HESI.

The HESI is this Monday, March 30, 2009 at 8 am. 160 questions of everything we have covered in nursing school. 6 hours allotted to complete it. A score of 850 needed to pass. Some schools require their students to pass the HESI in order to graduate, some don't. My school believes in the former.

A score below 850 means we take the second attempt in a month, and if we still don't pass, we don't graduate in May. We'll take independent study next semester and take the third and final attempt, a failure on that means we're out of nursing school.

You may think, "Hey, you have a second chance next month," but really, no one wants to take that chance. We all want to graduate and we all want to pass it on the first try. I don't think no one truly understands this pressure we're under except, well, us, and those who have had to take it. We have people, left and right, telling us that we will be fine, that we know these materials, that we will pass. As much as we appreciate the encouragement, and want to sit back and tell ourselves the same thing, we...find it hard to do so.

There are moments where I can tell myself that yes, I can do this, I'll pass. Then, there are moments where I am absolutely frustrated and scared out of my mind. As one of my friend put it, all our years of college come down to this exam on Monday. Everything we have worked for to get to this point come down to these 160 questions that will determine our fate. It's even more nerve-wracking than taking the NCLEX. At least, by the time you're ready to take the NCLEX, you have already graduated from school. For us, without passing the HESI, there will be no NCLEX.

So it's the Saturday before the HESI. Almost every one of my friends' Facebook status has conveyed these two words: anxiety and HESI. Our anxiety is in overdrive. We are freaking out. We are trying to de-stress from the pressure and at the same time staying focused. It is so. damn. hard.

We took a mini HESI last semester, and I scored over 1000, way better than expected. However, it was so...traumatizing, I guess, that I do not remember anything about it except for the anxiety I felt and when I got my score at the end. I don't remember any of the questions and whether I thought it was hard or not, which is odd because I usually have some kind of a semblance of the exams I've taken. Now, the anxiety I have is probably ten times that or worse. I just hope I don't go blank on Monday from it.

I'm praying for myself and everyone in my class to pass. We're on the same boat, all of us. In the last two years, we have kept each other going and inspired each other to be a better nurse, and there is nothing I want more than to see all of us succeed this Monday.

I'm just a human being overwhelmed by this mammoth of an exam, but my God is far greater than the HESI. When I start that exam at 8 am Monday, I know I'm not doing it by my own might for He is with me. If you believe in prayers, please pray for all of us in the Senior II class to do well on this HESI on Monday. If you don't believe in prayers, please send us good thoughts. We need it.

Jumping Hoops.

Today, I had two doors of job opportunities shut in front of me. Two disappointments and one dream job crushed in a matter of minutes.

I've been jumping hoops ever since I set foot in the States due to my international student status. As an international student, I have limitations such as not being able to work outside of school and not being able to receive most scholarships. Then, there is also the mountainous paper works and rules to follow to make sure you're not out of status. One step outside the line, and you're out of the country. I'm used to this. I'm used to the paper works, to not being able to have a part time job if there's not one at school, to not being able to get scholarship to pay for tuition. For years, I've adapted to this and I've sucked it up and gone on with it.

But I have never felt such anger in me until today when things were held against me just because of my status. It felt like everything I've been working hard for means nothing, because I didn't even have a chance to prove myself before I was told I cannot go further. It is unfair.

The hospital I interned at, the one I invested last summer, the one I counted on so much, told me they can't hire me because they don't sponsor immigrant visa. Even though I'll be on OPT (allows international students to look for a job and receive work training for a year after graduation), they won't hire because I'll only be working for them for less than a year, a year max. They knew when they hired me last summer that I was an international student, yet they never once mentioned the fact that they won't be able to sponsor me. Instead, I got encouragement to apply for their scholarship and employment, only to have both of those doors slammed in my face. I'm going to stop talking about them here, otherwise, it's going to turn into a hate mail.

Then the other hospital I had really wanted to work for--the one with the 3.5 GPA and no C's in nursing school requirements--scheduled an interview with me--whose GPA is lower than that 3.5, only to had to cancel it because they don't hire non-permanent resident workers. It was as if I had the dream not only within reach, but actually in my hands, then to watch it disappears in a second before I can start on making it happen.

