Cycle 12, CD 15
Well, the week came and went without any word from the dean. He said we'd hear from him by Tuesday or Wednesday last week but not a peep the entire week. I really don't have any idea what's going on. We found out yesterday that another girl from his class who was failed earlier in the semester was failed because she's foreign and they didn't feel she grasped the English language well enough to continue. Really? She made it through an entire year of nursing school and paid how much money for someone to decide half way through that she didn't speak well enough to pass? Apparently they don't just discriminate against men....
DH had his urology appointment on Thursday. Doc doesn't trust a single s/a so he wants him to have two more a week apart. They took a urine sample and yes, WBCs were still present. DH called me as he was leaving and I told him that we weren't doing the repeat s/a until there was some sort of treatment done. We know there is some sort of infection if there are WBCs in his urine and semen and I'm not dropping another $300 until there's at least some attempt at treating whatever is going on! So DH went back in and talked to the nurse. They gave him a script to have his urine cultured and for a month of Cipro. Wow! That's pretty aggressive, in fact DH isn't sure he wants to be antibiotics for that long. I'm feeling like it's probably necessary at this point. Thinking back he's had episodes were we've thought he had kidney issues and I wouldn't be surprised if he's had an infection for a long time without being very symptomatic. His physical exam checked out fine though. He's got an appointment to go back in 6 weeks and hopefully this time I can go with him.
And I have to admit, I kind of feel like we're just in a holding pattern. I've gotten really lax about temping, charting, and even using my CBEFM. It just all seems pointless right now. I know that it's going to take some time to get DH's issues resolved so it's kind of like why stress out about it for now? DH is still pretty depressed too and I just don't feel like being the BD nazi pushing him to DTD, ya know? So maybe I'll take a cue from my WW meeting and just focus on me for now. Get back to eating better, exercising, and listening to my body. It's still working toward a baby....just in a different way. ;o)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I almost forgot!
Cycle 12, CD 11
With all the happenings surrounding DH and school, I almost totally forgot about all the stuff that happened the rest of the week! As I mentioned, AF arrived on Saturday so I schlepped to both of DH's school meetings and then to work that night feeling like complete and total crap on Friday. Saturday and Sunday were back to back 12 hour shifts which left me totally exhausted. Thursday marked the official one year anniversary of the beginning of us TTC. I really didn't remember it until this weekend though. I think I'd dealt with it last Monday when AF went really nuts. I ended up with a nice hearty cry in the shower when I saw pink suds going down the drain (sorry - TMI). It just seemed so metaphorical for how I was feeling. Friday I went in to work early and saw no less than 20 cop cars in the few short miles from my house to work, the last 3 of which were camped in front of the hotel next to the urgent care. I found out later that there had been an armed robbery with shots fired (no injures thank God) at the hotel next to work not even 20 minutes before I arrived. The rest of the cop cars I had seen on my way to work were apprehending the suspects. Seriously freaky. This past Saturday my sister came down for a stitch 'n ' bitch while we watched some scary movies. I was luck enough to get my shift covered for Sunday afternoon so I could take DH to the football game. The week ended much better than it began.
And after a lot of back and forth, I ended up joining Weight Watchers today. I've done WW online in the past but never attended meetings. I've been meaning to go join for like 3 weeks now but finally went to do it today before their month free offer expires this week. I don't suppose that it was really a coincidence that the topic of the meeting today was taking care of yourself. It's not something that I do very often or very well. Finding ways and time to put yourself first is easier said than done but I suppose this is a step in the right direction. Better to do it now than trying to figure it out later with a LO, right?
With all the happenings surrounding DH and school, I almost totally forgot about all the stuff that happened the rest of the week! As I mentioned, AF arrived on Saturday so I schlepped to both of DH's school meetings and then to work that night feeling like complete and total crap on Friday. Saturday and Sunday were back to back 12 hour shifts which left me totally exhausted. Thursday marked the official one year anniversary of the beginning of us TTC. I really didn't remember it until this weekend though. I think I'd dealt with it last Monday when AF went really nuts. I ended up with a nice hearty cry in the shower when I saw pink suds going down the drain (sorry - TMI). It just seemed so metaphorical for how I was feeling. Friday I went in to work early and saw no less than 20 cop cars in the few short miles from my house to work, the last 3 of which were camped in front of the hotel next to the urgent care. I found out later that there had been an armed robbery with shots fired (no injures thank God) at the hotel next to work not even 20 minutes before I arrived. The rest of the cop cars I had seen on my way to work were apprehending the suspects. Seriously freaky. This past Saturday my sister came down for a stitch 'n ' bitch while we watched some scary movies. I was luck enough to get my shift covered for Sunday afternoon so I could take DH to the football game. The week ended much better than it began.
