A Mixed Bag.

Parts of today were pretty great.  Other parts, not so much.

The good news first.  I gave my students their first major exam today.  I'm teaching a didactic critical care course at IU.  My students (60 total) are juniors.  I teach them all about the diseases that are encountered in critical care and, most importantly, medical and nursing interventions that should be used in caring for them.  It's not an easy course.  It requires an in-depth understanding of pathophysiology, medical interventions, and independent nursing practice.  The exam was hard.  I had succeeded in scaring the crap out of them about it two weeks ago.  They caught a break when IU closed last Wednesday, giving them an extra week to study.  Well, they must have.  The average was a solid B.  That is REALLY high for this exam and for this course in general.  I know the exam wasn't too easy.  They all looked dog tired, and now I know why...they studied their pants off.

After class, I had an appointment with my PT, Kent, who has been performing visceral manipulation on me.  Sound strange?  Yeah, it is.  I've been struggling with abdominal pain that feels similar to severe side stitches ever since having Rowan.  It's severe when I'm running and I feel it all the time (on the right) even when I'm not.  It's not my gallbladder, it's not a muscle strain....no idea what it is.  My sports med doc (Dr. Weidenbener of Bloomington Bone and Joint...he's awesome) referred me to Kent on the premise that maybe my internal organs got "messed up" during my pregnancy and have since become stuck that way.  What Kent does is very bizarre.  He "listens" to my organs with his hands.  Then he rearranges them based off of what he hears.  Believe me, I've never felt so desperate as a runner as I did the first time I was lying on that table and he was "listening" to my organs.  Boy, what I'll do to run.  I was a complete skeptic until I'd been a few times and my pain was about 90% gone.  Then, last weekend, out of nowhere, it came back.  So Kent's still working on me.  Today my stomach, liver, and cecum were out of whack.  I hope it works.  No running (or anything) today, but I have two runs tomorrow to test out Kent's latest work. 

The not-so-good news.  And it's not horrible, but disappointing.  My dissertation is a behavioral study.  Meaning it involves human subjects (well, I like to call them participants).  Which means that, before I can begin recruitment, my protocol has to be approved by the Institutional Review Board.  They're the people who make sure that things like Tuskegee don't happen all over again--that we researchers don't use and abuse people.  Well, they can be very difficult to deal with.  I had arranged the perfect recruitment strategy in collaboration with some physicians in Bloomington.  Flawless.  Well, IRB doesn't like it.  So this is going to mean considerable work/rearranging on my part.  And, if you know me, that's not good news.  Not the hard work part, but I'm a perfectionist and I absolutely LOATHE being delayed.  I ought to know better, though...just look at this blog title!   Anyway--my goal is to have that sorted out and resubmitted in a week.  Sigh.

The day ended at Starbucks (come to think of it--it started there, too).  I'm tutoring a PhD student from Salem.  He's having some difficulty in his research class and I'm helping to guide him through it.  So far, he's managing a solid A+.  I'm enjoying it.  Kids are in bed and Tim is off for a swim.  It's time to watch Supernanny.