finally finished nightstand

Because I am CHEAP one of the Christmas present Oona got from me was a nightstand that I finally got around to refinish, one year later. I got the piece for $10 at a yard sale, unfortunately when I stripped it the wood wasn't in good enough shape to stain so I had to repaint it. I love working on furniture, aside from the paranoia of inhaling lead paint fumes which I'm really hoping my green stripper that I use sort of neutralizes. See during my breaks from school is when I start fantasizing about owning a store where I sell furniture I redo and jewelry I make and crafty items I find. I just love crafty stuff and maybe this fantasizing is a good way to handle my stress with school. Good lord we have a test next monday where a good third of the test is understanding various heart arrhythmias (atrial and ventricular) and being able to figure them out from EKG readings and it is a lot to digest, not to mention knowing the medical conditions that correspond to said arrhythmias AND the medications you then use to treat them. My mind just doesn't latch onto this information the way it does other medical stuff, it just feels too abstract to me right now and if I can't contextualize my information I'm sort of a goner AND (once again, the panic inducing all caps and) it's twenty-five different rhythms! So... here's hoping I can make it gel this week. Wish me luck. Just in case you want to try you hand at understanding EKG rhythms you can go here and learn more, I'm sure you're all just dying to check out this site.

I was walking through Highland Park around dinnertime the other day and just liked the way the dormant hydrangea looked next to these puplish black pods thingies. Yes, obviously I am no master gardener. I have no idea what type of plant this is but I liked the contrast of the colors and that it was dark it made the contrast even more vibrant.

Off on running with school. Have had two full days learning to read EKG rhythms. Oh my it all makes sense until we go on to the next section of abnormal rhythms and then I'm like, wait I still have to remember all those ones before that I just learned. Gotta make space in my brain for this stuff to sink in. On the plus side Monday, after our lecture I caught a House episode where the patient went into super ventricular tachycardia and they need to cardiovert her and I understood what they were talking about. If nothing else, it makes my House viewing that much more enjoyable. Oh and one helpful bit of meaningless house gaffe trivia, they almost always put their stethoscopes on backwards on that show.

I hope everyone survived their holidays. Well I really hope people actually enjoyed their holidays, but I find this time more than a little stressful, so sometimes, just getting through them emotionally/psychologically intact makes them enjoyable. I not only got through adult 1 without winding up in the local psychiatric hospital (no small feat there given this fall) but I got high honors to boot. I don't like to toot my own horn but given the past few months I've had I'm very happy that I got through. A quarter of my class wound up with a D or worse, which means they have to retake the course again, and my heart breaks for them. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe they're not so upset, but I find this whole nursing school experience so unbelievably stressful, rewarding too, but man it really takes you to the brink in terms of seeing what you can handle. Let's see good things that have happened this past term. I had one horrible clinical instructor and two wonderful ones, one of whom I got along with especially well (when I started talking about how the computer system at the hospital drives me crazy the instructor was like 'I'm so jealous you're going to get one of those jobs in nursing with computers. Please take me with you if you do.' And as I look into nursing informatics, I don't know, it's like it would combine all the apparent dead ends in my life career wise and it would make sense and if that could work and I could get paid well and make a difference, oh my I would jump up and down with joy every day. Seriously.) I sort of collect, in my heart and head, these instructors who nurture me, because I need those good feelings to look back on during the very tough times. One charge nurse took me aside at the hospital one day, my stomach instantly dropped and I was trying to recount what I might have fucked up on, but she said that Mrs. G's students are always very good on the floor (medically complex floor) but she wanted to let me know that I was going to be paid very well and make an excellent nurse. That I was very gentle with the patients, asked questions of the staff in an assertive but gracious way and was quietly confident, she stressed that my not being loud was something her floor greatly appreciated and, unfortunately, I know what she means because I've heard other loud nursing students. I kept saying thank you and I swear I was close to crying what she said made me feel so good. Of course the next day my patient had altered mental status and insulted me most of the day, she didn't know better, but after my father yelling at me the day before he died, it cut a little too close to home. Then my instructor got upset because I was trying to fill out a pain reassessment (to document how the patient has responded to pain medication) and I didn't know what to put because she was so out of it she thought I was talking about paint not pain. And my instructor was mad at my dithering and I just burst into tears, not my finest moment. I'm telling you nursing school is like this emotional roller coaster but I made it through this term. I just need to think of Dory in Finding Nemo 'just keep swimming' and sort of maintain that attitude through the next 38 weeks of school. This term will probably be my toughest because it's the critical care term, so I'll be spending my clinical days in the ICU for the most part. God help me. I have clinical nightmares, where I forget to give medication or do the wrong thing, make horrible mistakes and feel so bad and guilty. I wish there was a drug I could take that could eliminate those bad dreams from my subconscious and put confidence boosting ones in their place. Anyhow I had such a long 'things to do' list that I wanted to cross my way through over my two and a half weeks off. I didn't cross off nearly as much as I would have liked to but I did read Freedom, which I highly highly recommend (I had to put the NPR link because he makes so many hysterical comments about NPR listeners in the book). I saw Black Swan which was good and The Fighter, which was better. I got some things done around the house but the stuff that needs to be done around here is like an avalanche I'm always running three feet in front of. I so look forward to the day when I no longer feel like there's an avalance behind me.

