I'm going to quickly switch back to my education, specifically in the start of the second year of engineering. I had tried to get into Mechanical Engineering (to make cars), Civil Engineering (to make buildings), or Train Engineering (because trains are important too guys). I didn't get into them. Instead, I got into Software Engineering. At the time, I was pretty upset by it. Even though it was high on my list of concentrations to go in, I had spent the first few years of my life wanting to make cars or buildings. However, once I got going on Software Engineering in my second year, I found I actually really liked it. Software Engineering got to take classes with people in Computer and Electrical Engineering, so I was in classes with Mike, another one of my good friends, and another guy who I hung out with sometimes. There were a couple of classes that I had to take because of Engineering that I really didn't want to, such as Differential Equations. Seriously, what software engineer ever has to know differential equations? Since that class, I've never even had to use math.
It was around this time that my boyfriend of the time started being kinda mean to engineers. He kept saying that everyone was in it solely to get the iron ring at the end, and you could do any engineer's job with any different degree (ie. Chem degree instead of a chemical engineer, architect instead of a civil engineer, etc.) This is pretty wrong, otherwise they wouldn't have an engineering degree. However, with software engineering, there is an equivalent degree in computer science. He was taking an equivalent class to what I was taking at one point, and he was learning a lot more theory and things that I actually wanted to know compared to what I was learning. I decided to look into it, and I found that there were a lot more classes in computer science that were applicable to software engineering, such as computability. I started asking a bunch of professors in both engineering's software engineering and computer science's software engineering. Basically, the best response I got from the head of engg's software engineering as a reason to not switch is "but you won't get your ring." I was annoyed, and so I switched. Best decision I ever made, and one of the best things that came out of that relationship. After I did that, my interest went higher and higher, and my grades went up accordingly.
In my second year, I found out I had to get my wisdom teeth out. It seemed like a good time, since I was having a lull in health issues, so we agreed. I got my teeth x-ray sent to this guy by market mall (he was crazy as a bat) and we went to see him. We told him all about my health problems, and he was all like 'oh yeah, no problem, this will go fine, I'm crazy' and stuff, so we felt good about it. We scheduled it for reading week of my second year, and I was all ready to go. Two days before reading week, I got a phone call. It was the nurse in the guy's office, telling me that I needed to go for an appointment with the anesthetic guy before my surgery. This was Thursday, and my surgery date was on Monday, so I was like 'well, can I get into an appointment tomorrow?' and she said 'no.' This got me so mad. I said it was ridiculous, that was the only time I could go get it because I had to work over the summer, so I couldn't get it for another year, and this was stupid. She's was like 'whatevs, sorry, bye' and that was it. I called my parents in a rage. Then I called the guy's office back and told them it was extremely unprofessional, if they wanted me to go for an appointment with the guy they should have called ages ago after I had the appointment with the surgeon, and they were obviously just frightened of my health problems and so didn't want to do it. I told them again they were unprofessional and asked them to send my xrays back to my dentist, because I would never let this surgeon touch me, and I planned on telling not only my dentist but everyone I know about this stupid situation. It was so stupid. So then I found this other place in the south of the city I live in (I'm in the north) who wouldn't even need to see me before the surgery, I just had to tell them about my health problems on the site and they would know. It was great, I had a date booked for right after school (because I could actually do it then). I went to an appointment with my rheumatologist and told her about it. She told me I couldn't get it. I asked why. She said that if I get oral surgery while on the infusions, I could get the bone disease in my jaw. I was super upset, so she called the surgeon for me and told him. He then told her that he was planning on giving me a steroid after, a steroid called Decadron, the one that gave me the bone disease in the first place! She basically said 'like hell, stay away from her!' and my appointment was cancelled.
Around this same time, I stopped getting my infusions. My rheumatologist looked at my bone density tests and MRI's and decided that the bone disease had stopped killing more bone, and some maybe even grew back a little bit! But we were at a point where it wouldn't help anymore, so there was no reason to get it anymore. At that time, I was no longer getting kidney stones quite so much, so that was awesome! I was quite happy to not have to get two blood tests and an IV every month, so that was great.
