DaVinci hysterectomy. Sounds much more elegant than robotic hysterectomy, doesn't it? The surgery itself is touted as the latest thing, practically a day at the spa. A simple overnight hospital stay and back to near normal activity within 3 weeks. Sure I can go back to work, less pain too. Less scarring, they are practically doing me a favor, Think of the benefits, no more crime scene sheets every month, no more lady times that are anything BUT delicate and lady like. No more iron dropping passing out feeling. Oh the list of the wonders goes on and on.
I am of couse a bit skeptical about the joys of it all. This shall be my 7th abdominal procedure and I have prodigious scarring to testify to the complications that sometimes arise. But after many months of trying to treat adynomysis (having first ignored the ever increasing pain and inconvenience for a couple of years!) the time has come to get this thing done.
There is absolutely no chance of feeling sorry for myself however. I have a friend who just had the procedure done after a positive diagnosis of cancer. My biopsies have come out clean! Then this morning I had a long conversation with a friend younger than I. Both she and her sister have tested positve for the gene that causes breast cancer. Women who have this mutation have an 85% chance of developing ovarian or breast cancer.
So both she and her sister need hysterctomies and then masectomies. This will drop their risk down to 2%. Radical though, can you even imagine? Plus she has two young children that she has to worry about since they each have a 50 50 chance of having the exact same gene mutation.
I have a surgery at an inconvenient time that may or may not have complications. Those complications could lay me up for nearly 2 months instead of the projected few weeks. The doctors have no way of knowing until they are in the midst of the procedure.But it is not cancer. I only truly have to worry about myself, not my sibling or my children.
So I am in a pretty realistic place right now. I have a stack of books to catch up on fun reading. I also have house plans if the surgery is the robotic one and therefore I can do stairs, drive etc, or if it ends up the full abdominal, which means no stairs and no driving.
The biggest stress may turn out to be that 2 days after the surgery I find out whether or not I passed that damn math MTEL. I go under the knife on Nov 14th, Nikki'sbirthday. Hopefully it will all be smooth sailing. If not, well I have dealt with that before and got thru it just fine.
As for now I am working out and eating right and trying to get ahead of my big thesis which will be due the month after my surgery. lolol Life does tend to get complicated around here, there is always some adventure or another, that's for certain!
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Endings and Beginnings
Well our 17th rabbit show season offically ended today in Storrs Connecticut. 2013 show season starts in Maine in January (or February if it is too snowy or travel funds are low.) We ended on a positive note with my little Siamese sable doe Nebraska winning a leg towards her grand championship. She is from my original Dwarf line so that is very exciting.
Joe continues to win big with his chinchilla doe Romani and we have our fingers crossed that she is FINALLY pregnant. We will know near the end of October and he is debating whether or not to keep her out in the bunny barn or bring her inside where he can watch her more closely. Its always a tough call when an extra special bunny is trying to kindle. You want her to have a successful labor and delivery but how many indoor bunny cages do you want to have to clean? We shall see what he decides.
Tim drove the 2 hours to the University of Conn. where the show was held. Nicknamed the ICE CREAM show because the college has their own dairy barn and ice cream store, rabbit breeders love this show! I of course loved the ice cream, but even more the fact that with Tim driving, I could doze there and back.
Its so fun to catch up with bunny show friends and see how everyones' bunny programs are doing. I had a great talk with one judge about what I felt was missing in my herd and she had some thoughtful suggestions. One of my breeder friends overheard and offered to let me borrow one of her does to see if I could get the kind of babies I need which was fantastic.
Of course its also fun to catch up on the good gossip. A few friends are pregnant (people not rabbits.) In addition Convention is being held next weekend so everyone who is going was talking about it and everyone who is not listened jealously! Next year Convetion will be held in Pennsylvania so I am already day dreaming about THAT convention.
The dreams, plans, and schemes, plus the friends and treasured memories are what makes the hobby so fulfilling. Every show I am at reminds me of time when... meanwhile each show brings new adventures of its own.
Then of course there are the rabbits, the whole reason we all got into the hobby to begin with. Joe's champion is so flashy. She will freeze into a show stopping pose that clearly says, LOOK AT ME. Princess on the otherhand shyly hugs the table like her grandmother and mother always did. Unless she is in the coop or travel cage. Then she poses like a Best in Show girl! Thankfully the judge gave her a second look when she saw her waiting in the holding pen, otherwise she would have gone off the table first!
On the way home Joe and I plot breeding pairs and debate pedigrees and plan for next years' season. I only have 3 more show seasons before the last of my children enters college. So far none of them have shown an interest in showing as an adult. I will miss their company and help, and of course their exciting show adventures.
Then again, there are always new memories to make, and who knows, maybe in a few years a couple of grandchildren will tag along to bunny shows.