My resolutions for the New Year are
1. to wean my coffee intake to one large cup a day and drink water for the remainder of the day, eat more fruit and vegetables, limit my sugar and try to cut down on the processed food. yes i make this resolution every damn year but hopefully one of these days it will happen.

2. hula hoop everyday for fifteen minutes in addition to my usual gym routine. do not underestimate the enjoyable exercise that is the hula hoop.

3. try to get more friends locally, because I really have next to no social life in Pittsburgh (pathetic I know, but I'm really shy in person) and sure school is busy but it would be nice to go out for coffee or a movie or breakfast with someone aside from myself, my mom or my kids.

4. post more on this blog, even if it's just random photos.

5. do more creative stuff while in school, it's hard to carve out that time but I think it might be critical for my mental health to avoid becoming totally consumed with being a nursing student and only measuring myself through that lens. (wow! and I thought the mom lens was a particularly self critical one, nursing student is right up there with it).

To the few who read this I truly wish you all the very best. My old friends that I've loved for years and had wonderful experiences with and the new friend I met through the blogworld who I've never seen face to face but who fits right in with those I've known forever. Happy 2011!


christmas booty. the tree is topped with a fleece kitty that my kids got me for my birthday, oona said it was for me to sleep with when they aren't at my house. she's very sweet about worrying about me sleeping alone and will put her stuffed animals in my bed to keep me company. the tree ornaments are incredibly kid friendly thanks to my aunt joy sending me new ornaments every year.

oona never met a pattern she didn't like, or one that didn't go with another. i think if you asked her her favorite color it would be some pattern.

see that lavender tower in back, in the living room? the elves must have been drunk making that, at least that's what I told the kids, between muttered curses trying to snap the not quite right plastic parts into one another. what a flipping nightmare.

this picture cracks me up because owen sort of looks like those photos of politicians in the middle of making some crucial point about how they're right.

my kids love washing the dishes. the gloves are comically large on oona.

pictures of the highland park reservoir. for some reason this last one looks almost like it was taken with a fish eye lens to me. and it sort of looks austere and a bit melancholy

For close to three years now I've had a secret crush on this man that goes to the same gym as me. He looks a bit like Tim Roth and Eddie Munster. Oh, how desirable you say. Well he's like 95% Tim Roth and 5% Eddie Munster but I just can't deny that 5 %, although I'm sure he would. If I were ever to talk to him say. Yes this is someone I see pretty regularly, before school started almost daily. And in those three years I've maybe had three conversations with him. Two painfully awkward ones, in the presence of my children, in the elevator and one equally maladroit attempt at chatting when I saw him by myself. Oh and two and half years ago he smiled at me in the parking lot, I had driven back to retrieve my gym bag which I had left in the parking lot. So what do I do? Smile back? Hell no. I made this strangled gasp, grabbed my bag and ran around my car in a circle (it was like a chinese fire drill with myself) . Honestly it would have been harder to look more laughable. I mean he's married with two children, so there's no reason for me to be such an idiot around him, he's not even available. But I don't know what it is, some people just turn my insides to mush (brain included) and I become this middle aged infatuated moron. How attractive. On one hand I realize that if I were to talk to him, at length, like get to know him, this whole crush might be dispelled because he could very well be dull or dumb or close-minded or not funny, so in some incredibly bizarre masochistic sense it's good that I don't talk to him. And honestly what's the likelihood that I could talk to him without potent pharmaceutical intervention? But this way he forever maintains the status of being the man at the gym that makes me weak in the knees.

