Sorry it's been so long!

This last week has been very busy! I will start by updating you on my leg. The infection appears to have cleared up. I currently am just left with a hole in my leg that continues to heal from the inside out ( kind of funny...being the name of my blog!) The doctor said it would take about another week for the main hole to heal up, so I still have to go to the doctor every M, W and F to get the hole packed until then and then it would have to undergo the normal scabbing process etc. to complete it's healing. So we are looking at about another 2 weeks and should be completely healed! I am looking forward to being able to wear jeans and real pants again in 2 weeks, and being healed of course!

School has been very busy. Our semester is split up kind of funny, so I actually have a final tomorrow and I end 2 classes tomorrow, and I start 2 new classes on Monday. So needless to say this last week has been very busy with winding down for the end of my Fundamentals classes. It has also been extra stressful due to the fact that my doctor is Winchester, school is in Muncie and I have school from 8-5 on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I have been having to rush around and work with my professors to get stuff done quickly and then leave early to go to the doctor and be back in time for the second half of our day. So a lot of rushing around has been going on. We have had several tests in the last week and I am really looking forward to the "2 week" break that we have coming up. We will only have class on M and R for two weeks, although I am sure I will spend a lot of that time getting ahead on other stuff for when clinicals start, so it won't truly be a break ,but hopefully it will be a bit of one in comparison to the last 5 weeks.

The weight loss continues to go well. I have currently lost 35.5 pounds since 7/28/08. so things are going well. I was not on my diet at all last week due to not feeling well and not having much of an appetite. But I am back on it now and I surprisingly did not gain any weight last week, I just maintained! So things are back on track and heading in the right direction!

Everything else is going well. I am just ready to be done with going to the doctor every other day and that will help alleviate some of my stress. Thanks for the prayers, they have been greatly appreciated!

Update

Well the infection seems to have gone down today. I made the third trip to the doctor in four days today! Yay! He looked at it and said the antibiotics are working just not as fast as I (being me) would like for them too! He said it appears to be healing for the most part. He said it could take up to 10 days or more for the hole in my leg, that is about the size of a nickel and quite deep, to heal and close up. He has to let it heal from the inside out. He can't suture it because if he does it will fill back up with infection, which would be bad. So we just have to wait until it heals! He is however keeping an eye on another nodule that showed up yesterday. It is not very big right now and we hope it stays that way! I have to go back to the doctor every 2-3 days to get the hole repacked until it closes up. So lets keep praying that this moves in the right direction and heals up! Thanks for all the prayers!

Update on my leg

Well today the ring of infection has gotten larger. I called the doctor and I am monitoring it and I had to mark it off again. If the area gets any bigger or if it gets violently red or extremely hot I am to call him immediately and I will have to go the hospital to be admitted so I can receive IV antibiotics. If you could please say a prayer that the oral antibiotics work and I don't have to go to the hospital it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks a bunch!!

When unexpected things arise!

I hate how our schedules are planned out to the last minute that we don't have "time" for unexpected things to happen. On Thursday I started to develop a small, what I thought was a boil, on my inner thigh. Well it would appear that as the weekend went on this we'll call it a "boil" for now, continued to get larger. As of last night it had gotten to about 3 or 4 inches in diameter and had formed a rather large red ring of infection around it. It got to the point where I could hardly walk, I could hardly sit or do anything without being in extreme pain. So we decided at 8:30 last night to go to the ER. We were thankful that we went. They said I had something called cellulitis where the cellular tissue gets inflamed and infected. They gave me a shot of antibiotic, a pill antibiotic and 2 pain pills and sent me home and told me to follow up with my family doctor. I called my family doctor today and he wanted to see me today. So I took a doctor's note into school and was excused from school for the day, thankfully because I could not have sat in those hard plastic chairs! The doctor ended up cutting the cellulitis open, draining it and packing it leaving it open to heal. I go back on Thursday to get it rechecked. Let's hope and pray that the antibiotics take care of it and that it goes away so I don't have to have anything else done.

Sorry the blog updates have been so sparce, school has been super busy and I have not had much down time. I will update more about everything else hopefully later this week! Thank you all for your continued prayers!

Life has been so busy!!

Life has been so busy this past week! I feel like I am running in circles with no end in sight! They joked around in our information meeting for nursing school that we might as well tell our husbands we wouldn't see them for the next two years and I am only 3 weeks in and I now realize that they weren't joking! It saddens me to realize that Eric and I's time together consists of waking up together to an alarm clock every morning, eating breakfast together some mornings, having lunch together a few days a week when I don't have class during lunch time, eating dinner together every night (which is our saving grace, because we eat at our table together and we have time of fellowship to talk about our days and spend time together), we then do homework and study in the same room but not really "together", we then go to bed and spend time talking before bed and then it all starts over again. The weekends are spent about the same with the exception of church and Sunday dinners if we have enough studying done to take out a couple extra hours of our day to spend with family, which is important but sometimes it just doesn't happen no matter how hard we try, stuff comes up and we just can't.

I have had my normal of two tests and a quiz weekly and we a had a small homework assignment due this week also. I feel like all I do is study and take tests! Woo hoo!! I guess I should be pretty knowledgeable by the time I get done! LOL...at least I hope I retain something! My tests continue to go well. Just a lot of information for each one!