After talking to several people, I realized that, with the current economy status, it is even harder for international workers to get a company that will hire them. The hospitals in the medical center here are on a hiring freeze, the numbers of employee they're hiring now is considerably lower than last year. I've heard stories of people accepting job offers, only to have HR called them and canceled on them. I've heard hospitals starting to close their doors on people like me, the ones without a permanent residency.

I'm not giving up on New York just yet. I'm still trying and I'll keep looking. Although, I have to start entertaining the idea of staying in Texas, I'm not quite ready to let go of my dream. Maybe, something good come out of this and I'll be able to move to NY as planned. Maybe, NY won't work and I'll have to stay in Texas. Either way, for now, I'm still fighting.

I have HESI in a week, and I need to focus on passing that instead of letting this lost get into me. I'm moving on. I have my faith, and I believe my future is in His hands. Whichever way it goes, there's always hope. Hope of better things, brighter future, and less hoops to jump. There's gotta be something better than this.

Special thanks and loves to my friends who have comforted me today as I cried, listened patiently as I ranted, and encouraged me to not give up on NY just yet. They are already the better things in my life.

Grateful and Humbled.

When I say right now, that I am grateful for my life and have been humbled to not take it for granted, it's not a cliche. That is truly my sentiment after hearing a news story in the recent days.

If you haven't heard, actress Natasha Richardson had a ski accident a few days ago, in which she fell and hit her head on the ground. She was fine immediately after, and it was not until an hour later that she started complaining of a headache and was taken to the hospital. Before that day ended, she was unconscious, suffering from swelling of the brain. The news are filled with conflicting reports, some say she's brain dead, some say she has not reached that state yet. Nevertheless, she has suffered from a hematoma, and now in critical condition.

I cannot get this news out of my head because I realized this could've been me when I fainted, fell down, and hit the back my head--hard--on the bathroom floor 3 weeks ago when I had a 103F fever. I didn't just fainted and fell once, but twice, although I didn't hit my head the second time. I remember the fear I had when I woke up seconds later to feel my head pounding and find myself lying flat on the bathroom floor. My immediate thought was not of why I fainted, but what can result from this within the next few hours or days.

The knowledge I have gained from nursing school told me that I could either get up, walk back to my bed, and have no effect from the fall, or I could get up, have headaches, and start projectile vomiting within an hour to a day or to a week time frame. When I got up from the floor, I had a gut feeling that I would be okay, that this wasn't going to turn ugly, but I very well knew I wasn't going to be out of the wood for at least a week. That day I wasn't praying for my fever to go down, instead I was fervently praying for no hematoma formation. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was praying for my life the rest of that day--or week for that matter.

When I told my preceptor of my fainting episodes, she immediately replied, "Oh my God, thank God you're okay. That's how people die! They faint, hit their head somewhere, and they think it's nothing. But then it turns ugly and they die." That pretty much confirmed that I wasn't being dramatic to be worried and afraid of the fall I had. What my preceptor said was exactly what I was thinking, and that was exactly what happened to the actress. She thought it was a minor fall, she talked and walked back to her hotel room, and then she went into a coma within short hours. Just like that.

My heart and prayers go to the actress and her family. I don't know them, but it's a very sad and unfortunate situation, and I cannot stop thinking that it could've been my family and I in the very same situation.

It's another reminder that anything can happen, to you and the ones you love, that life can be too short and unpredictable. So use the time you have now to love, to bless, to care, to be kind, to appreciate, to fulfill, and to be thankful of. Don't waste it, don't take it for granted. Do what you need to do, and say what you need to say before life takes an unexpected turn and you find yourself wishing you've done or said some things sooner or differently.

I am truly grateful that I am still alive today, and humbled that I was still given a chance to live.

