Blurgh.

It's been a rough day. I can't promise cohesive thought tonight.

My mom is probably going to stay another week, which means I'm staying in Chicago another week, in part because they want to train me to be her primary caregiver until she's totally rehabbed. Which is okay, and I understand and agree with the team's recommendation, and I participated in the decision to stay, and I really want my mom to get the best chance at independence, here, and I also appreciate having another week where I can go out with my Chicago crew for lunch or dinner or just hang out while knowing that my mom is in a safe place under good care.

But while the decision to stay is on the whole a good one, I'm not as enthusiastic about delaying my return to NC for another week. I miss my dog. A lot. I miss my NC friends. I miss my own bed and all the things that are comfortable and familiar in my daily life. And I have a boatload of patients over whom I'm so protective that I routinely work with fevers or migraines because I'd rather go in than take a sick day and disrupt my patient care.

But, this is life.

I got some other irritating news today, that Cleo's mortgage guy could not in fact work miracles and get me a reasonable mortgage because my student loan company is sucking the life out of me (and my credit score, and my debt/income ratio). We may still be able to pull a rabbit out of that particular hat, but, it's definitely contributing to the crank factor.

And, I've been sticking to a fairly set (although not particularly rigid) meal plan this week (and going forward), which is stressing me out in its own right, not to mention that whole handling-a-lot-of-stress-without-using-the-eating-disorder component (which is surprisingly not awful, given the whole structured-but-flexible thing). The packing lunch/snacks is nice when I'm eating non-hospital food, but the logistics...well, it was better tonight than last night. In part because I didn't stress out tonight about if I was going to be able to find a microwave tomorrow, etc, etc. But, I need to be well-fueled for this whole endeavor, and maintain my immune system, and take care of myself so I can do all of that other caretaking. 

Which is something I really keep striving to remember. And which is never something I've done particularly well. But, one has to start retraining themselves sometime.