The eve of change…

January 19, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 2 Comments

I can feel it in my bones, a sense of expectation that refuses to listen to me when I remind it that change doesn’t occur over night, a thrill along my spine despite the mess and the gargantuan job before us, a rise in my spirit.

Tomorrow, I no longer belong to a country that only elects rich white men.

Tomorrow, my President will not make me cringe when he speaks or tempt me to compare the cover of Time Magazine with the cover of Mad Magazine.

Tomorrow, my President will not be doing comedians jobs for them, they will have to work harder when poking fun at our nation’s leader, well, except for his ears.

I can hardly wait.

________________

Check out a child’s eye view of the inauguration: www.sharemyinauguration.com.

Law

Re-eduation nation…

January 13, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 3 Comments

Little known fact number 1: the child care program at our State college is ridiculously good and about a third the cost of other programs for kiddos under 3.

Little known fact number 2: Student loans are defered when the student is in school at least half time. (Saving me $$$$ every month.)

Little known fact number 3: My State college now has an environmental science major, and therefore offers classes such as Environmental regulation and Water Law.

Guess who is going back to school??

That’s right! Your favorite motherly lawyer is plopping her ass back in the hard, tiny seats of her undergrad alma mater. Of course, as I am now dealing with a State Subsidized institution and not a private university, there were some roadblocks along the way.

To begin with; the school tried to tell me I was an out of state student because I had not been physically present in the State of Colorado for the preceding 12 months. Sadly for the poor woman in the “hotseat” she was not dealing with a 20 year old undergrad student, but instead was trying to explain this to an attorney who spent the better part of a month in Civ. Pro. learning about Domicile and Animo Menendi. (I had to latin you up a little, it means “intent to remain”.) I calmly explained to her that I met almost all the suggested statutory qualifications for in-state tuition, and that the legislature itself had mentioned that lack of physical presence for the whole preceding 12 months did not automatically disqualify a student for in-state tuition. Not too surprisingly, she sent me to the assistant registrar who said she would call later in the day.

Today she told me she was 99% sure I could qualify for in state tuition, and that she would have the issue resolved today or tomorrow. So it looks as though I am headed back into the classroom after all. I signed up to take a Water Law course that looks really entertaining and educational. I could take a water law course from DU, but sadly the cost of admission is higer than the whole semeter’s worth of loan payments so it defeats the purpose of defering my loan payments.

My second snag was a small one, the Water Law course had a few pre-requisites. I emailed the professor and asked if a J.D. could be subsitituted for the pre-req’s. He let me in the class and welcomed me in a very kind email.

My final snag was the aforementioned child care. It would seem that the center is currently full, and in order to get in I will have to call, every day, to see if a spot has opened up, as they have no waiting list. Hopefully I will get him in there soon. If I get a job offer next week daycare will be a huge issue for us. Of course, if I get a job next week I won’t be in the water law class, but I will keep my rock climbing class to keep my daycare benefits. (I know, rock climbing is a seriously cool class.)

I think this semester may be the beginning of my lifetime learning goal. My dad had a friend at the paper who used to take a class a semester just to get the daycare for his son. I am thinking the wisdom in that is apparent. I could quite happily take a class a semester for the rest of my life!!

So it’s likely back to college for me, though this time without the pesky required classes and degree seeking pressure.

health

Near misses…

January 9, 2009 Savvy Spoonie 4 Comments

Today is a good day. Today I found out I don’t have a brain tumor.

Yeah, I know! Great news right?

Luckily for me I wasn’t aware that I might have a brain tumor until right after I found out that I don’t have a brain tumor.

Confused? Let me elucidate.

A few months ago my left thumb began randomly twitching. It would start this really obvious involuntary movement, and then around 5 to 15 minutes later, it would stop. The first time it happened I was shadowing a mentor on a parent’s interview. I was taking notes when the “twitching” started. I remember thinking “what the hell?” and then putting my hand under the table to hide the uncontrollable yet very obvious twitching.

The second time it happened was under similar circumstances, making me think it had something to do with note taking or the way I was sitting. However, this time I was freaked out enough to mention it to my doctor. She was freaked out enough to send me to a neurologist while muttering “MS” under her breath and looking at me in concern and pity. I forced the MS concern out of my mind while I waited for the inevitable months of testing that awaited me (I have been sent to neurologists before).

I really like my neurologist, and I trust her a lot, so I was happy to submit to the c-spine MRI, EKG, EMG, and other testing to tell us what the hell was going on. After all, she actually communicated with me and spoke to me like a fellow professional instead of an inept buffoon with limited language skills. She almost immediately ruled out MS, so I breathed easy and figured it was something closer to Carpal Tunnel. My arms reported a slowed response and nerve damage, so the Doc theorized Carpal Tunnel as well. Then my brain activity showed really odd slowing in one specific area of the brain during my sleep deprived test. Suddenly I had a new potential diagnosis; Epilepsy.

I’m sorry, what??

It turns out that minor focal seizures that do not affect one’s conciousness can be a rare form of epileptic seizure. On the bad side, I would likely have to be medicated, and there is a small chance the seizures would begin to march up my arm, increasing in size and location (called a Jacksonian March, very legal sounding I thought). The good news, I would likely not have any conciousness affecting seizures if I was medicated, so I would likely have no trouble driving. Best of all, I may not even need to be medicated at all. All decisions depended on my MRI of my brain, which she then sent me off to get.

Which is how I learned I don’t have a brain tumor. (It’s not a tumor!)

Now I am normally a huge fan of doctors who inform their patients as to what is going on behind the testing, but I have to thank my Doc for failing to mention that the more common cause of random focal muscle twitching is a brain tumor. It would have really ruined my holidays, I would have heard “tumor, tumor, tumor” between each carol. (Jingle Tumor, Jingle Tumor, Tumor all the way.) Happily I was so thrown by the potential diagnosis of epilepsy that I didn’t even look up my symptom, instead contenting myself with trolling epilepsy websites to learn more. Therefore I never encountered the fact that I was exhibiting brain tumor like symptoms. Thank the Powers that Be.

Granted, there was a moment of shock today before a huge wave of gratitude and relief washed over me, but I will take my moment of shock over 6 weeks of fretting every day, thank you very much.

Best news of all, my brain scan was so normal that it cast doubts on the whole possibility of an epilepsy diagnosis. I have to wait another three months and retest to be sure, but she now thinks the wierd twitching may be caused by damaged nerve bundles in my neck (thank you stress). Therefore the only medication I am on now is yoga, massage, and physical therapy.(Yay, no epilepsy!)

It’s starting out to be a very good year.