so with school and my avalanche of stressors (situational and self induced) which shows no signs of slowing i don't get much quality time with the kids so i'm going to start taking either owen or oona for a few hours on saturdays so i can just have fun time with them and reconnect because i'm feeling really lost from them since school started and it's a horrible feeling. yesterday i took owen biking (that's zoo traffic in the background, don't even get me started on that since the easiest way to my home is taking the same street zoo parking is on.) and then we had hot chocolate and brownies together and it was really nice and such a welcome break from my life of late.

has anyone seen a tree with these type of thorny growths on it before?

owen and i kept talking about how nasty looking it was and he was saying if the womping willow in harry potter had these type of thorns on the ends of it it would be even nastier a tree than it already is and no amount of pumpking juice could heal the wounds such a tree might mete out.

here's owen poking at one of the more benign thorn growths.

owen's making a peace sign which you can see on the large version of this picture, probably not so clear scaled down this much.

setting the bar low

Well, lower. I've gone from needing to be the top student in my class, to needing to get high honors this term, to maybe honors is enough, to why don't I just try to get through the term where I only visit WPIC (the psychiatric rotation in our clinical term) as a student observing and not as an actual patient being admitted. I know I am setting the bar real low here but i'm sort of crossing my fingers, hoping I can do it. I have a midterm on monday which I'll be studying for in every spare minute over the next three days (when i'm not procrastinating by writing or cleaning) because the tests this term are kicking my ass! Of course, it would help matters if my heart would comply with my body when I try to relax and focus but no. Thank you very much for the support in my previous post, you don't know how much that helps right now.

american beauty

I have wanted to write for so many weeks but I don't even know where to begin. I feel so raw from everything I've been going through for the past month. My father died on September 18th. I'm thankful that I was able to see him before he died and my children got to see him too. Owen was sensitive, as usual, and frightened by my father's appearance that had become horribly distorted from the cancer and medications. Oona was unfazed and ran up to hug him then twirl through the room. I spoke with my Dad on a Monday and he was fine. By Tuesday he couldn't talk clearly to me, the cancer took over his brain that quickly. Of course it also attacked his liver so the toxins in his body just went up to the brain, adding insult to injury. Death is not tidy. I just wanted to say goodbye to him and tell him not to worry, that I loved him and I would be okay, that he didn't need to worry about me. He yelled at me when I tried to feed him lunch the day we left. I know, intellectually, that it wasn't him. He was out of it cognitively, even when he yelled it was that he didn't want that medication that he thought I was giving him. But I bawled. It was the one time his eyes were open, bright blue and seemingly clear even though what he was shouting about made no sense. It was horrible. And I don't want that to be what I remember. And his siblings keep telling me not to worry about the 'cross words I had with my dad at the end' which isn't even accurate and that I was his pride and how much he loved me and it just feels so empty. And is it just bitchy of me to feel that way? Oh and to top it off, the last day we were in Cleveland I discovered that my children were completely infested with lice. I'd wanted to stay until Saturday, which is the day my father died, but I couldn't see how I could do that with the lice in a hotel. I was overwhelmed. I came home to start the nitpicking and laundry (which took on Fantasia proportions). My first test in school was that Monday. I'm phoning it in with school, I mean I'm trying but I get these waves where I'm just crushed with how bad I feel. I have trouble eating (so I look horrible!) the past month I've been feeling like my body is in a state of a permanent panic attack. Oh and did I mention that the bulk of my student loan went towards paying for my father's cremation? I just want to sleep, if my racing heart will let me. But actually I really need to study because I've got another test tomorrow and a midterm next Monday, nursing school doesn't stop and I'm not supposed to either.

So... I started writing poetry.. Because isn't that what everybody does at a point of crisis in their lives? Someone I love gave me this book over the summer and I loved it and it made me want to write again. Even if it winds up being the poor man's version of this book. I can just write my poetry memoir, minus the anorexia, plus the bulimia and with a lot more alcohol consumption (and boyfriends!) and file it away and not have those memories gnawing at me. This poem isn't breaking properly on the blog but I can't figure out how to make that work right now. I'm just happy I was able to type a somewhat coherent post at this point.


