Tuesday, August 26, 2014

I Must Look Like A Grasshopper When I Run

Going back to school went pretty well for me. I had three art classes for my last semester, which was quite a bit more relaxed than I was used to. I did a silk screen printing class, which I enjoyed much more than I ever thought I would. It's nerve racking being in art classes as a scientist. I realized how differently I see things than my artistic classmates. It took me some time to realize that I needed to see things in a more literal sense than an analytic sense. I felt like it took me some time, but I figured out how to do that. Silk screen printing was hard after getting my gall bladder out, however. You need to be able to push down on the squeegee with equal pressure from both shoulders multiple times. It's an incredible amount of fun, but extremely hard when you've just had surgery and both your shoulders are weak!

The last semester of school went incredibly fast. In my mind, it went much too fast. I started looking around the school as I walked and realized that I wasn't going to be there much longer as a student or as an employee. I started to panic as well, because I realized how much harder life was going to be past University. I could no longer take a week or two off for surgeries so easily because I was unsure of how my future employers would be able to handle that. I would no longer have things like reading week to take breaks with. Even worse, I would be leaving the University as an employee and I was really going to miss my coworkers. Time steadily passed, just as it had for the past 7 years, and I was soon looking towards the last days of school. Art classes don't have exams, so the last day of school for me was going to be exactly that: the last day of school.

It was around this time that I headed back to my shoulder surgeon to have a checkup for my shoulder graft. My surgeon was extremely happy with how my left shoulder was progressing. He asked me if I had any concerns, and I said that my right shoulder was hurting. It was the same symptoms as when my left shoulder had first collapsed, there was pain and stiffness, though this came and went so I figured it was just a less extreme collapse. He gave me an x-ray on it that day, and it looked fine, but he said there was obviously an issue if I felt pain, so we may as well do surgery and figure out what happened. I can't explain how happy I am to have a surgeon who trusts me and trusts the fact that I know when something is wrong. He told me to schedule it with his nurse. I decided to wait until after I'd started my job to schedule it, because I didn't want to start my job by saying "by the way I have surgery next week."

Finally, school ended, and I went on a trip to Europe with my family! We went so many places because it was a lengthy cruise. We were all so worried about me, we even brought my travel wheelchair just in case (though in hindsight, it wouldn't have done much off the ship because of the cobblestones). We were joking about me sitting on it on the ship and rolling from the left to right side and back, because of the waves. It was one of the best travel experiences I'd ever had, and it was a great way to get even closer to my family. At the end of the trip I was taking several Tylenol 3's a day because my joints were so sore and I was so tired, but I'm happy it didn't cloud my mind, so I'll always remember it. At one point, in Venice, we were waiting for a boat ride to take us to some different areas and then deposit us at the ship. However, that boat never came. My family told me to run to a different part of the block we were on to see if there was a bunch of people waiting over there. I ran but didn't see anything, so I turned back around and saw the three of them walking towards me and laughing. When they got to me, they told me they'd never seen me run before, and that it was hilarious. That's the last time I'll ever run.

When I got back home, I started my new job. It was similar to the University in the sense that everyone was incredibly nice. I got put on a nice big project and was able to use my brain from day one! I found it interesting and challenging, and I was able to wake up feeling excited about going to work every day. I immediately started getting post-school anxiety, however. It was surprising how much time I had left in my day after work was finished. I struggled with finding ways to fill it. This is around the time that I started playing World of Warcraft again, just to ease my frustrations.

A couple of weeks after starting work, I had my convocation from University! I was excited for so many reasons. This was my first real graduation, where I could stay for the entire event and not have to cut it short. As well, I really enjoyed University, and this was a huge stepping stone for me to the beginning of my post-school life. After 7 years, I finally made it through school and was ready to live as an adult! A few people came to watch me, but unfortunately my grandparents were not included in that. I was extremely disappointed about it, but because of recent health issues, none of them were really well enough to make the drive and sit through the convocation. I understood, but was upset about it.

One issue I immediately had was that I was still going back and forth to Hanna on some weekends. I disliked leaving and was finding that I'd often take my laptop with me, just in case. I started getting frustrated with the distance and was looking to just focus more on work and making roots for myself somewhere. He was an extremely nice guy, but I was getting overwhelmed with where I was headed in life and was unsure how to take the next steps while factoring him in. I realized that in order to figure out where I was going, I was going to need some space. So shortly after beginning my job, we broke up.

As you can probably tell, this wasn't the most interesting period of my life, but it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I was finishing off some parts of my life, and was starting others. This was definitely a turning point for me however, and was setting the stage for an interesting few months.