And after a lot of back and forth, I ended up joining Weight Watchers today. I've done WW online in the past but never attended meetings. I've been meaning to go join for like 3 weeks now but finally went to do it today before their month free offer expires this week. I don't suppose that it was really a coincidence that the topic of the meeting today was taking care of yourself. It's not something that I do very often or very well. Finding ways and time to put yourself first is easier said than done but I suppose this is a step in the right direction. Better to do it now than trying to figure it out later with a LO, right?
Monday, October 12, 2009
It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!
Cycle 12, CD 10
So what do you do when it's not your pity party and you're tired of the crying and ready for action? DH is in the midst of his second major pity party in just a few short months. It's understandable but I'm ready for some action. On Friday 10/2 DH got called into a meeting with his clinical instructor and asked me to go with him because we both had an inkling that it wasn't good. He was already on probation because the mentor he was with the week before had made 2 med errors (ridiculous). So when he was finishing his homework to turn in the following week and realized he was missing two lab values for his patient, he panicked. He had missed a lab value before and when he asked his instructor what to do, his clinical grade for that day was changed from pass to fail. He called a friend to vent and his friend told him that she knew another student had the same patient from another clinical group because she had overheard this other student talking about her patient in the library. So DH calls this other girl, we'll call her G, explains the situation and asks if she has the labs. G laughs and says "No, I couldn't find them either so I made them up. I do it all the time." ?!!? DH didn't want to do that so G offers to get the real numbers when she goes to clinicals the next night. Long story short, clinical instructor caught wind of it and DH was confronted when he showed up for clinicals. Since G hadn't gotten him the real numbers, he used her made up numbers so at least they would match. Now, I know this was wrong but in all fairness, it wasn't work that was going to be part of the patient's chart or affect him in any way shape or form. So DH spills the whole story when he's confronted. And then the call came that night to meet with his instructor the next morning. Shit.
His instructor said that him using false lab values constituted falsifying the document which was cause for immediate failure which means immediate failure from the program. She repeatedly told him that this has happened in the past and this was how it was handled and how it would always be handled and he was not the only one being affected that day. She encouraged him to go up the chain of command and meet with the course instructor. DH called her and she asked if he'd like to meet with the nursing chair at the same time. Two birds with one stone, sure, why not. It was a complete brick wall and they told him basically he just needed to take his LPN and move on. Great. On to a very drunken, bitter weekend for DH while I got to go work back to back 12 hour shifts and start AF. Fanfuckingtastic.
Monday the phone rings and it's a friend from class. G was there taking the exam that morning! Would someone PLEASE explain to me how he falsified a document but she didn't if he used her numbers?! DH was so angry he was shaking. So we called the dean and asked for a meeting. They emailed him the form to make a formal appeal (interesting, no one mentioned that was an option before) and set up a meeting for Wednesday. Tuesday night he gets a stuttering phone call from the nursing chair asking to meet with him because she heard he was meeting with the dean. Interesting. Anyway, the dean is investigating and we should hear from him later this week. DH pretty much had to raise the issue of sexism so he's also investigating the percentages of males failing from the program vs females which I think will be interesting.
But where does that leave us? Because it's the second time DH has failed, he can't reapply to their program for 5 years. The first time he failed was in June. My dad had a heart attack Memorial Day weekend and we were trying to get over to see him. DH hadn't seen his nurse at all that day on the floor so when it was time to go, he told his clinical instructor he hadn't seen her and needed to leave. She told him to go ahead and leave but then failed him for leaving without giving report to his nurse. WTF?!?! At that point he was told he couldn't make any appeals because it was completely at the clinical instructor's discretion and was just readmitted in the program for this fall. So we're getting his paperwork together to apply to take his LPN exam. We've picked 3 schools within a half hour from here as options to transfer to and finish his RN but he needs to go meet with each advisor and figure out which one is going to be the best pick.
In the meantime, he's wallowing in his failure. It upsets me because I feel like he spent the whole summer doing the same thing. There's nothing we can do but pick up and move forward right now. I'm frustrated because when he went back to school I knew I was taking on the financial responsibilities until he was done. Originally, he would have been done in just 8 weeks from now. After his first failure, he would have been done in the beginning of May. Now....who knows. Life has not been easy since DH entered nursing school and in some ways it's a relief to be out of the death grip school has had on our lives. I think I'd be perfectly content if DH stayed an LPN. He still thinks he'd be a failure.