American Beauty

My dress for prom was shiny satin, sweetheart neckline, the color
a deep fuschia. The lady at the store wore a corsage of pins on her wrist
that she plucked from to take in my waist
She deemed it amercian beauty rose through lips pressed tight
over the steel petals in her mouth. I fell for the fancier name.
My shoes were dyed to match. Junior prom and I was bringing him.
But I had on the necklace you gave me, a synthetic stone hung
from the thinnest gold chain. I never found it pretty.
But it was enough to remember the smile on your face when I opened the box
that was enough to make me happy. So Christina borrowed my pearls
and they looked lovely on her. And I became cozy with regret.
Slipped away from his hand as it climbed higher along the back
of my satin thigh as we stood under an arbor weighted
with fake roses waiting for the flash to go off.
It wasn’t fair. I’d had no shame about making out
in front of the group that shared our limo. The badness I’d been so intent on
erasing was becoming a bigger, darker mess. My handiwork
only made things worse. I realized too late that I was in
over my head. I laughed it off when he told me
once the best time in his life had come and gone
he was going to start taking chances. I couldn’t truly respond, fear
took my voice away. Later as I drove him home he wouldn’t stop.
Kissing my face, my neck, buried his face in my shoulder
to nibble at a clavicle. I took my hand off the stick, pushed him back
and chided you can’t do that or we’ll get ourselves killed. Undeterred
he continued up to my ear whispering but wouldn’t it be a great way to die.

first day of school

For owen that is. i have to wait until next wednesday for Oona's first day of kindergarten. But Owen was very excited about his first day and his new 'snazzy' pants for his first day of school. Another couple of weeks and those snazzy pants of his are going to be snazzy floods what with the way he's growing. I call him cricket and hopper lately, when I look at his long slender sticks for legs, he weighs in at 60 pounds after eating a very large meal. And the slick shoes that were dressier than his usual run of the mill velcro sneakers. Owen is a boy who likes to dress up for the occasion, whatever it is. He's actually talked about owning a tux in some not to distant future in his 8 year old head. Of course I've also come into his room, waaay past his bed time, to find him bawling worried about college, getting a job, affording a house. Yes the boy clearly takes after me with respect to spiralling out of control with catastrophic, crippling anxiety at inappropriate times (although I'm not sure if there ever is a truly appropriate time). But I don't know where the dandyisms comes from, although, now that I think of it, my Dad, his Grandpa Boo, was a bit of a clotheshorse. The man had bespoke shirts, suits and coats when he was traveling to the Far East every six weeks for work, back when I was in middle school. Those were the days.

Maybe it's just me but i think Owen's belly button bears more than a passing resemblance to a yin yang symbol. That and being born on August 8th (8/8) I think Owen would be very appreciated if he took a trip to China and, you know, went around flashing his navel and shouting out his birthday. Apparently in Chinese numerology 8 is a very auspicious number, one reason why the beijing olympics started on 8/8/08, and yes they carried the 8 to the limit with the official starting time having been 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm. I also just learned (thank you wikipedia!) that 88 is bears a visual resemblance (when you look at chinese characters) to 'double joy' which is a popular decorative design for joy or happiness. But that belly button, if you can look past the bit in the middle which makes even me, his own mom, squeamish at the resemblance to brain, the outer part looks like a yin yang.

august

Owen turned 8 last sunday, on 8/8 no less. If i had my shit together a little better I might have posted something earlier but this past week I had my final in school and was sort of overwhelmed with the whole nursing school shebang. Oh, by the way, many posts ago I bemoaned the state of my hair, or lack thereof. Well I had a scalp biopsy and it turns out I have telogen effluvium which is a condition that can be brought on by stress and usually winds up correcting itself once the stressor is removed. I'm just hoping that nursing school isn't the stressor otherwise I might be profusely shedding for the next couple of years, since I'm assuming my first year on the job might be a wee bit stressful too.

But back to Owen, his birthday and that enviable torso with nary an ounce of fat on it. I had custody of Owen for his official birthday. Just writing that sentence is so sad and let me tell you if you beat yourself up or question your parenting as a stay at home mom being a single parent kicks the parental self flagellation to a whole other level. Well I got Owen and his friend E saturday evening to take them to see Sorcerer's Apprentice. Originally E was going to sleep over at our house and go to the wave pool in the morning with us but he was a little nervous about the sleep over idea so we dropped him at home and picked him up in the morning. It was a really nice birthday with Owen and his friend. They get along swimmingly and they were so cute to watch in the wave pool, bobbing and plugging their noses against oncoming waves and, my word, how did my son get so big overnight? It was nice to spend the day with just Owen and his friend. That's the hardest thing for me with single parenting. I miss out on the one on one time you can have with your children when there's another partner in parenting. It's especially hard because Owen and Oona will fight for my attention and then I yell at them to stop the fighting and my time with them has changed so radically in the past year and a half as it is. And now being in school, I love learning all the new things about medicine but the time taken away from my kids. It kills me in a very soul sucking at any remnants of self esteem I might possess sort of way. But I need to think positive. Owen and E really enjoyed themselves at the wave pool and after dropping E off in the late afternoon we came back home and played Operation. Owen was most impressed with my surgical skills. I think he thought I did so well due to being in nursing school. I got Owen a bike because he still doesn't know how to ride a bicycle, little knife of parental guilt with that admission. He's a bit nervous about the idea of falling but, well I got Oona a bike too, because she's braver and I thought that might help with Owen's nervousness. I'm hoping to get them riding by the time school rolls around for all of us. I'm also hoping that this idea isn't a recipe for disaster between the three of us; frustration, fear, new skill and easily overwhelmed parent... I'll keep you posted.

