Been a Rough Couple Weeks

Well! It's been a while, and since I don't want to put all the womp womp stuff in my holiday related posts, I'll just dump it here and get you caught up. The good news is I'm on break, hallefreakinglujah. But it felt like it took everything I had to get me here. 

1) My laptop died. Like, DIED. I normally am able to do a fair amount of blogging on my phone, but these past two weeks have been so crazy that I just didn't have it in me. So, now I am typing on my lovely new laptop that hopefully lasts a really really long time. I could have cried when it just up and died on me. 

2) School has been bananapants. First, we have no subs. Which means we are all subbing for each other, a weird cobbling together of prep periods to cover peoples' absences. It is super frustrating because a) it makes people like me feel horrendously guilty if we have to be out because we don't want our colleagues to have to sub for us, and b) it takes an already stressful year and then amplifies it because you just don't know if you'll have your prep time on any given day, so the days are squished. I have taught 6th grade math, 6th grade 12:1:1 ELA, and 7th grade resource lately. I don't mind helping out, especially since we are so short staffed and our principal had a personal emergency and he does anything for any of us so really, how could I ever say no? The thing that sucks is that other districts pay teachers a prorated sub pay for covering classes, since they didn't have to pay the sub. NOT WHERE I WORK. It's all goodness-of-our-hearts, be-a-team-player kind of stuff. So, that ups the stress levels because if you counted on getting stuff done during the school day to try to have work-life balance, GOOD LUCK WITH THE SUB ROULETTE. 

3) More school is kookoobananas: I got embroiled in a situation where my personal safety was at risk and then something happened where the union got involved on my behalf and then there was an emergency CSE and now I will no longer be involved with this student moving forward. I had a week of taking my emergency anxiety medication because it was just so awful on so many levels, and clearly I can't go into any more detail than this but holy hell that was exhausting. And December was like, Full Moon/Holiday Wackiness/EveryoneLoseTheirDamnMind time in general. BUT, when I go back in January I will have slightly less challenge, which is great because we'll be diving right into Annual Review season (Parent meetings! IEP writing! Paperwork galore!), and I got a new student pretty much at the same time I was losing the other one, but I think this will be a very good thing. A different kind of challenge. 

SIDEBAR: I don't want you to think everything is miserable at school. There is a whole lot of awesome, too. It just temporarily got way overshadowed by the most difficult situation I've ever had in my teaching career. AND THAT'S WITHOUT COVID FEARS. 

4) Remember when I fell and my arm looked terrible? Remember how some of you were like, "oh man, I'm so glad you didn't break your arm?" Well, a couple weeks after I fell I noticed that as the bruising was getting less painful I had limited range of motion in my shoulder, and pain from my arm up into my shoulder and sometimes my armpit. So I went to Urgent Care (great place to go when cases are rising but they were super swift about getting people into dedicated rooms) and got an x-ray. Good news: not broken or fractured! Bad news: got a referral for an orthopedic surgeon to check it all out and get different imaging, as they agreed something wasn't right. 

5) Good news: I don't need surgery at this point in time. Bad news: I have a partial tear of my rotator cuff. WHAT THE FUCKITTY FUCK. And, unfortunately, it took FIVE WEEKS to get an appointment from the referral and call. But, I got a cortisone shot, which was awful for a couple days and then worked some magic, and I start PT this week, since I literally had no time to call and make the appointment for two weeks. TWO WEEKS. Because school is bananapants. I'd had a cortisone shot in my knee a couple years ago, and that was also awful, but this I could feel in my elbow (thank you, nerves) when he was giving it to me, guided by ultrasound. I am grateful that he did it all behind me, so I never saw the needle. I am starting to feel better, pilates has actually been really great and there's a large number of women who have had shoulder injuries and surgery who my instructor works with, so that's been great to keep that going, although gingerly. 

6) This is just today, but I got glutened eating lunch at my own damn house. I got complacent and bought honey roasted turkey breast from the grocery deli, and apparently that is not safe for me. Which sucked because my sandwich was really, really good -- soft, non-frozen LaBrea GF white bread, mayo and honey mustard, tomato slices, turkey, and cheddar. But then the rest of the day I've been a mess. Sadness. 

Okay, I think that's pretty much all the womp-womp I have to give right now. Well, other than the fact that it feels distinctly like March 2020 and the whole Omicron thing has our numbers skyrocketing and I fear we're going to go virtual at some point because too many people will be sick at once, and people are saying "it's not a question of IF you're going to get COVID with Omicron, it's WHEN," which makes me want to vomit and hide in my house for the foreseeable future. We are going to be in self-imposed lockdown over break, and I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty good about it. Quiet time won't be something I'll complain about! 

There are so many good things coming -- Christmas, break, books, boudoir photos, end-of-year reflection. I hope you had a great holiday if you celebrate, and are safe and healthy and able to take a bit of a break. If you are working in healthcare, I'm thinking of you. Thank you for letting me cleanse myself of all the suck!