Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Mid-day laugh break

Just a quick note since my laugh, I mean lunch break is almost over:

I was cruising around the web to catch up on all the good stuff out there, when I stumbled upon this awesome article. The article itself is pretty good, but the title and picture are hilarious. Seriously just laughed until I cried.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Bum Heart

***Blog post disclaimer: Please don't freak out when reading this post. I'm perfectly fine and the doctors just want to take preventative measures.***

I've always known that I have a heart murmur which hasn't been a big deal. Lately I've been super fatigued and have been getting chest pains on and off. So, I've been getting all sorts of neato tests done to see what's going on. On Monday I had a chest x-ray taken. This was to see if I have tumors, heartworm (by the way, I just learned that humans can get heartworm. Eww, right?), mold in my lungs or other funky stuff. Results for that were negative, thank goodness. It would be embarrassing to have heartworm.

Today I've been put on a Holter monitor which is basically a 24 hour EKG test to look at my heart rhythms. I've got 7 electrodes hooked up to my chest to monitor my heartbeat which gets stored on this computer thing for analysis. It is really weird. I've been wearing my down vest all day to cover up the electrodes because I was getting too many questions about what was going on. Plus, with a bunch of colorful wires coming out of my shirt, leading to a little black box, I don't want anyone to think I'm a suicide bomber. Let's hope I don't raise any concern when I go to the elementary school for our program this afternoon.

On Monday I'll get an echocardiogram which is an ultrasound of the heart. Not too sure what that does exactly, but I guess it will be good to make sure my heart isn't pregnant.

I'll keep you posted on all this medical stuff. I'm an eternal optimist, so I really don't think anything is wrong, especially knowing that murmurs run in the family and haven't caused problems until later in life.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Photographic update

I've had a few comments about how I haven't posted lately...proof that life has gotten a bit crazy. I feel a doozy of an emotional post coming up, but for tonight I'll recap life in pictures.



We had an AmeriCorps retreat up in Estes Park a few weeks ago. I enjoyed about 67% of the conference, and ditched the other 33% to go on a hike. I got a lot more out of sitting on a mountaintop than I would have sitting in a classroom learning how to live on a stipend. Been there, done that.



We took some of our Dreamers to the Nature and Science museum in Denver. It was such a great trip because it was the first time I got to interact with them outside of the classroom setting. It was fascinating to see how their personalities were revealed.



On Saturday we took all of our Iris Dreamers to Six Flags for their Fright Fest. We had so much fun and got scared frequently by the creepy actors they pay to walk around the park. Our attempt to go through the haunted house was a semi-failure. We started out with 22 kids interested in going through, and only wound up with 8 who actually made it the whole way. Just so you know, the Six Flags haunted house is not so much for kids under the age of 12. We had several kids crying because they were so terrified. It was a good learning lesson.