Meanwhile I have to decide, do I set up a few winter breeding pens? Do I wait until spring? Should I see if Timberlake and Princess will make a good breeding pair? And how does Paul Newman (he of the deep blue eyes!) look? Will he be the next grand champion out of 3B's Rabbitry?
Joe continues to win big with his chinchilla doe Romani and we have our fingers crossed that she is FINALLY pregnant. We will know near the end of October and he is debating whether or not to keep her out in the bunny barn or bring her inside where he can watch her more closely. Its always a tough call when an extra special bunny is trying to kindle. You want her to have a successful labor and delivery but how many indoor bunny cages do you want to have to clean? We shall see what he decides.
Tim drove the 2 hours to the University of Conn. where the show was held. Nicknamed the ICE CREAM show because the college has their own dairy barn and ice cream store, rabbit breeders love this show! I of course loved the ice cream, but even more the fact that with Tim driving, I could doze there and back.
Its so fun to catch up with bunny show friends and see how everyones' bunny programs are doing. I had a great talk with one judge about what I felt was missing in my herd and she had some thoughtful suggestions. One of my breeder friends overheard and offered to let me borrow one of her does to see if I could get the kind of babies I need which was fantastic.
Of course its also fun to catch up on the good gossip. A few friends are pregnant (people not rabbits.) In addition Convention is being held next weekend so everyone who is going was talking about it and everyone who is not listened jealously! Next year Convetion will be held in Pennsylvania so I am already day dreaming about THAT convention.
The dreams, plans, and schemes, plus the friends and treasured memories are what makes the hobby so fulfilling. Every show I am at reminds me of time when... meanwhile each show brings new adventures of its own.
Then of course there are the rabbits, the whole reason we all got into the hobby to begin with. Joe's champion is so flashy. She will freeze into a show stopping pose that clearly says, LOOK AT ME. Princess on the otherhand shyly hugs the table like her grandmother and mother always did. Unless she is in the coop or travel cage. Then she poses like a Best in Show girl! Thankfully the judge gave her a second look when she saw her waiting in the holding pen, otherwise she would have gone off the table first!
On the way home Joe and I plot breeding pairs and debate pedigrees and plan for next years' season. I only have 3 more show seasons before the last of my children enters college. So far none of them have shown an interest in showing as an adult. I will miss their company and help, and of course their exciting show adventures.
Then again, there are always new memories to make, and who knows, maybe in a few years a couple of grandchildren will tag along to bunny shows.
Meanwhile I have to decide, do I set up a few winter breeding pens? Do I wait until spring? Should I see if Timberlake and Princess will make a good breeding pair? And how does Paul Newman (he of the deep blue eyes!) look? Will he be the next grand champion out of 3B's Rabbitry?
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Plodding onward
Very lax in my blogging these days. Not that I have not been writing mind you. In the last two weeks for instance I have written a five page and and eight page paper. But not the sort of riveting stuff a blog reader looks forward to.
I am once again in prep but not panic mode to take the math MTEL or as I think of it, the money making arm of the department of ed.
My ultimate goal is to teach an inclusion kindergarten class. My Masters is in Moderate Disabilities Prek-8th grade and for that degree one must take and pass The Communications and Literacy test (its a two parter.) This is a basic test that any sentient adult should be able to pass if they expect to interact with the public. The first time I took a practice test I got 100%. this is not to say I am brilliant, but that it is a basic test.
Next I took the Prek-2nd grade with and without disabilities test of Early Childhood. This test required some study for me. After taking the practice test- although I passed -it was clear there were a few new theorists in current vogue since I first went to college. I simply did some research, studied up and this test like the first, I passed easily on the first try.
Next came the Foundations of Reading test, required of anyone teaching Prek-8. This test is all about early literacy and again very germane to anyone working with school children. This test and the one I decided to take the same day.... the Reading Specialist test, required many hours of study. The Reading Specialist test was particularly challenging to prepare for since I could not find any online samples as I did for the other tests.
But I consulted reading specialists in school as well as collecting and reading books about teaching literacy and sure enough I passed both tests on the same day. This is not to say I did not sweat these two tests. Also I spent many hours a day to prepare for them. But it was very straight forward, study the material, ask questions, memorize, and go.
I am now a licenced teacher of Early Childhood and I am almost done with my Initial Licence for Moderate Disabilities. But to achieve that licence and finish my Masters I have to pass the elementary math test.....a test that I have twice failed. This last time I failed by 2 points, paid 25$ for a rescore only to be told (after they cashed my check of course) that my score still stands.
For a number of years this test had a provisional score since everyone kept failing it. The date of my test in July was the first time the provisional score no longer counted. Naturally if it was still under the provisional I would have passed easily. Such is my Irish luck!