In 2009, I went back to my rheumatologist, and I got an MRI of my shoulders, just to check up on things. It still hurt in that weird, pinchy way, but I wasn't concerned because it'd been doing it for a year and I was kind of used to it by now. However, when I went into her office and we looked at my MRI results, she started reading it and said "oh no. This isn't good. This isn't good at all." It turned out that the feeling of pinching in my shoulder was actually the feeling of a collapsed joint. The dead bone and some cartilage around it had burst apart, leaving a super raw point in my shoulder exposed. I needed to get it fixed. I was pretty upset by this, because I had had a good run of a few years with no health problems. I got a referral to a shoulder surgeon, and a "that sucks, sorry!" in the nicest way possible (she really is a great rheumatologist). I got in my car in the parkade and called my parents, and then my boyfriend, bawling my eyes out. I remember a car waiting behind me in the parkade, and I didn't notice for a while, so he just patiently waited for me to leave. After a few minutes, I shut my car off because I wasn't going to drive while on the phone and crying like an idiot (that seems a little distracted driving-y), and he got all mad and drove off angrily. I was very upset.
Shortly after this, in the summer between my third and fourth year, my boyfriend broke up with me. I'm very ashamed that I'm not the one who terminated the relationship, but oh well. He told me that for the entire past year, he didn't love me, he was just sticking around because he didn't want to hurt me. I was really upset. I had just spent a month helping him get through a cold or something, and then pneumonia because he didn't go to the doctor when it got really bad, and he didn't even care. Another reason he broke up with me was that, and I quote, 'how can I know that you're a good girlfriend if I've never had another girlfriend? I need to date someone else to know if you're actually good or not.' So yeah. A very long story short, this chapter of my life is closed. For now. I've learned that things in life are never quite what they seem, and this entire relationship is one of those situations. But once again, more on that later.
A few months after this, I ended up meeting a guy at work at Cardel and we started dating.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Don't Play Human Foosball Unless You Don't Mind A Soccer Ball In The Face
I'm going to skip ahead in the story to the start of University. This isn't because nothing happened, just that nothing massive happened that pertains to the story, so there's no need to tell you guys about it. From this point, the story will be on fast forward a bit because of the lull in my health problems. I'll get through this part as quickly as possible so I can get back to the fun stuff!
Halfway through the summer was an engineering open house. It solidified in my mind that I was doing the right thing for school. Partway through the day we played human Foosball, which is where a bunch of people hold onto long poles and face the same way as the people on the Foosball table. Then they throw a soccer ball in the middle of it. They put me in the very middle, and I was looking down at the ball right when someone kicked it up and into my nose. It bled for two hours. It was hilarious.
The first day of University was called UofC 101. The basic idea of it is that you run around the uni going to all these fake classes practising for the real thing. I was put in a group with this girl that I'd met a few weeks before at an engineering open house thing. I spent some time too with some friends from my lifeguarding job. It was weird for me because I was almost the oldest, a full year older than everyone else in my year.
When I got home from the first day of UofC 101, I got a phone call from my boyfriend at the time. Things happened a while ago that I couldn't remember (my psychologist has told me I was experiencing dissociation at the time) and we broke up. It was difficult for me because I couldn't remember doing it, so I had to just accept the fact that it had happened and was my fault. I never tried to pass the blame off, because I hate when people do that. Our relationship ended at the point of one year and eight months, and my family and I were alone again suddenly in the health problems. I still had my headache. I decided to not go to the rest of UofC 101.
After a few days I was pretty ready to get over the whole ordeal and move on with my life. If there's anything health problems have taught me, it's how to deal with things and put them behind me. The guy was still calling and asking me questions about what had happened, which bothered me because I didn't know any of the answers. I wanted him to stop so I could move on and focus on school.
School was awesome! I'd waited since grade 8 to be in University, and it didn't disappoint me. I had six classes, which is a very heavy course load. One thing I want to stress about this: it wasn't necessarily hard, it was just a lot of work. The people who drop out probably aren't dropping out because they don't understand the material, they're dropping because they haven't or didn't want to keep up with the course load. The first year, I did pretty good with sticking to it. I had to get my infusions still, once a month, and I had to fit it around my classes, which got a little difficult. I was at a good point with the pain though, and so luckily that didn't get in the way too much.
