good and bad.

**sigh**

So some good things and some bad things today. I’ll do this in chronological order.

Went to class, found out I got a 97 on my cardiac exam. YAY! I really wasnt expecting that. I expected an A but not a high one.

FINALLY called to see a chiropractor today. I couldnt take it anymore- the pain was worse today than ever (I had a "snap" incident on friday which made things worse). He could see me right away, which was great. The office and his practice was sketchy at best, but he seemed to know what he was talking about. After lengthy discussion and some manipulations of my legs etc, he said he thinks I have a herniated disc, and ordered an MRI for first thing in the morning.

DAMN IT.

The pain is so bad though I think it must be true. I dont want to drive all the way to Sarasota tomorrow early, but I have to. I’m hoping I dont have anything wrong, and then I can continue to simply recieve chiropractic care for my back problems and nothing else. But 2nd best is that there is just a slight bugle, or even a moderate bulge in my disc. That I can deal with, with chiropractic care. If its actually herniated things are going to get very ugly very fast. The doc thinks it might be caused by my epidural and the subsequent labor when I had Lucy! AHHHH this is not good because I definitely want to get an epidural with my 2nd baby. It made labor a breeze. But he might be right….i seriously felt like i got hit by a truck after labor, back and neck pain OUT OF CONTROL- so so so bad, but i thought it was normal after having tensed my muscles up for probably 12 hours solid. I remember the first few days I was home, I was already putting heat packs on my neck and shoulders and back everyday. It only got worse. My back pain has been bad ever since I had Lucy. Laying in bed and side lying (nursing) with her was torture but I did it for a year. I kept asking people how they could stand it, how the fuck could they possibly be comfortable night nursing (all night long!!!!!) while laying in bed with the baby. I was doing it, but I was resisting it and trying to get the baby back in the crib and sick of co sleeping…..but only because my back hurt so bad, but i didnt realize that at the time. How shitty I feel at the end of a long day….thats only because of my back pain. I’m taking tramadol a couple times a week now for the pain. I hate how it makes me feel and i dont want to take it. But I have no other choice really. I’m done taking it though, and I know I can avoid it becuase at least i’m on my way to a solution.

So I come home with all these worries on my mind about my back, not to mention terrible pain. Lucy is being whiny and Paul stops home for a quick visit and does nothing but sulk. I can tell he is upset. He had text me a few times earlier in the day about how bad work was going. So out of nowhere he asks if I’m prengnant, which I’m not. He is a little suprised becuase we’ve had sex several times without preventing, but what he doesnt know (that i did know) is it was never in my fertile window, so I knew i hadnt stood a chance at getting pregnant yet. So I said NO. And he said, "Well you’re not going to be." And it went downhill from there. Long story short—things suck at work and have for a long time now. But he has had it, so he says. He wants to quit but thats not really a good option. The big plan has always been to ride this thing till the wheels fall off, while he works on his charter business and i go to school. Then once his charters are brining in decent money, and I graduate with my RN, we would quit this job and move off island. He would work as a charter captain, with my dad involved, and I would work as a nurse. In the meantime we are suposed to have another baby, so that when I graudate I can go ahead and get into my carreer and make money, because we will really need my income once he quits the hotel (which he REALLY wants to do). So now, after a bad couple days at work, he wants to quit the hotel early. He cant wait until our other ventures are stable, he cant wait another year or 2 (which is what we’re talking), he has to quit NOW. He said in his GUT, he doesnt feel like he can have another baby right in the middle of this, that he needs time and we need to wait. His gut tells him dont have a baby right now. Which fucking sucks, because my gut tells me HAVE A BABY NOW.

When he gets home we are going to talk more, but he knows how I feel, i told him. He is reacting to a bad day at work. We all get that way. We all want to quit on the bad days, and on the good days we feel like we can make it another year until we are able to quit safely. If he really has to quit I will find a way to help him make the best choices for our family. I will help him find something that works, where we can still follow our big dreams, still achieve our goals, and still make ends meet (which is always the hardest part.) he just text me….

"I feel about as small and scared as I ever have (its all diff now with a child_ it can all be taken away now and it could hurt us. i need them now, it used to not matter, now it really does matter". referring to his company that he hates. The people he works for are sneaky and dont like him as it is. They talk behind his back, have meetings and dont include him. They might promote this dude he came up with instead of him. There is no exec chef right now so its like pandamonium. Paul is the banquet chef and seth is the chef of the main dining room so they are EQUAL in the brigade system, but seth is put on a pedistal and paul is shit on. I know thats a tough pill to swallow…..part of me wants him to be able to quit. I want him to walk out and say fuck you. But the other part of me wants him to suck it up and hold on and deal with it for just a little while longer so we can get out situation straighened out before making that big move to quit. There is no part of me that is winning here. I have told him many times to hold on, and gave him tips on how to do so, so he didnt have to quit….but how much longer can i repeat that? Eventually i will have to say, Honey its ok, you shouldnt have to go through this anymore, lets quit. But what would we really do??? Our housing is paid for. I dont work (much) and I am in school. Thats not going to change until Decmber 2014. He would have to find a job that pays at least 60 K or thereabouts in order for us to make it. I guess I should crunch the numbers and really see how much it would take. We dont have rent or utility bills here, and if we move out of here we will also need a second car, which means more gas too. Right now we have 1 car and I am the only one who drives and uses gas. Our lives would change drastically if he quit and we had to move off island. He would seriously need to have a high paying job if we were going to make it. I can see why he wouldnt want to have another baby right now. But our money problems would be temporary, until he was able to bring in charter money, and until i got my degree. I will be working all this summer though, no matter what happens with Paul, and we can save that up. We are also getting our tax return, like 5-6K, any day now. I have great financial aid and grants. It would be a short time that we would struggle financially. And it would be worse if we waited until after i graduted to have a baby. Then i would be out of work even LONGER than I already

plan to be.

I am going to crunch the numbers before he gets home.