Productivity

I had one of those days yesterday when you feel like a winner.

A few weeks ago I sent my resume and an introduction letter to the institutional research offices at Grant MacEwan and NAIT to let them know of my availability and willingness to do project or contract work for them. (Once my maternity leave money stops coming our family budget will be a smidge tighter than we would like so I'm trying to get a little income going. Plus after the kids are in school and I want to go back to work it will help to have contacts.) Yesterday I followed up and called them. For me this is really a hard thing to do. Cold calling someone is harder for me than actually going to visit them. I don't know why, it just is. I've always been kind of shy so this was an opportunity for me to get out of my comfort zone. Well, I got voicemail both times, almost a relief, but kind of a disappointment after working up my courage. But about 10 minutes later the director from NAIT called me back. And crazily enough he had just been to an executive meeting for a professional organization for institutional researchers and another member is a former co-worker of mine. My name must have come up because my former co-worker told him that he should meet with me. Man, it's a small world, and you never know how a contact you made 5 years ago will come back into your life. So, he asked me to come down and I'm meeting with him April 20th. I don't know if I will get any work out of this but it feels good that I was proactive and that this director wants to meet with me.

Then I phoned the ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) specialist that my ENT in Winnipeg was supposed to refer me to. It's been six weeks since he supposedly sent the letter and I hadn't heard from them so I called up the new guys office and asked if they had received the refererral. I am paranoid about stuff like this getting lost in the mail or the general shuffle of busy medical offices. And yes, they had my records but hadn't contacted me (grrrr). Surprisingly they gave me an appointment for the end of May, this is akin to a miracle since apparently the wait times for new patients to see an ENT is about 8 months in the Edmonton area. So again, I feel blessed that it worked out so well. I was scheduled to have a stapedectomy done on my left ear about a year and half ago but I became pregnant with Eric so it was canceled. My hearing in that ear has totally tanked so I really want to have something done. I saw a new hearing aid specialist in January and she recommended that I look into getting a BAHA, a bone anchored hearing aid, as my type of hearing loss is a good match for this device. Basically, the surgeon puts a small screw into the bone behind your ear. The head of the screw sticks out of your head and becomes the attachment piece for a very small box like hearing aid. I have a conductive hearing loss, the bones in my middle ear don't oscillate the way they should therefore the sound does not travel into my inner ear to be heard by the nerves and transmitted to my brain. The screw in my head (hahaha) would bypass the bones of my middle ear, essentially the mastoid bone would be the new conductor and I would hear like normal. If you use this device you don't need a hearing aid in each ear because it doesn't matter what side the BAHA is anchored on, it works for both ears. Sweet! I love my hearing aid, it makes my life soooo much better but it's still not quite the same as normal hearing and from what I've read this is one step better. The other plus is that this surgery is much less invasive than the stapedectomy, there's less chance of something going wrong. Inserting a screw on the outside is easier than going into my ear through my ear canal, and replacing a teeeny tiny bone without damaging anything else. So I'm crossing my fingers that the ENT specialist does indeed think I'm a good case for this device and that it won't take a million years of being on a waiting list to get the surgery done.

And finally, we took Jack with us to the chiropractor yesterday and had him adjusted. Since his fall down the stairs a couple of weeks ago it has been a nightmare getting him to go to sleep. He comes out of his room a million times and finally breaks down into a huge temper tantrum. I wondered if he was feeling yucky after that tumble, I mean he really wouldn't be able to tell us if he was having headaches or back pain right, and I know if I fell down the stairs like that I'd be in rough shape. Dr. Comeau said there were a few places on his back that were "out". In children they just apply gentle pressure to the offending places and they move back quite easily, no cracking or anything. :) And wouldn't you know it, last night it was 7:45, I read Jack three stories, turned out the lights, said prayers, sang a song, said good night, and he said bye bye, and that was it! Hooray. That chiropractor is our new best friend!! I love that man.

So all in all a stellar day, hopefully today is just as good!