Farewell Cubicle…

Monday, January 18, 2010

Hello new life!!

Wow, after I wrote that post last week, things got even crazier!! I wasn’t feeling awesome physically on Wednesday and figured I would head over to my doctor on Thursday afternoon. That plan was squashed when I woke up at 5am with a horrific pain in my right side. I walked around a bit, took a hot bath but remained in constant pain and wasn’t sure what to do. So I called the telehealth nurse.

She told me I needed to go to the hospital. Oh goody.

I made a quicky phone call to lovely Lindsay to lead my Thursday morning meeting and sent an email off to my manager and headed to the hospital around 6:30am. I was there for about 6 hours, running tests, a CT scan and answering lots of questions. Because of my Crohn’s, and the location of the pain, the doctor thought that I might have stones of some sort – yuck!! After going through the urine analysis a second time though, it showed that it was only a bladder/kidney infection.

Did I mention that I was stoned on Percoset for the latter half of my stay? I picked up a prescription for some antibiotics and painkillers and headed home to nap it off. The pain came back in the evening, but I felt 100 times better in the morning. I’m working through the course of antibiotics, taking lots of probiotics and supplements to keep up the health of my system, drinking cranberry juice and tea and will be taking a heavy duty probiotic once I’m finished the antibiotics. I honestly think this was my body’s way of telling me to slow down. The last couple weeks have been quite stressful, but with my last day of work on Friday, that all ends now!

My last day of work was a busy one (which was awesome, because I was still a little worn down, but there was no way that I was prolonging my stay!) We had a board meeting which means that I was running around the office setting up conference lines, setting up catering and doing massive runs to Starbucks. I have to say, one special skill I acquired as an executive assistant was the ability to order up to 10 specific drinks at Starbucks and carry them all single-handed back to my office.

Some of the lovely ladies from the Accounting Department had made a lunch date with me and asked where I wanted to go. I chose FRESH.

I started off with a creamy vegetable pesto soup – delish!!SANY2974My body was so happy to have the greens after feeling so crummy and not eating very much on Thursday. For my main I had the black bean burrito, over salad. SANY2975I probably ate 1/2 as it was quite big and I underestimated the impact of the soup on my tummy. It was such a nice lunch and wonderful to spend some quality time with the girls. Thanks, ladies!!

I spent the remainder of the afternoon finishing up some training with my replacement and doing the obligatory mingle around the office. I felt like everyone wanted to tell me their deep, dark secrets – which was actually really fun!! I was told that I must go back and visit, and my boss gave me the a-ok to resurrect the bake sale I had last year in support of my CCFC fundraising efforts. While it was sad to say goodbye, I’m so excited about what lies ahead and I know I will always be welcome to visit.

I cleaned off the remaining things on my desk, and took down the quote that has gotten me through the last few months. SANY2973FREEDOM!!! I truly feel like my dreams are coming true and it’s absolutely wonderful. The fact that I’m no longer an executive assistant hasn’t really sunk in yet, but I’m sure it will when I’m not getting up early on Tuesday to trek downtown.

On Saturday I led three insane meetings. It was so busy!! Thank you to all of my members who waited so patiently. We are working on a solution, I promise! After WW I headed to rehearsal to run Act 1. (Hey look, we’re on Wikipedia!) I grabbed some lunch on the run and enjoyed a take-away RAW spaghetti from Live. SANY2977SANY2978 It was so delicious!! I’ve never had spiralized zucchini and I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it, but it was so refreshing. I definitely want to make something like this at home. I loved the sauce, and the toppings. Such a yummy lunch. Being the classy gal I am, I enjoyed it in the back of a cab en route to rehearsal.

Got some great rest and studying in on Saturday night because I have my first test on Monday. Think positive thoughts for me as you read this post!! I haven’t written a test like this in years, so I’m a little bit nervous. Given my office background, I actually made my study notes into a powerpoint presentation. Pie I think I’ve reached a new level of geeky. But I love it!!

Looking forward to my extra special day on Friday and enjoying the luxury of being a student this week! Things will slow down and I will absolutely be taking some time to rest.

How do you prepare for tests? Do you get nervous? Do you have any effective study tips to share?

10 comments:

Megan said...

Glad you're feeling better!
To prepare for tests I re-read the textbook first, than I take notes of the important stuff. I will then condense my notes into key words and then I will sometimes make acronyms. It works for me...but everyone is different.
Good luck :)

Jocelyn said...

hey girl. Sorry to hear about your little hospital trip! I hope you are starting to feel better!

I hope you have a great week *not getting up* to be an executive assistant but just enjoy being a student and ww leader! :D

Good luck on your test!

Lauren said...

Eek! Glad your pain wasn't something more serious!

Yummy eats! Get well!

Anonymous said...

That is a new level of geeky, but I am SO happy for you.

And I know those notes will come in helpful down the road and you will be so happy you put them into ppt!

Good luck on the test today -- I too am looking very forward to Friday!

xo

Katie said...

Hey Ashley!

This is Katie from your Saturday morning meeting.

I usually go to the 9:30 meeting, but I had to go to the 8:15 instead this weekend... it WAS insane, but still great!
It was nice to see so many motivated people :)

I'm glad that you got the horrific pain sorted out! That's scary!

Good luck on your test & I'll see you next Saturday!

Anonymous said...

Ash - so glad to hear you are feeling better. I've had a kidney infection before and let's just say....not fun. Ok so here are my study tips for you since I too am in school (getting my M.Ed) and have been for the past 2 years.
Study tip #1: Find a really quiet spot to study - hopefully where no one knows where to find you.
Tip #2 - On the days where you aren't so motivated to study (and trust me, you will have these) - Do a technique called the 10 minute dash. That's where you convince yourself you are only going to study for 10 minutes. Set a timer and go hard for 10 minutes. When your alarm goes off, you will likely want to keep studying. If that's the case, set another 10 or 30 minutes and go. Sometimes I find that it's just getting started that's the problem. This little trick works for me.
Tip #3 - Find a study buddy. Much like a workout buddy, studying with someone where you can talk about what you are learning, will keep you focused.
That's my 2 cents!

Emma said...

Hope you are feeling better now.

I used to type up my notes in bullet point. Good luck

jessica said...

oh no!!! I've had a few bladder infections so I understand how un-fun they are! Glad you are feeling better... antibiotics are amazing!

SO happy that you're loving your new life!! :)

Anonymous said...

I hope you`re feeling better!
I`m so happy to hear about your new adventures. Enjoy every minute of it.

Alex said...

If I liked computers better, I'd probably be doing PPT-style notes too ;)

I'm sorry to hear about your tummy tantrum and I'm glad that you're back on track :)

I've been having a rough couple of weeks with my tummy too and reading your post made me realize that it's probably linked to some external stressors that are popping up in my life too. Even though I KNOW stress has such a huge effect on our bodies, I always think I'm immune to it, or I downplay it's effects. Your post made me realize that I should take it easy and try to relax a little bit more. I needed that reminder!

Thanks!

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