I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.  I have had a lot to think about.  

I am usually pretty good about not letting things that are out of my control completely take over my head.  That day that you indulge in that kind of crap just a little becomes the day that you allow ugliness to fill up your head instead of positive, productive thoughts.  Lately it seems like I have had more of those days than not.  

I had been trying to stay motivated to be active, to get up early and get some exercise before my day started.  I had a few setbacks, due to wicked headaches I kept having, and some blood pressure issues.  I went to a new nephrologist  and (mostly) got those issues worked out.  I have pretty much quit smoking, and right in time for spring allergy season!  Lets hope that this time it will stick for good.  This might be the first spring in a long time that I won't feel like I am going to suffocate to death at any time!  

So I started to feel better, still trying to keep my head in it, still trying to stay positive about things.  Then, one day my voice disappeared, and I was only able to speak with a scratchy whisper.  I am in a public speaking class this semester.  I am supposed to graduate this semester.  I was assigned to give my speech the Tuesday before spring break, but one cannot give a speech if one cannot speak!
 I delayed my speech until the next class period, giving myself 48 hours to make my voice work again.  I got some Throat Coat tea.  I drank the shit out of it.  I drank so much of it in fact, that I started to become paranoid because I was nauseous, and tried to find out on the internet if one could drink too much of that tea!

I didn't say more than probably 100 words out loud in those days. (That was SO hard!) 

Unfortunately, Wednesday night, the night before speech time, the nausea I had been feeling got SO MUCH WORSE.  It got I JUST ATE RAW OLD CHICKEN kind of worse.  It felt sort of like really bad food poisoning, but I knew that I hadn't eaten anything that would make me sick.  I spent most of the night hoping for death to come and end my misery!  The next day I even called my mom, and told her how sick I was.  She made me go to the doctor, and I was in such bad shape she had to leave work and drive me.  When we got in to see the doctor, I was glad that she was there because he almost immediately sent me to the hospital for severe dehydration.  I was in a hospital bed with an IV when I was supposed to be giving my speech about the bog bodies in N. Europe.  I can't make it up.  

So, I will be in summer school this summer, taking Public Speaking AGAIN.  I hope I will still technically "graduate" at the end of this semester, but I an trying to not get too down about it.  I couldn't have changed    a single thing that happened.  I am trying to see it in a more positive way, like thinking about how much more time this gives me for my other classes, and how taking it by itself this summer will make it so easy, but I am still pretty sore about the whole thing.  

Hey, now I have so much more time to work out and cook good things for myself at home, instead of eating out as much!  I have more time to read, and to pick up some shifts at work because I need the moohlah!

I just need to remember to repeat this over and over in my head, maybe then I will believe it!

All in all, I will have more time to take better care of myself.  I do tend to let this fall by the wayside until I have some kind of scary reminder, like last Thursday. 

Goals for this week:

-spend at least the hours I would have been in Speech class and doing stuff for it studying for my other          classes

-drink more water (I know my body is still catching up)

-don't smoke

-keep negativity in check

J