2014/2015

So it's just a few hours from the end of 2014 and the start of 2015.

Typically by this point on the last day of the year I'm pretty down on myself as it seems everyone in the world has someone to celebrate the new year with and I'm someone's 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 10th wheel.  It's funny how pretty much every holiday has been marketed as a day to spend with your special someone and if you don't have someone or you don't have great plans you must be doing something wrong.

I guess that could also go for me.  There are just a few short weeks left of "freedom" for me before I start my next 2 years of classes.  By the time I graduate with my second Master's degree I will be almost 40 years old and hoping to break into a world that is probably more a "young person's" field.  So should I have figured out this sooner and tried to do some learning on my own before now?  I did I do something wrong 5-10 years ago?

Maybe...maybe not.

But what I do know is that 2014 was an interesting year for me.  I don't tend to post a lot about what goes on with me personally because I don't want to be one of "those" people who is constantly talking about what is going right for them or wrong for them and wanting to hear from their friends.

Through the first half of 2014 I continued to battle with severe anemia.  This struggle, which in total lasted for over a year, involved a series of iron IVs.  I had 12 weeks of iron IVs followed by a month off and testing to see how my iron was doing.  It wasn't so good, so I had another 10 weeks of iron IVs followed by a month off and more testing...and still no good.  Yet another 10 weeks of iron IVs and a month off...and my iron was good enough to be supplemented with pills and testing every 3 months to keep tabs on my iron levels.  My next test will be mid-January.

By the way, if you thought the number of iron IVs I had was bad, just think that each week the nurses were putting these IVs into the back of my hand as that was the only good location to find a vein.  It severely limited what I could do for the hour-long treatment and also limited use of my hand at the end of the day because it would get pretty bruised.

Also in 2014 I had surgery that took me out of work for 3 weeks.  It was done to also aid in my iron issue.  But for 3 weeks I wasn't allowed to lift much of anything.  Not even my niece, who insisted every chance she could, to be in my lap.  I couldn't work.  I was still in classes from my first Master's degree so I had ample time to complete my reading and then some.

And I graduated.  It was kind of like a huge process with many stages.  I'm not just talking about the completion of classes but rather a completion of the whole program.  We had graduation in May, though for most of my classmates we still had another class and an exam to get through.  But since we had enough credits by the time applications were due we were allowed to walk in the May exercises.  So, we walk Memorial Day weekend across a stage built in the gym because the weather was terrible.  Then a couple weeks later we start our last class.  The end of July we finish that class and have a couple weeks off.  Then we take our comprehensive exam (which is basically a huge paper).  Then we wait...and wait....to find out if we pass.  And then there is more waiting as our degrees don't get sent physically until September.

And then I decided to do it all over again with the IMC degree.

So what does 2015 hold in store for me?

I'm not sure.  I know there are more classes in my future.  More stress too.  More time to be thankful for the weekends or days that I am granted between classes when I can do something "fun" for a change.  More interesting conversations with my niece (who will be 3 in April).  Crazyness with my sister too!

Good bye 2014!  Thank you for everything!  And hello 2015!  I look forward to see what you have for me!