Please excuse the sweatiness that is me.  This was my facebook profile picture until my friend Michelle unearthed this one from the same night:

So much better.

In other news, I haven’t bitten my nails since I’ve been in Ottawa! So for a month, I’ve been growing my nails, and pretty much painting them a new colour every 3 days.  At the beginning of last week I bought a green OPI polish, and when I took it off, my nails were tinted green, and THEY STILL ARE. Seriously.  My nails looks diseased if I leave them unpolished.

Other than that I’ve just been doing the usual, school work, cheerleading, growing my hair, trying to decide what to do with my life.  I went to a career fair today at school and mom’s dream job for me was there- CSIS, so I chatted with them for a bit. It went alright.

Oh! I’m going home this weekend for Thanksgiving and I couldn’t be more excited to see the kiddies! Ottawa had an American Apparel warehouse sale for a few days last week and I went (twice) and got so many cute clothes for Hailey, Bri and Casey, and only a pair of shorts and a shirt for myself.  But helloo, they were all $4 a piece! I’ll try to post some of the finds when I get home on Friday!

Enjoy this abrupt conclusion, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this post with a huge picture of my face, and random information about my life.

-work: I don’t mind being back to work, much to my surprise. I really thought I would hate being there and being away from Hailey but I’m handling it well. However I don’t like that now I feel like I have no time to do the things I love to do. Like play with Hailey, show her the world and take photos, which is something else  I love to do. It makes me sad to look through my recently taken photos and have nothing to be proud of because they were all taken indoors, when the light was bad and I was chasing after a toddler, or running away from her because when she sees the camera she must have it. It’s tough for me to think about, because I had so long (1 year) to myself and Hailey. We could do what we wanted (mostly, Hailey’s naps are pretty important to her) and we got to hang out together. Now I live for 4pm when I leave work and get to go see her, but then I get so exhausted and can’t wait for 7pm (aka get ready for bedtime), which makes me feel horrible because I never get to see her, so I should love the time I get with her, which brings me to my next point…

-toddlerhood: Hailey is becoming a vocal testing toddler. She is happy go lucky sometimes and grumpy crying the next minute. I know this is normal with a toddler but it’s such a hard stage. It’s so hard when she only wants to be with me while I’m cooking or cleaning (which rarely happens these days to be honest), if I’m not holding her she’s crying at my feet with her arms in the air to be lifted up. I love that she has such a personality, but I could really do away with her grumpy times.

-wishing time away: I’ve also started doing something since I’ve been back at work, which I know lots of people do- wishing for the weekend. Monday arrives and I already dream about Saturday. But we are getting busy in the barn again on the weekend, need a babysitter for Hailey and before I know it the whole weekend has passed and I’ve hardly seen Hailey any more then I did during the week. So as I wish my life away, Hailey gets older, we get closer to the new baby and time flies by. I need to learn not to do this, but it’s so hard.

This is a photo free post because I don’t even have any photos I am half proud of to post in here.

To sum it up: work is alright, time is lacking and Hailey is growing older.

Lauren

That’s right, on Friday I got a letter in the mail offering me a job with the school board. I did a happy dance around my apartment, threw my kitten up in the air a few times, went to a meeting and signed some papers, and once I get the second half of my tuberculosis test done on Thursday, I can start teaching! Providing, I guess, that I don’t have tuberculosis, which will bring on a whole new set of problems. But my shot seems to be healing nicely so I think I’ll be okay.

So, yayyy! Problem solved. I am so relieved that I get to do what I want to do and that I won’t have to apply to any jobs that I don’t actually want, ever, ever, ever again!

Then on Saturday night, Erica and I were at the Hilton in Toronto for our awesome cousin Lara’s bachelorette party and I got a call from Leah  who said,  “Katelyn had the baby! It’s a girl!” I was shocked, number one because I was sure Rasperry was a boy, and number two because I didn’t get the memo that no one was going to find out when Katelyn went into labour. I thought I’d have some time to prepare! I’m SO HAPPY to add another girl to the family. Lara and our other cousin Lindsay ran out into the hall to join Erica and I and we did a tiny little celebration for Katelyn, Scott, and Hailey, then of course went back to celebrating Lara! Her bridal party did an amazing job of planning the perfect bachelorette for Lara which you can hear about from her point of view on her blog.