I'm doing my best to be supportive. I took him to the Lions/Steelers game in Detroit yesterday because he's been a Steelers fan all his life. It was good to see him smile and enjoy himself. I really need him to pick himself up and move on with life. But how?
So what do you do when it's not your pity party and you're tired of the crying and ready for action? DH is in the midst of his second major pity party in just a few short months. It's understandable but I'm ready for some action. On Friday 10/2 DH got called into a meeting with his clinical instructor and asked me to go with him because we both had an inkling that it wasn't good. He was already on probation because the mentor he was with the week before had made 2 med errors (ridiculous). So when he was finishing his homework to turn in the following week and realized he was missing two lab values for his patient, he panicked. He had missed a lab value before and when he asked his instructor what to do, his clinical grade for that day was changed from pass to fail. He called a friend to vent and his friend told him that she knew another student had the same patient from another clinical group because she had overheard this other student talking about her patient in the library. So DH calls this other girl, we'll call her G, explains the situation and asks if she has the labs. G laughs and says "No, I couldn't find them either so I made them up. I do it all the time." ?!!? DH didn't want to do that so G offers to get the real numbers when she goes to clinicals the next night. Long story short, clinical instructor caught wind of it and DH was confronted when he showed up for clinicals. Since G hadn't gotten him the real numbers, he used her made up numbers so at least they would match. Now, I know this was wrong but in all fairness, it wasn't work that was going to be part of the patient's chart or affect him in any way shape or form. So DH spills the whole story when he's confronted. And then the call came that night to meet with his instructor the next morning. Shit.
His instructor said that him using false lab values constituted falsifying the document which was cause for immediate failure which means immediate failure from the program. She repeatedly told him that this has happened in the past and this was how it was handled and how it would always be handled and he was not the only one being affected that day. She encouraged him to go up the chain of command and meet with the course instructor. DH called her and she asked if he'd like to meet with the nursing chair at the same time. Two birds with one stone, sure, why not. It was a complete brick wall and they told him basically he just needed to take his LPN and move on. Great. On to a very drunken, bitter weekend for DH while I got to go work back to back 12 hour shifts and start AF. Fanfuckingtastic.
Monday the phone rings and it's a friend from class. G was there taking the exam that morning! Would someone PLEASE explain to me how he falsified a document but she didn't if he used her numbers?! DH was so angry he was shaking. So we called the dean and asked for a meeting. They emailed him the form to make a formal appeal (interesting, no one mentioned that was an option before) and set up a meeting for Wednesday. Tuesday night he gets a stuttering phone call from the nursing chair asking to meet with him because she heard he was meeting with the dean. Interesting. Anyway, the dean is investigating and we should hear from him later this week. DH pretty much had to raise the issue of sexism so he's also investigating the percentages of males failing from the program vs females which I think will be interesting.
But where does that leave us? Because it's the second time DH has failed, he can't reapply to their program for 5 years. The first time he failed was in June. My dad had a heart attack Memorial Day weekend and we were trying to get over to see him. DH hadn't seen his nurse at all that day on the floor so when it was time to go, he told his clinical instructor he hadn't seen her and needed to leave. She told him to go ahead and leave but then failed him for leaving without giving report to his nurse. WTF?!?! At that point he was told he couldn't make any appeals because it was completely at the clinical instructor's discretion and was just readmitted in the program for this fall. So we're getting his paperwork together to apply to take his LPN exam. We've picked 3 schools within a half hour from here as options to transfer to and finish his RN but he needs to go meet with each advisor and figure out which one is going to be the best pick.
In the meantime, he's wallowing in his failure. It upsets me because I feel like he spent the whole summer doing the same thing. There's nothing we can do but pick up and move forward right now. I'm frustrated because when he went back to school I knew I was taking on the financial responsibilities until he was done. Originally, he would have been done in just 8 weeks from now. After his first failure, he would have been done in the beginning of May. Now....who knows. Life has not been easy since DH entered nursing school and in some ways it's a relief to be out of the death grip school has had on our lives. I think I'd be perfectly content if DH stayed an LPN. He still thinks he'd be a failure.
I'm doing my best to be supportive. I took him to the Lions/Steelers game in Detroit yesterday because he's been a Steelers fan all his life. It was good to see him smile and enjoy himself. I really need him to pick himself up and move on with life. But how?
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