I had a few friends in this time. I found out that Mike, the guy from Chinook (my 27 year old friend) was in engineering too so we hung out every so often. I got a few friends in my block in engg, one girl and a bunch of guy friends (I've always got along way better with guys). I found that I didn't really like how some of the people in engg acted towards engineering. Some were being very competitive about it, which is ridiculous; you're not going to make it out being the only engineer, so you may as well try to take as many of your friends with you. The friends I made were people who where all for helping each other, which was great. One major thing that happened to me in this year was I started playing World of Warcraft. From now on, I'll refer to this game as WoW.
At the end of the first year, I was hanging out with one guy a lot in particular, because he was pretty down to earth compared to a lot of other people in my block. He introduced me to one of his friends, and the friend and I really clicked. He was in number theory or something. We started dating at the end of the first year of university, on May 7, 2007.
About in the middle of his and my relationship, my left shoulder started hurting. It felt like I was getting pinched in the shoulder joint, and would sting. I noticed it most while I was lifeguarding, but thought nothing of it other than a pulled muscle. I went to the doctor for it, who said we could do an MRI, and I denied. In my opinion there was enough wrong with me.
Halfway through the summer was an engineering open house. It solidified in my mind that I was doing the right thing for school. Partway through the day we played human Foosball, which is where a bunch of people hold onto long poles and face the same way as the people on the Foosball table. Then they throw a soccer ball in the middle of it. They put me in the very middle, and I was looking down at the ball right when someone kicked it up and into my nose. It bled for two hours. It was hilarious.
The first day of University was called UofC 101. The basic idea of it is that you run around the uni going to all these fake classes practising for the real thing. I was put in a group with this girl that I'd met a few weeks before at an engineering open house thing. I spent some time too with some friends from my lifeguarding job. It was weird for me because I was almost the oldest, a full year older than everyone else in my year.
When I got home from the first day of UofC 101, I got a phone call from my boyfriend at the time. Things happened a while ago that I couldn't remember (my psychologist has told me I was experiencing dissociation at the time) and we broke up. It was difficult for me because I couldn't remember doing it, so I had to just accept the fact that it had happened and was my fault. I never tried to pass the blame off, because I hate when people do that. Our relationship ended at the point of one year and eight months, and my family and I were alone again suddenly in the health problems. I still had my headache. I decided to not go to the rest of UofC 101.
After a few days I was pretty ready to get over the whole ordeal and move on with my life. If there's anything health problems have taught me, it's how to deal with things and put them behind me. The guy was still calling and asking me questions about what had happened, which bothered me because I didn't know any of the answers. I wanted him to stop so I could move on and focus on school.
School was awesome! I'd waited since grade 8 to be in University, and it didn't disappoint me. I had six classes, which is a very heavy course load. One thing I want to stress about this: it wasn't necessarily hard, it was just a lot of work. The people who drop out probably aren't dropping out because they don't understand the material, they're dropping because they haven't or didn't want to keep up with the course load. The first year, I did pretty good with sticking to it. I had to get my infusions still, once a month, and I had to fit it around my classes, which got a little difficult. I was at a good point with the pain though, and so luckily that didn't get in the way too much.
I had a few friends in this time. I found out that Mike, the guy from Chinook (my 27 year old friend) was in engineering too so we hung out every so often. I got a few friends in my block in engg, one girl and a bunch of guy friends (I've always got along way better with guys). I found that I didn't really like how some of the people in engg acted towards engineering. Some were being very competitive about it, which is ridiculous; you're not going to make it out being the only engineer, so you may as well try to take as many of your friends with you. The friends I made were people who where all for helping each other, which was great. One major thing that happened to me in this year was I started playing World of Warcraft. From now on, I'll refer to this game as WoW.
At the end of the first year, I was hanging out with one guy a lot in particular, because he was pretty down to earth compared to a lot of other people in my block. He introduced me to one of his friends, and the friend and I really clicked. He was in number theory or something. We started dating at the end of the first year of university, on May 7, 2007.
About in the middle of his and my relationship, my left shoulder started hurting. It felt like I was getting pinched in the shoulder joint, and would sting. I noticed it most while I was lifeguarding, but thought nothing of it other than a pulled muscle. I went to the doctor for it, who said we could do an MRI, and I denied. In my opinion there was enough wrong with me.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Well You Shouldn't Have Become A Teacher, But Unfortunately You Are
My year of Chinook had a couple of significant occurrences. One thing that is really important is that I turned 18. I was dating the same guy, so he was 19 at that point. He was a huge drinker, and so I ended up going out with him and drinking every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I was a lightweight, and was making a buttload of cash, so I could easily afford it. Our main stomping grounds was the old Cowboys. It's gone now (which makes me feel ridiculously old) after closing, reopening, and then closing again, so if you ever decide to take a tour of Kelli's life in Calgary, you'll have to skip that part. I liked the ability to dress up and look cute, because it made me feel like everything that happened to me didn't matter and I was fitting in like everyone else.