fledgling

Awesome clinical week. I got to put in a catheter on a patient yesterday, smoothly and successfully, of which I'm eternally grateful for. My patient had a significant change in mental status from tuesday to wednesday and someone I was working with ignored my repeated concerns about this. Being the lowly nursing student it is very easy to be blown off. Fortunately my instructor listened to my concerns. She got involved, a request for consult from a doctor or nurse practitioner was put in. I overheard the nurse practitioner on the phone after meeting with my patient, she didn't see a significant problem but was ordering additional blood work. When she got off the phone I mentioned that I was the student working with said patient and that there was a marked difference in mental status from tuesday to wednesday. It turns out I was very right about being concerned with my patient's altered mental status. Based on the lab results, which I looked over today, I'm pretty sure the link in the previous sentence is what afflicted my patient. They wound up transferring my patient to another unit (a step below ICU but a step above where the patient had been). I hated to see a patient's condition deteriorate but I am very happy that my assessment skills were accurate and that it resulted in helping my patient. Being so new at this I doubt almost everything I hear, see or think on the floor. I want to go with my gut but I frequently feel like I'm too inexperienced to go with the gut since I don't know what I'm doing. It's on the job training in the most terrifying sense when it's the health of people on the line. But I was right! To make a difference for the better by using my nursing skills, is infinitely better than acing any test. Plus I got to hear an amazing heart sound with my patient both days. A swishing sound, which made me question my hearing but after researching my patient's chart more and looking (and listening) to stuff online I was right with what I had heard. It's amazing to develop these skills. Well, back to reality I've got a killer test and diabetes presentation to study for.

I've been remiss. Actually I've been sucked into the quicksand that is nursing school. It's affecting my dreams, or I should say nightmares, because I have many a nightmare where I'm working in some completely unsanitary hospital trying to load and administer a heparin shot and I just can't get it right. Oh my. And I thought it was bad when I had nightmares about waitressing when I worked at a diner during my summer's home from college. I'm buoyed on by the fact I still love medicine, the more I learn the more I love it, it's endlessly fascinating to me. My patients are so wonderful. I don't really consider myself a people person because I'm sorta introverted by nature and can get painfully awkward trying to make small talk with people. On a side note someone I see all the time at my gym but never talk to given my shyness was in this small computer room with me just last week and I wanted to disappear that's how bad my shyness is, especially when this guy sees me sweat profusely in clothes that leave little to the imagination. But he actually came up and introduced himself and was really nice, which restored my faith in physicians. I being an idiot and caffeine deprived (never good to go from 5 am to 11 am without coffee) asked him nothing about himself and wound up kicking myself for being such a social idiot as soon as he left. But back to my patients. The patients I've had reaffirm my belief that most people are inherently good and kind and that they reaffirm this belief in me while they are in a position of physical vulnerability, I am indebted to them for what they teach me. My favorite patient so far, I had her a couple of weeks ago. She had a name as inspirational as her outlook on life. This woman had been through a medical nightmare and yet she was so well adjusted and emotionally sound it was dumbfounding to me. She was a retired teacher though and it came through in the how kind she was with me. At one point she commented on my photo ID being a nice picture of me (remember the drama I went through for that picture) and then she's like, 'It looks like you've lost weight.' I started saying no but I guess I have, the stress is wrecking havoc on my body, my hair, my face (I'm aiming for fixing my face with graduation, passing NCLEX and a job in hand). She was funny and smart and gentle and when I work with patients like her I'm so grateful for this career I'm choosing. I just tend to get very hard on myself for any mistake I make because, well peoples lives are on the line. But this woman told me as I was finishing my shift that I was going to make a heck of a nurse and I felt like the grinch when his heart swelled to three sizes to big. It made me feel like all the hair off my head and on the floor might be worth it in the long run.

