Being the office manager....sort of.

Today is my first day without Laura. I feel sooooo lost. I can't remember some of the things that I am sure she showed me. I guess that is to be expected. Thankfully we are slow today. Not too many phone calls and not too many patients either. I dread tomorrow. We are pretty booked. Oh well. I can do this. Just two more days and then it's the weekend. That makes it sound like it's nothing. Anyways. That is pretty much it. I got my car back!!!! Did I say that already? I don't think I did. Man I love my car!!!! I talk to it daily now. I have been a terrible mother to it, but I am determined to do better! lol I guess I will update again later!

Changes

Well it happened. Our office manager is leaving. The surprise in all this is that my boss doesn't want to hire another one. I guess we just aren't busy enough, and he doesn't want to just hire anybody. That's right. You got it. It is now on me, and him. I have no office manager experience and know NOTHING about insurance! I now have two days to learn how to run this office. Hmmm. Scary. This may be my last blog for a while because obviously I'm going to be busy. The good news is that I am getting a 4 dollar pay raise for the time that I am playing office manager. I was aiming for one more dollar, but I had to negotiate to get the 4 so I guess I will settle. If this turns out to be more than I anticipated we will just have to renegotiate. I am a little stressed to say the very least. Everything happens for a reason, and I do really need the extra dough. Is it worth it? We will find out. Pray for me that this will all work out! I will at least post a short follow up blog to keep you updated, because I can't post anything on facebook, because my boss is one of my friends.

On a lighter note, this past weekend was amazing!! I had a wonderful time with my friends Cass and Nicole seeing New Moon! The concert was lots of fun too! Those friends of Josh's sure are rowdy, but they behave a little better with the wives present. We all had a great time!

just rambling

Things I am looking forward to:
-New Moon, in the VIP section at Monaco Pictures, with my BFF's, in Huntsville at Bridgestreet on Friday!!!! (did I forget to mention stuffing my face at PF Changs before the movie?)
-Jamey Johnson concert on Saturday in Tuscaloosa with the hubby and our friends!
-Thanksgiving!
-Black Friday
-Getting my car back!!!!!! (this should be #1 on the list)
-Payday!!
-Wearing my new outfit with my new boots!
-Josh putting our new floors in our bedroom. Goodbye ugly green carpet, Hello wood laminate! ( just to clarify we bought the floors before the car mess. I haven't gone on a crazy spending spree) Well.....just those REALLY cute boots, and an outfit to go with them.....cough.


Things I am not looking forward to:
-going to get groceries after work, but I can't live without coffee creamer!!
-cleaning my stinky house
-spending all that money when I DO get my car back.
-My office manager at work leaving :(
-My office manager at work telling our boss she's leaving :O
-Playing office manager until we get a new one :/
-Driving Josh's big bus, umm I mean truck to Huntsville on friday.


While I am at it, I have to brag a little. Our not-so-little dog Maynard (aka. Moose) is just the sweetest! He is so cute. He is laid back, sweet, and smart. The other day I was giving him his pill for heartworms and he dropped the tiniest little piece of it out of his mouth. I picked it up and placed it in my palm and held it out for him. He obviously didn't see it, or understand what I wanted, so I said: "here. Eat it." He turned his big head sideways and looked at me like: "What mommy? I don't get it." So I kept saying it, like that would make him understand. Finally he didn't know what else to do, so he took his big paw and placed it in my hand to shake it. It was soo cute! I had to laugh, and I praised him like he did a good job. He was so excited that he figured out the mystery.
We bring him in when it is cold and put him in the laundry room with a baby gate. He is so big he could easily step over it with no problem, but he doesn't. He is quiet and happy and he just lays in there and plays with his duck. He has woke me in the middle of the night a few times, but only because he is chewing his duck and his other squeaky toys. Oh, and this morning he was terribly upset when the coffee maker came on by itself. He didn't know what it was. What a good guard dog!
I will have to post new pics soon. He is getting so big. At his last appt he weighed 45 pounds. That was several weeks ago. I am sure it is more than that now!

Follow up on my last blog.

Well, I am going to keep this short and sweet because it is what it is. I just thought that I would let everyone know what happened. Yesterday Josh went and met with the guy at Franklin Automotive, and realized that he was not trying to rip us off. We told him to go ahead with the cylinder leak test, and it turns out that I have done so much damage to the motor that it is not worth trying to fix it. It needs to be totally replaced....A salvaged motor is costing us 6,000 dollars. We decided to keep our savings (we don't have enough to fix the car anyways) and not use the credit card because of the interest rates. Fortunately we have awesome credit and we just took out a personal loan with a lower rate. I don't even know what else to say about it......I guess I just have to accept it and deal with it. There is nothing else to do. Thank God we have the means to do it. I am feeling down and out, and I am thinking about getting a christmas helper job to make a little extra money. I know it is only 6000, but we have worked SOOOOO hard over these last two years to pay off credit cards and student loans and Josh's truck, and we just now got ahead!!!! My car is no longer worth what I owe on it. It used to be worth more than i owed because we pay extra on it every month to pay it off faster. I don't know why I am sharing all this financial info on my blog but I just feel like I need to vent. I have been paying 500 dollars a month on that car since i got it 3 years ago. I still owe 12000. Now I have another 6000 for the motor which will be over 200 dollars a month. HMMMMM 700 dollars a month for a car that I now owe 18000 dollars on!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a nightmare!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I'm done. I probably shared too much and this was longer than I thought.

