not have pined over the pretty new laptops at the Apple store recently, I really REALLY do not want to buy a new one. I can’t afford a new one, I like my computer and did I mention I can’t afford a new computer?

For now I will go back to studying, be grateful that my husband is using great restraint with all the jokes that he can easily be hurling in my direction and hope that the oil magically evaporates and saves me a thousand dollars.

If wishes were horses we’d need a huge fucking stable in our apartment right now.