August 5, 2009 - I should have stayed in bed!

Yeah it was one of those days today. I'll start at the end, cuz it pretty much sums up how crappy my day was.

I came home from dialysis an hour late to find this in my livingroom floor. I know it wasn't Kasey because I've had wicker paper plate holders since she was a puppy and she's never chewed one. Daisy, however, pulverized it! There were a few paper plates that looked the worse for wear.

Notice the pill bottle? Yeah, she got my bottle of painkillers off the end table beside my chair (she'd have to get IN the chair to reach them) and had them spread out on the floor. Luckily she was only interested in the bottle, as evidenced by the teeth marks in it and the lid (and the fact that she was still standing). All the pills were accounted for, thank Goodness! I picked them up as soon as I saw them, then thought of taking a picture of the carnage. To top everything off, I've found two places where she peed. I still am not a happy camper about that!

I should have known something was up when Daisy let me sleep til 10am. Here I was, thinking she was okay...I should have known better. I'll be setting my alarm to make sure I'm up before 9am to take her out for a walk. Wes said he walked both girls about two hours before I got home so she should have been fine.

Doesn't she look like a little angel laying there while Kasey sleeps? She's a cutie and has a great temperment, but she still acts like a puppy.

Okay, that was the end of my day. Remember I said I got home from dialysis an hour late? That was because with twenty minutes of my treatment left to go, I was bleeding around my arterial needle! I thought I was imagining feeling something cold and wet on my arm and then pulled it up from under the blankes to see the tape was soaked. Luckily it had already coagulated and wasn't flowing fast, but it's not supposed to do that!

It took almost 90 minutes for the lower site to stop bleeding. My hand finally gave out after about an hour and one of the techs put a clamp on the site to keep pressure on the gauze. I should have been home before 6:15 and it was 7:15 when I pulled in the driveway. My arm feels like someone has used it as a punching bag. So that was my crappy day.

I tried reading the Companion to the Three Gothic Novels again and consequently had a great nap during my treatment...again.

I also started a new habit. Instead of just glossing over words I'm not exactly sure of the meanings for, I started underlining them in pencil and went back later to look up the definitions. I have a notebook I wrote the definitions in, and I highlighted the words in the dictionary.

Just to give you a taste, here are some of the words I underlined. I also jotted in the margins what I thought the words meant by using the context in which they were used. I was close on some. Can you guess the meanings, without looking them up first? I've taken phrases from the book in which the words appear.

may be attempting an analogous act

while no less ceaselessly misread, models of meconnaissance

some of the concatenations of history

I have deliberately elided issues

now become the leitmotif of critical theory.

The complacent Genevese oligarchs

I guess now you can see why it puts me to sleep? BTW, most of these words were contained in the Introduction! I am sooooo screwed! LOL

Maybe I should just make a blog of the words I underline...hmmm... It's certainly easier than pulling out pen and paper, since my computer is on almost the entire time I'm awake.

The one bright spot in the day was that I now know how much financial aid I have been awarded this semester! I might not have the letter in hand, but it's in my financial aid info on the college's website. The one glitch was that it was still showing I owed more than $600 in tuition. I submitted my tuition waiver on July 17 so I called the Cashier's office to ask what was going on. They are checking into it and will fix it for me.

After my books and fees are paid with my grant money, the remainder will be sent to me in the form of a check. I'll have enough to get a laptop to use solely for school! The laptop I have weighs almost 7lbs and burns my lap. The one I'd like to purchase weighs 5.7 lbs and has extra insulation in the bottom to prevent the over-heating of the chassis.