When PK was talking about addictions last week Eric and I jokingly said that I was addicted to school. It at times feels that way though. If I sit back and think about it: my life is scheduled around it, I spend time doing things for it everyday of the week, I can't go without for a day let alone a week, so I guess I am addicted to school. How do you separate yourself from something that demands so much of your time? I mean I do incorporate time for God and my family but I just don't feel like there is enough time and I definitely feel like school gets way more of my time than anything else. But I feel like if I don't devote that much time to it I will fail out. Then what? I guess I am really torn on how to effectively balance God,school, my family, my friends and life in general. Any suggestions? Can you be addicted to school? Because I know I and others definitely feel like we are! Thanks for your prayers regarding this issue! Prayer is the only thing that keeps me sane!

On a side note I have to say one thing that is helping me get through nursing school and stay sane is that I am becoming good friends with someone from our church with whom I didn't really know before starting school this semester. I knew of this person and I see them at church and Eric knew them but I never really "knew" them. I am now developing a great friendship and it is awesome to know I have a sister in Christ going through the same struggles with me! This person started talking to me about church and how she hadn't seen me on the worship team for a long time the first day of class and then I made the connection of who she was and we have been talking at school daily since! Pretty awesome how God works and puts people in our lives. I am really excited to develop this friendship and see what happens! Funny how God works!

More birthday dinners!

Since we were out of town for my birthday I had two more birthday dinners this week. My brother treated us to dinner Wednesday night at Chili's. We had a good time getting to visit with him and eat dinner. I then spent yesterday morning cramming for my pharmacology test that I had at 1 yesterday afternoon. I ended up getting an 87.5% on it, which is a B. I can't complain since I didn't really study until yesterday morning, my brain was too fried to study Wednesday night. Then last night my two best friends made dinner for us at Nikki's house. They were so funny. I received several phone calls yesterday double checking on ingredients that I could or couldn't have. It was so nice of them to take the time to make a dinner that I could eat, desert included! They made me a marinated chicken, veggies with cheese, salad and sugar free peach pie that was made with splenda for desert! It was very good and I really enjoyed being able to eat an entire piece of pie! I think birthday fun is finally over a week later. But I have wonderful friends and family who turned a crappy birthday into a good one after all :) I will be spending the weekend studying for my next round of nursing tests. I have a test and a quiz on Monday in my fundamentals class and another pharmacology test on Thursday! Have a great weekend!

First Test is done and over!

Well my first test of nursing school is officially over! I feel like I studied way more than I needed to but hey I got an A so I can't complain! I also got an A on my quiz we took today in lab. So I am off to a good start. Hopefully this is an indicator to the rest of the semester. It is always better to start out ahead than to start out in a hole (which I have done before and it is no fun!) I think I have finally conquered my test anxiety. So today ended my first test but started the marathon of tests that I will be taking over the next two years. It appears that there will be about 2 tests and a quiz every week, so I should get quite good at test taking :) Thanks for the prayers I will continue to keep you updated on how things go.

I get to have dinner with my brother tonight. We don't get to see him very often because he doesn't have a license. So we are driving to Richmond to go to dinner with him. I will be taking my study materials along for the car ride, lol! I am looking forward to getting to spend some quality time with him and catch up! It should be fun! I hope everyone has a great day!

Weekly Weight Loss Update and Studying

Well I have officially lost 29 pounds! I am so excited. The pounds just continue to fall off! I hope that when I go back to the doctor on September 23rd he is just blown away by how much weight I have lost! This lifestyle change has been wonderful for me. I am adding in the exercise beginning today so hopefully the pounds will continue to melt away! Yippee!!!! My husband now has a bike. So we have bicycle's, rollerblades, and plenty of DVD workouts that I can do to get my self moving. Continued prayer for me to exercise would be appreciated! Much love and thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support!

Today will be spent continuing to study for my first set of nursing school tests. It is always nerve racking to take the first test. It is like playing a guessing a game, you never know what to study and of course everything is fair game. Hopefully they aren't too terrible and hopefully I retain the right information! I will let you know how they turn out. I have a quiz and a test on Wednesday in my Fundamentals class and a Pharmacology test on Thursday. Have a great day!

Birthday Cookout!

Today we had my sister-in-law Leslie and I's birthday cookout! It was a lot of fun with Eric's side of the family. His grandparents were there, his aunt and uncle, his other uncle, his mom and dad and his siblings. We made homemade ice cream, had birthday cake, grilled out steaks and chicken, had potatoes and a huge buffet of food! It was all delicious and it was a lot of fun to be able to hang out with everyone and celebrate our birthdays. I did partake in a small spoonful of homemade ice cream and very small piece of cake, I mean it was my birthday cake I had to have some :)Below are some pictures from today.

1. My brother-in-law Evan, my sister-in-law Leslie, my husband Eric and myself.
2. Leslie and I's cake.
3. Leslie and I being silly cutting the cake like a husband and wife would at a wedding, LOL!
4. Eric and I.
5. A family picture with Evan, Leslie, Eric, me, and their parents Marvin and Elaine.

Memories of a great day :)