ETA:
An official statement just came out from the family stating that she has passed away. I can't fathom what her family is going through. It's another odd feeling to realize what I had worried could happen after I fell 3 weeks ago actually happened, but to another person. And it's also a little eerie to think of what my preceptor had said after I told her the bathroom incident. I just had a different ending, a healthier and living ending.

What is this feeling?

As much as I'm at peace with my granmpa's death last summer, today I realized that I don't know if I'll ever be "okay" when I have patients in the similar situation my family and I went through that fateful July.

The first one happened last semester, and I wrote about it. At the time, I thought it was just a one time thing. It was my first and of course I was bound to feel...something. I thought it'd go away and but it didn't. Yesterday, I started to realize that one of my patients is dying and the family was finally able to made that difficult decision to let go of treatment and do palliative care instead. Today, everything is more...official, I guess. All PO meds are on hold, and the Morphine Sulfate surfaced in the order. Again, I got that uneasy feeling I did last semester.

I think what did it for me is seeing the Morphine PRN dose on the MAR first thing in the morning, just because that is the staple drug for end of life patients to keep them comfortable. It's become some kind of a sign for me that, yes, the time is near for that person. We were given doses of that, too, from the hospice care for Grampa when he went home from the hospital. I had to give him that, and so did my cousins.

Then my chest got thighter as I walked in the room. The patient is much like my Grampa was before he died. Eyes opened but no one is there. They can't talk and you wonder if they knew who you were, and you wish they remember who you were. They're just lying there, waiting for their time to come, and it's an excruciating wait for the family members.

It's a weird weird thing to experience, I can't say enough how uncanny it is to watch a dying person, especially when you've watched a family member went through it. I wasn't exactly sad or upset, I didn't feel like crying or breaking down. There is just...an uneasiness to it. There is a voice screaming in my head that this is the same thing as Grampa: the Morphine, the inability to talk, the waiting, the what happens when we bring him home, the ever present wondering of when he'd actually die. It keeps screaming I have been here before and I should never be reminded of it again.

But it's life. People die everyday, and unfortunately, you will witness that more times than you'd like. Heck, I'm only a student nurse and it already happened twice. My career awaits many a future experience of taking care and witnessing dying patients. After the first time, I thought I had to find a way to be okay with this, to erase that feeling out of me. But after today, I realized I can never make that feeling go away, and I'm accepting that I will forever be taken back to Grampa when that happens again. I will always take a sharp breath, my chest will always feel thight, and I'll always get this inexplicable feeling when I have a dying patient.

As if one dying patient isn't enough, the universe, of course, just has to mess around with me some more. Another patient on the floor, although wasn't mine, vomitted, had a seizure, and went into a code. (This was also a second code, the first one I saw was also last semester) Oh, the brouhaha of a code, there's nothing like it. It seems like, in a code, no matter how fast you're moving to get things, you are never fast enough. How many times did I hear that doctor yelled out "I NEED PROPOFOL 10 cc FAST!!! WHERE IS THE PROPOFOL?! GIMME THE PROPOFOL!!!" in the 10-15 seconds it took the other doctor to get the Propofol and have it drawn up in syringe? You're trying to bring someone back to life, get that heart beating again, breathe air into the lungs. It's a person's life literally in the hands of the many medical staff who rush into that room, and I don't think you'll ever be fast enough. No matter how experience and collected these people are, it's still a total and utter chaos.

Now, the code didn't do anything to me. It was actually exciting, to be honest. This patient was actually in a much somber situation than my dying patient, but I was fine. I've never had to watch a family member going through a code, having tube inserted down their throat, surrounded by doctors and nurses doing everything to revive them. After 30 minutes--that seemed like hours--the patient was stabilized and transfered to an ICU unit.

And then I knew there is a difference. In some cases, I'll be fine. In some others, I'll just have to deal with that weird feeling. That's just the way it goes now, and perhaps for the rest of my career. All in all, for me, it's still an other wordly experience to witness births and deaths. They make me appreciate and respect life more.

T-I-to the R-the E-the D.