Around the same time, I found myself losing my thought a lot. By this I mean I would start driving home, would kind of space out, and then would come back a couple minutes later headed for Edmonton. This happened a few times, and I'm still not sure why it happened, but oh well. I didn't tell many people because I didn't want to freak anyone out. I actually mentioned it to my boyfriend of the time, who told me not to tell him about it because he didn't want to know. That was kind of a bad call (hindsight is 20/20). This problem will come back later, so sit tight!
Another thing that happened was I moved far enough away from my surgery that I was able to get a piercing! One day, Mom was like 'let's get your nose pierced!' and I was like 'ummmmm' and she was like 'yeahhhh!' so we got in the car and went. I was a little worried about it, because it's not every day you have a sharp metal rod punchered through your face (hopefully). So we went into the shop in Kensington that looked super sterile, and jumped up on the bed to get it done. Mom held my hand so I didn't start bawling, and she told me to shut my eyes. She punched it through and it barely hurt at all, I guess because I had had and was having enough pain to minimize all other pain. My eyes started watering like mad however, almost like I got punched in the nose. It looked great though! So we went home all happy. That was on January 7, 2006. I remember the date because it was mine and my boyfriend's one year anniversary, and I didn't tell him I got it. He didn't notice until we were going up an elevator somewhere that night and was like 'whoa! What is that!' It was awesome.
The second semester of Chinook started shortly after this. I was in Math 31 and Physics 30. I was worried about Physics 30 because I'd taken Physics 20 two years prior through a workbook only. I, by chance, was in this class with the girl that had the chest tumour, and also with a guy who I'd started calling my 27 year old friend (I'm pretty sure he was 27 at the time), both of whom were in my Chem 30 class the previous semester. The girl and I went up to the teacher shortly into the first week to tell her about our health problems because we would be away often, either from pain or from appointments. She asked us what we wanted to do after, and we told her (engineer for me, something for the girl, maybe nursing?). She gave us both a funny look, and then said 'you know, some people in life just can't do what they want to through no fault of their own'. We both went 'um. Okay.' It was so upsetting! She had no right to say it. We both decided to start hating her (because we were teenage girls).
Leading up to the end of the last semester at Chinook, Kyle and I discussed possibly getting tattoos together. We had gotten quite close as a result of my health problems, and we wanted a way to symbolize it. We chose the Red Cross because we had taken all of our lifeguarding courses. We decided to do it, so we booked it, and on the fateful day Mom, Kyle and I got in the jeep and drove down to the Smilin' Buddha, a reputable tattoo shop in Marda Loop. I got mine on the back of my neck, about a centimeter down from my scar, and Kyle got his on his left pec, right over his heart. I had gotten freezing from the nurses from my infusions, so I couldn't even feel it. They turned out great! We got them covered and went to get some beers at the Regal Beagle. A couple of days later, I was lifeguarding during lessons. A teacher decided they weren't going to teach that day (douche), so we needed a lifeguard to teach for them. Somehow, I was the lucky guard. I was worried about my tattoo, but wore my wet suit so I thought it would be okay (that makes no sense). Later that day, my family told me my tattoo faded terribly. I realized I'd have to get it redone. I went in a couple of weeks later, and he redid the entire tattoo for no extra cost. I had no freezing on, however, so I got to feel the whole thing. Though it was over my spine, it actually wasn't that bad. To quote my mom, "It's not brain surgery." It looked great after, and it's held it's colour beautifully, even now, 5 years later.
Sometime around now, I got my acceptance letter for early acceptance to the University of Calgary for Engineering in the mail. I was ecstatic! So was my family. They actually called me at work when the letter came in the mail. Kyle opened it and read me the whole thing, and the four of us were screaming and jumping up and down. It was awesome! I actually got in based on Extenuating Circumstances (or something... it was 5 years ago, give me a break). I had to get two letters from teachers (one teacher form Chinook and one from my high school) saying that they thought I would do well in University despite my health problems. I was pretty proud when I got in because I did it despite all my problems, and I saw it kind of as a middle finger to how my life had been so far. It was great!