Crap Happens!

Here we go.......Ok so I left for work the other morning and I noticed that my heat in my car was not working. Ugh, well at least my car has seat warmers. So I am trying to keep my buns toasty while driving an hour to work. When I am about...5 min from work on the interstate my engine light comes on.....hmmmm so I keep driving wondering what is up. Then as I am about to get off on my exit I decided to look at my temp gauge. Sure enough my car is running hot and ALL THE WAY HOT. (on the H) I figured this was important enough to call Josh at work. So I tried, but he was out on the unit, so I had to leave a message. I wasn't sure what to do, but I was almost to work, so I decided to try to make it. (in hindsight I realize this was probably not the best idea) Anyways, I got to work, pulled in the parking lot, and kaplooey! My car dies, and the power steering goes out......I couldn't even park it. I coasted to a stop. Hmmmm.......I'm thinking this is not good.......maybe I should have stopped? eh? I went in to work, with my car lopsided in the parking lot, and waited for Josh to call back. Why I wanted to subject myself to his opinion on the matter I don't know!!! Of course when I told him the whole story I got an earfull!!! (you know better than to drive a car when it's running hot, yada yada yada, cost a fortune, yada yada yada, probably cracked a head, yada yada...Wait is he threatening me, or talking about the car. LOL JK) So I swiftly tell him I didn't call him to get yelled at, so tell me what to do so I can get back to work. Anyways, Franklin Automotive happens to be across the street from my work so I called them. They only work on higher end cars like Acura Volvo Infinity, etc. Well, since I drive an Acura I thought that would work out great. Long story short...they were able to get my car across the street without towing it, but apparently I have done some serious damage. I don't know how much yet, because when I told Josh how much the "cylinder leak test" was going to cost he had a coniption! Not to mention whatever it will cost to repair it!! Needless to say we are going to look around for somewhere else to take it. This will most likely either: max out our credit card which we have paid off and only keep for emergencies (such as this) (We don't even want to talk about the interest rate they inflicted on us before they made all of these laws restricting credit card companies.), or.... it will drain the itty bitty house fund that we have recently been working hard on . Or even better..... some combination of the two....drain house fund, and still have to put some on credit card.....I am a little stressed to say the least. The moral of this story is not to pull over when your car is running hot, however....you may definitely want to make a mental note of that for future reference....even though most people (including me) know it anyways. The moral of this story, is that crap happens! That is life. Like they say.....LIFE is what happens while you are busy making plans! I think this will be my quote for the day, even though I don't know who said it. It could be worse. I am trying to think positive, even though the thought of spending my little pennies that I have scraped together with the hopes and dreams of someday being out of my little death-trap-in-a tornado-trailer makes me want to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry uncontrollably for a few minutes. But I won't. (yes I know that is not a sentence, but this isn't english class) I have faith that God has a plan for my life, and sometimes we just hit a few bumps in the road. I will have my house one day. (And Megan so will You!! lol I read your post today and I feel your pain!) I guess that is all for now!

Update!

Here is what I finally did about my chest pain. I did take off the next day with the intentions of seeing a doctor. However, I hurt so bad that evening after work, that I decided I should go to the emergency room. I went to St. Vincents, and spent 8 hours being poked and prodded and monitored. First they did a chest x-ray. Then they did a blood test. The blood test they do to check for the possibility of clots is called a D-dimer. This just checks for increased levels of the clot disolving substance in your blood. My D-dimer came back slightly elevated. Because of this the doctor decided to do a CT scan to rule out blood clot for sure. Has anyone ever had one of those? OMG I am such a baby. (I know) but I almost had a panic attack. The lady doing the scan told me she was going to inject contrast dye into my IV. I knew that before she told me. What I didn't know was when she told me that the dye would make my body feel hot all over, and that I would feel it and taste it in the back of my throat, and that I would feel it in my bladder, and that it would feel like I was urinating on myself. This is when I got a little freaked out. She was not kidding either. It was terrible. I felt like my body was being totally taken over, and there was nothing I could do about it. It made me feel claustrophobic. I hated it! Anyways, long story short, my CT was normal. NO blood clots for me!! Yay! I just have a bad case of pleurisy. Just like they said before. I got another decadron shot and some more steroids for home. I feel sooooo much better! I can "breathe easy" now, knowing I don't have a blood clot. (pun intended) Peace of mind was worth the 8 hours in the ER. I also would like to say, that I am sooo thankful to God for having mercy on me, even when I don't deserve it. It is when you feel you worst, that you really appreciate your life and all of the blessings in it. God is so good to me! Why do we complain over the stupidest things? Thank you Father for my life, and my family, my sweet husband who takes great care of me, my dogs, and even my job! I am soooo blessed!