Okay seriously, somehow, I must have managed to permanently implant this exhausted look on my face because the nurse director of the floor I'm doing my clinical at said to me today as I was leaving, "Wow, you look tired." And I thought, well, I am tired, but not nearly as I usually would after a 12 hour shift. I only pulled an 8 hours shift today, this is nothing! How tired do I look?!

Last Monday, the student life lady, whom I know fairly well, came up to me as she passed me in the school cafe and said, "Are you okay?" I, perplexed at the question, replied, "Well...I have been sick for the last 2 weeks. But I'm alright now."

"Ah, I can tell." Then I coughed and she shook her head, "Wow, you sound rough." And I thought, lady, you should've heard me last week. That was rough.

Now I'm wondering, goodness gracious, what is this haggard look I have plastered on my face?! I'm not feeling that bad.... Has the stress of nursing school finally managed to age me into looking like a 30 something stay at home mom with 4 kids under the age of 5?! Maybe I should do some Botox or plastic surgeries done like that octomom and look like Angelina Jolie. Ya know, 14 kids and little money but damn, I look like a supahstah!

And I'd be like, I have HESI at the end of the month and I'm studying my ass off, but damn, I look like I get 8 hours of sleep every night and not under any stress whatsoever! Take that, nursing school! Heh. I'm kidding, I'll never get anything done on my face. I'd like my forehead to have the ability to move and look...ya know...normal.

Next time you see me, just tell me I look great and glowing like the rays of sun on a cheerful Sunday morning. You tell me I look tired, I'm sending Cookie my ADD dog to maul you.

Sickity SICK.

I was going to write about how awful I have been feeling for the past week and a half. I mean, I was ready to go all out on this, because, dang it, I have never been this miserable from an illness in my entire adult life. The last time I was even remotely close to being like this was 3 or 4 years ago.

I’ve been MISERABLE. And I want to WHINE. Because that’s what sick people do, they whine. But then I thought, wait, I don’t want to do that. I am a better person than that, so I’m going to do the opposite. Because that’s what a mature adult would do, they’d look at the bright side and be grateful instead. So here it is

I’m grateful:

• That I am still alive and I’ll recover alright. I mean, a fever that broke only to come back less than a week later, plus the discovery of a palpable lump in your armpit, hacking coughs and congested nose that last more than a week? It’s no wonder that my mind started to wander to things I know could go wrong. The downfall of working in the medical field is that you see what can go wrong and you know very well it can happen to just anyone, including you, and that is the elephant in the room whenever something abnormal happens to you and your loved ones. To find out that this was an upper respiratory tract infection with early stage bronchitis and that lump was nothing more than an enlarged lymph node due to said infection? It was a big relief.

• That hey, I have one heck of a story to tell now! I mean, I fainted TWICE in the BATHROOM as I got up from the toilet seat. I fell back and hit my head on the bathroom floor the first time, I fell forward to the wall the second time, which was about 6 hours after the first one.
  
• That, as a student nurse, I have the skill and knowledge to know what caused those fainting episodes. High fever (Tmax 103) + period + getting up too fast = orthostatic hypotension. BP 108/72 lying down, and 88/50’s standing up? Not fun.

• That I was okay after I hit my head on the floor. That was a scary moment, finding yourself flat on your back, head pounding, and realizing you just hit that head on the tile, but you had no idea how hard you hit it. Again, as a student nurse, you know of all the things that can go wrong, but as you did neuro check on yourself to make sure you were indeed okay, there was a sense of calmness telling you that you were okay and no, you weren’t not going to have a hematoma.

• That, although I missed two weeks of clinical, I will still be able to make it up. I’m bummed that, while my friends are nearing to complete (or already have) their 100^th hour of the 170 clinical hours we have to complete this semester in order to graduate, I have only raked in a measly 44 hours. I will be the snail that finishes last at the end of April, but screw that, I’ve made peace with it and I’m okay with being the snail as long as I cross that 170^th hour mark before this semester ends.
  

• For my friends and family, who have taken care of me when I didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, sent me well wishes, prayed for me, and made me laugh through all this. They’ve made my miserable days somewhat bearable.