Meanwhile colleges all around us offer courses on how to take the test for 400 to 600 dollars. These same colleges do not allow your final student teaching until you pass the tests. The department of education and the testing company makes lots of money as well.
Many of the tests are now completely computer based. But get this....they cost MORE money than the ones you filled out by hand locally. Instead you have to drive to far away places (in my case Waltham) only on certain dates to take a computer test that costs MORE than before.
Resentment and dollar signs dance in my head like sugarplums. But who do you complain too? I was thinking of that lawyer line they used to have on WBZ radio but I am not even sure it exists. I suppose nothing will be done since its not like a sexy crime like Watergate.Its just poor people trying to make it in this world who are writing out checks after check for a test that does not even give a measure of what I do all day in a classroom.
At least the Foundations of Reading was about something that effects every child in a classroom. But congruent angles and Pythagoras have little to do with number sense in kindergarten.....Well I am done venting. I think venting is just keeping me from panicking. I have studied and studied. I am no idiot.
But just as all the hours of practicing shooting a basketball will not make me a Celtic player. All of these months and taking a test over and over, does not make me a math teacher.
I have taken math MCAs tests up to 8th grade and passed them all. But this test for teacher competence I think would not pass any scientific study on what a good test is. It even defies what we have been learning about formative and summative assessments in college.
But come this Thursday, I will once again be taking that gosh darn test. My hard earned money and countless hours of studying and crying and worrying and persevering. The only thing I have truly gotten out of it is a deep empathy for our children who are not test takers and who grow to hate school because of it.
I am once again in prep but not panic mode to take the math MTEL or as I think of it, the money making arm of the department of ed.
My ultimate goal is to teach an inclusion kindergarten class. My Masters is in Moderate Disabilities Prek-8th grade and for that degree one must take and pass The Communications and Literacy test (its a two parter.) This is a basic test that any sentient adult should be able to pass if they expect to interact with the public. The first time I took a practice test I got 100%. this is not to say I am brilliant, but that it is a basic test.
Next I took the Prek-2nd grade with and without disabilities test of Early Childhood. This test required some study for me. After taking the practice test- although I passed -it was clear there were a few new theorists in current vogue since I first went to college. I simply did some research, studied up and this test like the first, I passed easily on the first try.
Next came the Foundations of Reading test, required of anyone teaching Prek-8. This test is all about early literacy and again very germane to anyone working with school children. This test and the one I decided to take the same day.... the Reading Specialist test, required many hours of study. The Reading Specialist test was particularly challenging to prepare for since I could not find any online samples as I did for the other tests.
But I consulted reading specialists in school as well as collecting and reading books about teaching literacy and sure enough I passed both tests on the same day. This is not to say I did not sweat these two tests. Also I spent many hours a day to prepare for them. But it was very straight forward, study the material, ask questions, memorize, and go.
I am now a licenced teacher of Early Childhood and I am almost done with my Initial Licence for Moderate Disabilities. But to achieve that licence and finish my Masters I have to pass the elementary math test.....a test that I have twice failed. This last time I failed by 2 points, paid 25$ for a rescore only to be told (after they cashed my check of course) that my score still stands.
For a number of years this test had a provisional score since everyone kept failing it. The date of my test in July was the first time the provisional score no longer counted. Naturally if it was still under the provisional I would have passed easily. Such is my Irish luck!
Meanwhile colleges all around us offer courses on how to take the test for 400 to 600 dollars. These same colleges do not allow your final student teaching until you pass the tests. The department of education and the testing company makes lots of money as well.
Many of the tests are now completely computer based. But get this....they cost MORE money than the ones you filled out by hand locally. Instead you have to drive to far away places (in my case Waltham) only on certain dates to take a computer test that costs MORE than before.
Resentment and dollar signs dance in my head like sugarplums. But who do you complain too? I was thinking of that lawyer line they used to have on WBZ radio but I am not even sure it exists. I suppose nothing will be done since its not like a sexy crime like Watergate.Its just poor people trying to make it in this world who are writing out checks after check for a test that does not even give a measure of what I do all day in a classroom.
At least the Foundations of Reading was about something that effects every child in a classroom. But congruent angles and Pythagoras have little to do with number sense in kindergarten.....Well I am done venting. I think venting is just keeping me from panicking. I have studied and studied. I am no idiot.
But just as all the hours of practicing shooting a basketball will not make me a Celtic player. All of these months and taking a test over and over, does not make me a math teacher.
I have taken math MCAs tests up to 8th grade and passed them all. But this test for teacher competence I think would not pass any scientific study on what a good test is. It even defies what we have been learning about formative and summative assessments in college.
But come this Thursday, I will once again be taking that gosh darn test. My hard earned money and countless hours of studying and crying and worrying and persevering. The only thing I have truly gotten out of it is a deep empathy for our children who are not test takers and who grow to hate school because of it.
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