On Sunday Kent, Erica, and I made the two hour trip back to London to meet Hailey. I wanted to hold her but I have this belief (and I still stand by it) that my chances of dropping someone’s newborn increase 100% if I hold it, and really, that would ruin my day a whole bunch. Along with some other peoples. Not that I have shaky hands or am prone to dropping things but you know, it happens to the best of us. For instance tonight I dropped my keys before unlocking my door. But I could tell Katelyn was getting slightly insulted when she started asking me why I didn’t want to hold Hailey, so I sucked it up and very carefully held that cute little bundle of perfection. I love her! I miss her a whole bunch already and lucky Kent now gets to deal with every fifth sentence out of my mouth being something like, “hold the kitten and pretend it’s your baby.” For the record, he pretended to breastfeed and Levi attacked his hands. It wasn’t very realistic.

For two weeks in November, I experienced severe chest pain. It was so bad at times, I literally couldn’t move. I would lay on the couch or in my bed for days on end, moving as little as possible. I would try to go to work, only to throw up from the pain and go home. After I figured out that this was probably more than a pulled muscle from yoga, as I originally thought, I got it checked out at the doctor.

“Pleurisy, or a pulled muscle,” he told me, and handed me a requisition for a chest x-ray. “If it still hurts in a few days get it x-rayed.” I went the following day to get it x-rayed, as the pain hit a peak. Last week I went in for the results. I felt silly going, because a few days after my x-ray I felt completely fine again. Looking at the results, the doctor was concerned. The x-ray showed ‘pleural fluid’ consistent with pleurisy, but oddly, it also showed a ‘rather ill defined density‘ in my left lung. More x-rays, and depending on the results, CT scans and more.

I was freaked out. Density in my lung? What the #$%@ does that mean? A friend of mine put it well, she said “The vocabulary alone that comes with the words density in your lung is terrifying.” For five days, the words tumour … cancer … chemotherapy … swirled around in my head. I would go from cursing the x-ray technician for doing a bad job reading the x-ray, to telling myself it was a shadow, to dying. I had to remind myself all weekend that it didn’t matter how much I worried or stressed about the new results, that it wouldn’t change the outcome at my next appointment.

Well, Monday I had the new results. I had a minor panic attack on my way to the doctors, and held my tears in in the waiting room. Will this be the end of my world as I know it? Or will I walk away from here completely normal? My doctor informed me during my appointment that whatever was there for the first x-ray, wasn’t there for the second. It was gone. I was okay. I am okay.

So to all the people who offered me support over the past week, I thank you with all of my heart. And all of my left lung. I love you all, very much.

Until tonight.

It wasn’t the music – that was fine. The plot? That’s ok too.

Do you remember the scene where Glee member/Cheerio Brittany demonstrated her ‘hairography’ skills to the club? First she compared her body movements to being tased. Then came the line “it’s like cool epilepsy“.

Now, wait just a hair-tossing moment!

Having a seizure is like being tased? Epilepsy is uncool?

Maybe I’m reaching, but what is a young kid with epilepsy supposed to think about this? Epilepsy is not just shaking your head and hair around. Epilepsy can suck. I speak from experience. But nobody should be sending the message that a disability is uncool. I am not uncool because I have seizures, just as Artie is not uncool because he is in a wheelchair, and the students from the glee club from the school for the deaf are not uncool because they are hearing impaired.

I’ve had epilepsy for nearly 10 years and although it is not an easy thing to deal with psychologically, only one person ever made me feel as though I was less of a person because of it. I’m comfortable enough with my disability that I can joke around about it with friends, but it is really disappointing when it is joked about on a top primetime television show.

That is definitely NOT a seizure.

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As good as the ‘shock’ comment feels, I don’t have many answers for the questions. Aside from the immediate ‘finish school’, I’m not entirely sure what I want to do next. Do I want to pursue a career in the field of social media ( if there even is such a thing)? Am I going to need more education? Should I be patient and trust that the right position will come along?

So, readers,I’m curious: how did you figure out what you wanted to do for a career? Are you there yet?