• For my immune system. As much as I’d like to beg to differ, come think of it, God has given me a pretty darn good immune system. I rarely get sick, probably a couple minimal colds here and there per year, but nothing that would hold me down to bedrest like this. I even noted to myself last year that I was surprised I didn’t get sick a whole lot ever since I started nursing school. I thought with that high pressure cooker of a stress, I’d be crawling in and out of bed being sick as a dog several times a year. But I haven’t until now.
  
  
• For losing weight! I’M KIDDING! I’m not shallow like that. I actually hate losing my appetite, because my tummy hurts but I have no desire to eat. Plus, the Nurse Practitioner put limitations on my diet: no dairy and nothing complex, just broth with rice or noodle. Basically, my tummy can only handle soups for the time being. Blech. Now all I want is a tall cold glass of chocolate milk, which, obviously, I can’t have. Human being, always want what they cannot have. Ya don’t say!

So that’s it. I’m coughing less and blowing my nose less, which are good things. I still get tired easily, so I’m pretty much spending my days vegging on the couch on my computer or watching TV when I’m not napping. Yeah, isn’t that the life of a millionaire? Wake up, check emails, watch TV, nap, wake up, maybe try to eat, some more TV or computer, nap, try to write papers, more TV, bedtime (oh, and insert copious amount of coughing and blowing out nose in between).

My goodness, I am a BUM for sitting on my ass all. day. long!!!

But I’m a grateful bum, though…. Just sayin’….

Avaiable for hire.

I think I'm more productive when on bedrest than not.

I mean, I submitted job applications to 2 different hospitals already, and the only reason I didn't apply to the third one was becasue I'm too sick to get one document scanned.

Anyway.

Raise your hand if you think applying for a real job is scary? *raises hand*

Goodness gracious, I didn't know it could be that scary. I don't know, maybe it was the fear of rejection or something, but I was reading whatever it is over and over before I finally clicked submit. It's your life you're putting on the frontline. All your education and accomplishments that you hope are good enough to get you hired to do what you want to do for the rest of your life. I'm not one to beg, but after every job application I'm all, "Please, love me, want me, HIRE ME!" Okay, not a good idea to say that to the recuiter, that has crazy not mentally healthy written all over it....

So application to hospital A was submitted yesterday. I seriously wasn't expecting much of it because it was a very competitive hospital and my friend, who I think has better qualifications than me, had applied there before and received a rejection email. Sure enough, I got the rejection email on the same day I applied, which made me wonder if they sent out that email automatically. You know how you get an automated email after you applied saying your application has been successful? Well, with this hospital, you also get an automated rejection email. Because seriously, I think both of us are pretty darn good candidates. Heck, I even had letter of recommendation to boot. It really made me wonder what kind of super applicant they say yes to. Robot applicant maybe....

Application to hospital B was submitted today. This is the hospital I interned at last summer, so you can say I do have inside connection. I knew the recruiter, I have met briefly with the manager of the unit I want to work at, so I've given them head ups that I've applied. However, this doesn't make it less nerve wracking though. They did say that they have never turned away an intern, and my friend did assure me that we are already in, but still, it's a freaking real job on the line here! I have higher hope on this one than hospital A, of course. So we shall wait for a call back.

Hospital C, I'll hopefully apply tomorrow. I think I'll feel good enough tomorrow to go somewhere with a scanner for one more document and then I'm ready to submit. It's another competitive hospital--heck, all three of these are--but I somehow have hope too on this one, unlike hospital A, to which I felt rather indifference about. Out of the three, this one has the toughest criterie, I actually don't fit one of them but screw that, I'm still apllying. My GPA is thisclose to their 3.5 requirement and I just got invited to the nursing honor society. That should count for something, right? I have nothing to lose, I'm applying anyway.

So that is the tale of my job applying process. Less than a year ago, I did the same thing for an externship job and I got what I wanted. So here's to getting the nursing job I want (and need) this year!

Scary.

I had the scariest thing happened to me last night and this morning.