Chest pain is a pain in the butt!!

I need to vent. Ok here is the deal. I inherited a lovely chest cold from my sweet hubby last week. It happens. It is almost unavoidable when u sleep in the same bed with someone. Well, I of course am the only hygienist and assistant at my work. Most of you know that. Being the trooper that I am, I go in to work all last week because I can't stand to put someone in a bind! On Wednesday I was out of zombie mode, and feeling a little better. Still had a cough but that was it. On wed. night I had a sharp pain under my left rib. Thought nothing of it. Took some gas medicine thinking maybe it was gas pain and went to bed. (sorry if that is TMI) At 3am I woke with severe pain under my left rib. I could not breathe I could not move, laying down intensified the pain, no way to get relief. I woke my hubby and told him I thought something was terribly wrong, and that I could be dying. (a little dramatic I know) I turned a lovely shade of green, got nauseated but did not throw up, and got clammy. I got dressed and told Josh that I didn't want to pass out with no clothes on,(real clothes that is. I was in my t-shirt and undies) and that he may have to take me to the emergency room. He got up with me and I sat on the couch trying to decide if I was overreacting or if I should go to the emergency room. I calmed down and convinced myself that I was overreacting, and that my off-brand gas medicine obviously did not work so I took some more. lol. I sat on the couch until 5am which is when I was supposed to get ready for work. I thought I would not be able to work with this pain in my side and having no sleep so I decided I would call in at 6 and tell my boss I was not coming. At six when my alarm went off for me to call in I realized that I had dozed off, and that is when I had second thoughts about calling in. Who calls in for gas pain!!??? I then hopped in the shower, and left for work looking like a hot mess. When I got to work I asked if it would be ok if I saw my morning patients, and then go home. We only had one afternoon patient and I hoped we could reschedule. He agreed but was obviously less than thrilled, and wanted to "see how I felt now that I was up and moving around" UGH! Yeah! Because work always makes you feel better! Well, being the loyal employee that I am, I figured I was already at work why not suck it up and stay. So that is what I did. It was the last day of the week so I knew I could survive. I survived, and that night my mom made me some "sleepy time tea" a special concoction of her own that would hopefully help with my self-diagnosed "gas pain". Well it did something alright, but the "gas pain" was still there. Only now it was in my back and my shoulder. I knew then that I needed to see a doctor. I decided to bypass the emergency room and just see a doctor at the urgent care. I hate emergency rooms. Especially Jasper's!! The dr. at the urgent care seemed a little confused by my symptoms, and decided to do bloodwork, and chest and abdominal x-rays. X-rays were normal but he said two of my liver enzymes were almost double the normal level. He said he wasn't sure what it was but thought that I may have pleurisy, gave me a decadron shot and some pain meds and told me to come back in a week for more bloodwork. Ok, well after the decadron shot I did feel better, I slept better, but when I woke on Sat, I was hurting a little more (still felt better, but not as good as I did immediately after the shot) sunday I felt a little worse than saturday, and now it is Monday, and I feel a little worse than I did on Sunday. Everyone following me? I am thinking that I should feel progressively better? Is that too optimistic? I still don't feel as bad as I did the first day I had the pain, but I am not feeling better. I did some "research" on pleurisy and it can be caused by several things. One of those things being a chest infection. (Which I had the week before) Here is where I get a little uneasy, It can also be caused by a blood clot in the lungs. Ok...... I know. If that's what it was I would probably be dead by now, but I had all of the symptoms! And I really made a mess of my birth control pills this month. Taking 2 on more than one occasion because I kept forgetting. Obviously birth control is a risk factor for blood clots!! I decided today that I want a second opinion. Just to rule out blood clot. Is that stupid? Am I overreacting? Anyways I told my boss that I would like to take tomorrow off to see another doctor. (The first time I have actually taken any time off during this ordeal) He definitely is pissed. He didn't say that, but I can tell. I even found someone to cover for me while I'm gone!!! I want to scream at the top of my lungs (if I could without excruciating pain!) MY HEALTH IS MORE IMPORTANT!!!!! I have run myself ragged trying not to inconvenience him with my sickness. KISS MY ASS!!!!!!! Sorry ladies, I would rather type it than say it. It makes me feel a little better. Any opinions appreciated. Am I overreacting? Should I just "wait and see"? Thank you to anyone who actually read this whole post. I know it was long and boring.