Around the same time, I found myself losing my thought a lot. By this I mean I would start driving home, would kind of space out, and then would come back a couple minutes later headed for Edmonton. This happened a few times, and I'm still not sure why it happened, but oh well. I didn't tell many people because I didn't want to freak anyone out. I actually mentioned it to my boyfriend of the time, who told me not to tell him about it because he didn't want to know. That was kind of a bad call (hindsight is 20/20). This problem will come back later, so sit tight!
Another thing that happened was I moved far enough away from my surgery that I was able to get a piercing! One day, Mom was like 'let's get your nose pierced!' and I was like 'ummmmm' and she was like 'yeahhhh!' so we got in the car and went. I was a little worried about it, because it's not every day you have a sharp metal rod punchered through your face (hopefully). So we went into the shop in Kensington that looked super sterile, and jumped up on the bed to get it done. Mom held my hand so I didn't start bawling, and she told me to shut my eyes. She punched it through and it barely hurt at all, I guess because I had had and was having enough pain to minimize all other pain. My eyes started watering like mad however, almost like I got punched in the nose. It looked great though! So we went home all happy. That was on January 7, 2006. I remember the date because it was mine and my boyfriend's one year anniversary, and I didn't tell him I got it. He didn't notice until we were going up an elevator somewhere that night and was like 'whoa! What is that!' It was awesome.
The second semester of Chinook started shortly after this. I was in Math 31 and Physics 30. I was worried about Physics 30 because I'd taken Physics 20 two years prior through a workbook only. I, by chance, was in this class with the girl that had the chest tumour, and also with a guy who I'd started calling my 27 year old friend (I'm pretty sure he was 27 at the time), both of whom were in my Chem 30 class the previous semester. The girl and I went up to the teacher shortly into the first week to tell her about our health problems because we would be away often, either from pain or from appointments. She asked us what we wanted to do after, and we told her (engineer for me, something for the girl, maybe nursing?). She gave us both a funny look, and then said 'you know, some people in life just can't do what they want to through no fault of their own'. We both went 'um. Okay.' It was so upsetting! She had no right to say it. We both decided to start hating her (because we were teenage girls).
Leading up to the end of the last semester at Chinook, Kyle and I discussed possibly getting tattoos together. We had gotten quite close as a result of my health problems, and we wanted a way to symbolize it. We chose the Red Cross because we had taken all of our lifeguarding courses. We decided to do it, so we booked it, and on the fateful day Mom, Kyle and I got in the jeep and drove down to the Smilin' Buddha, a reputable tattoo shop in Marda Loop. I got mine on the back of my neck, about a centimeter down from my scar, and Kyle got his on his left pec, right over his heart. I had gotten freezing from the nurses from my infusions, so I couldn't even feel it. They turned out great! We got them covered and went to get some beers at the Regal Beagle. A couple of days later, I was lifeguarding during lessons. A teacher decided they weren't going to teach that day (douche), so we needed a lifeguard to teach for them. Somehow, I was the lucky guard. I was worried about my tattoo, but wore my wet suit so I thought it would be okay (that makes no sense). Later that day, my family told me my tattoo faded terribly. I realized I'd have to get it redone. I went in a couple of weeks later, and he redid the entire tattoo for no extra cost. I had no freezing on, however, so I got to feel the whole thing. Though it was over my spine, it actually wasn't that bad. To quote my mom, "It's not brain surgery." It looked great after, and it's held it's colour beautifully, even now, 5 years later.
Sometime around now, I got my acceptance letter for early acceptance to the University of Calgary for Engineering in the mail. I was ecstatic! So was my family. They actually called me at work when the letter came in the mail. Kyle opened it and read me the whole thing, and the four of us were screaming and jumping up and down. It was awesome! I actually got in based on Extenuating Circumstances (or something... it was 5 years ago, give me a break). I had to get two letters from teachers (one teacher form Chinook and one from my high school) saying that they thought I would do well in University despite my health problems. I was pretty proud when I got in because I did it despite all my problems, and I saw it kind of as a middle finger to how my life had been so far. It was great!
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