So yeah, these pictures have nothing to do with nursing. I had the kids on sunday and wanted to take them to a wave pool but got horribly lost for an hour and a half, wound up bawling and settled for Beechwood farms which I know how to get to. It was a pretty day though and I got to take some pictures of them, it's been too long.

I'm in love with my daughter's profile

okay I've got to admit I get very neurotic when I see feathers in kids hands, especially my kids hands, when I think of where that feather has been, like on the avian ass of a carrier of a potential killer strain of influenza. Lots of speculative ofs in that sentence. Even if that's not the case it was probably lying in goose scat moments before.


I don't know what has happened to the bottom half of my face but I want it to stop NOW. I tried to crop myself out of the picture, because Owen and Oona look so cute in it, but it looked too odd cropped.



This picture was a happy accident but I liked how it looked like evening when it was the reflection in the water.

just a little pinch

I gave my first shot today. Subcutaneous heparin in the abdomen for DVT prophylaxis, since surgery can put you at risk for DVT and my patient just had a gastric bypass. She's nice as could be, doing remarkably well for her first day postop. And when I gave the shot I didn't hesitate and I didn't hurt her, aside from the pesky pinch. Thank you God! I get to do another tomorrow. Subcutaneous shots seem relatively easy. Honestly if I can do it, and I worry about everything, then they're relatively easy to do. The real challenge will come with intramuscular injections, which are your immunizations and flu shots. Longer needle, a little bit trickier in terms of the areas you inject in and apparently some nurses and nurses in training have hit bone. The person receiving the shot never realizes this because the bone has no nerves on the exterior. But for the person giving the shot, it's a feeling they never forget (one student said it's like putting your needle into a rock). Our instructor said she could always tell who hit bone during flu clinic by the look on the students face, they get wide-eyed real quick. So I've removed an IV, removed 2 foley catheters, given the subQ shot, emptied a Jackson Pratt drain and flushed an NG (nasogastric) tube. Oh and I started passing oral meds last week. It's hard to believe I'm doing all this stuff four months into school! And I've been up since 5 this morning and have to wake up at 5 tomorrow so I better stop blogging and start winding down for bed. Hope you all are well and that no one needs a catheter anytime soon.

Oh my. That seems to be the phrase that best sums up my life right now, at least the best profanity free phrase. So in this picture to the left I look like my normal self, aside from being a little glum, since stress seems to be a permanent state that I'm in lately, and a little bit skinny, side effect from all that stress. You might have thought I was joking with the losing my hair post. I have complained about my baby fine hair quite a few times before. But what I would give to have that baby fine hair of two years ago. I went to the dermatologist on friday and had a messload of blood drawn to see if there is a medical reason for my hair loss. In the past month my hair has become so thin that I spend most of my weekends crying about it. Yeah, I probably should buy a few scarves and get out more. But I cannot stress to you just how devastating this is. I mean I never had nice hair, aside from when I was a child, but at least I had hair that covered my head.

In the two weeks since my last hair rant post I've lost enough hair that you can now see my scalp pretty clearly. And if I push the hair to the other side, well it's just as obvious. It's thinning everywhere. Never before have I prayed so hard that there is something seriously medically wrong with me. Hyperthyroidism, lupus, brain tumor. I don't care how bad it is, as long as it can be treated and this hair loss can stop. I keep thinking, it would be one thing if this was happening to me but the rest of my life was not in the crap maelstrom it currently is. Okay, I know I'm not dying. But I don't have a husband or boyfriend that loves me no matter what and really how much more difficult is being bald gonna make it to find that. What the fuck did I do in a previous life (or this one for that matter) to deserve this kick in the ass of the little self confidence I possessed. I'm embarrassed to even go out. I only go to school and the gym. And I'm starting to worry about how to cover up my scalp. I so don't want to be the person people gawk at because of the way I look. Okay and on an aside, because you know I've become an alopecia expert in the month I've noticed this problem, it seems unfair that there are programs to give woman undergoing chemo wigs but nothing for people who lose hair due to other conditions. Locks of love helps children who lose hair for the many different medical conditions but there doesn't seem to be an adult equivalent of locks of love and let me tell you some of the high quality wigs can get really, crazy expensive. There are laser treatments for hair loss too, and some that get really fancy where you can add your own plasma rich protein to the laser treatment but I'm pretty sure that's waaay outside of my price range. When I think of all the expenses around this house that I can't afford how the hell will I manage to get a decent looking wig? If it gets really bad I'm just gonna shave my head and charge a really nice wig to my credit card. I'm not asking for Rapunzel locks I just want hair that covers my head.