I had two syncope episodes in the bathroom, once at midnight and once around 6 am, and both after I got up from the toilet seat. It must be fever induced orthostatic hypotension, which is a conisderable drop in blood pressure when a person moves from a sitting/lying down position to a standing position.

I started running a fever yesterday, so my blood vessels are already dilated from the fever (Tmax 103 this am), and it's not helping either that I'm on my period. You add these together and you'd think, "Hmm no wonder this happened." I did remember I got up rather quickly from my bed to the bathroom, which just aggravated it. Still scary when it happened, nonetheless, especially when I had neevr fainted in my life before.

And yay for being a student nurse and having assessment skills. I can't imagine how freaked out I'd be if I had not been able to draw conclusion on what may have cause this, and had not known how to do neuro check on myself to determine if I had hit my head too hard on the floor when I fainted.

I don't remember anything from the first one, I got up and the next thing I knew I was on the floor. With the second one, I remembered more. I was feeling dizzy and seeing dark, which got me to think "Didn't I turn the light on already? How come it's so dark?" Then I fell forward and passed out. Ion ly fainted for a a couple seconds, and after the second one I called my aunt to get over here and bring me her blood pressure machine.

Sure enough, when lying down my BP was 108/72, and when standing up, it was 88/60. My aunt wanted to wait to see how I'd feel before we decide going to the doctor or not. I'm feeling much better now. No dizziness when I stand up, and I have gone to the bathroom twice since the second episode and didn't faint. I still have a 101.3 at the moment, but I'm gaining my appetite and energy back as we speak. So here's to hoping that the orthostatic hypotension is just a fever induced episode and nothing serious, and that I'll get better sooon.

I called in sick for clinical this morning, and definitely not doing any this week. I still have to study for Leadership/Management exam on Monday and finished my part in our group Community paper though.

That's all the update I have. I haven't had a chance to write on anything else, so this will do for now. If you believe in prayers, keep me in yours! :)

5.16.2009.

I just applied for graduation.

I will be walking in that cap and gown across the stage on May 16, 2009.

Wow, I, and the other 64 people in my class, finally get to say that. I don't know how they feel, but I'm pretty stoked about it.

But scared too, because ohmahgaah this is it I'm going to be a real nurse and how the heck am I going to do that when I feel so inadequate and incompetence and I don't know anything and jebus am I going to make it am I going to be a good nurse there are patients' lives on the line here!!!

Yeah, it freaks me out, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot.

School does its best to teach and provide us with experience, but it's nothing like the real thing. How many times have I gone to clinicals and come across drugs that I never heard before in class? How many of the machines I saw, when I had clinical at the Cardiac Recovery Unit that one time, can I name and tell you what they're for? Heck, I'm a senior II and how many IV have I put in? None. And how many venipuncture have I done? Only one, and that wasn't even on a patient, it was on my internship friend for a check off (and yes, my friend did one on me too).

But then, it always surprises me at how much I know that I didn't know I know before. I know, I just lost you right there. Do you know what I mean? Okay, okay, I'll stop.

What I mean is that, the general feeling among the seniors is that we don't know anything. It's like, wait-how many conditions does this patient have? How do you pronounce this drug?! What is that futuristic looking machine is for? They did what on that patient?! Is he gonna cra--holy sh*** BP's dropping--fast--he is crashing! Will we know how to think and act critically? My own immediate answer to that question used to be "No.... I don't know...maybe?" But now I'm starting to think differently, in that I think I know more than I thought I do.

Today is an example, we had a 50 questions pharmacology exam that wasn't counted for a grade, just to see what we know so far; students usually don't do so hot on this impromptu exam. During the review, the instructor asked, "Once you start Iron therapy in an anemic person, how many days will it take until you see some improvement?" There was a lot of answer thrown out, "a month" being the most common I heard, but "120 days" just rolled off my tongue. I wasn't shouting it out to be heard to the class, more like saying it to myself, and I didn't hear if anyone else has shouted "120 days" also. I was just thinking, "120 days, that's the lifespan of adult Red Blood Cells, you have to wait 120 days for the new RBC's to see some result from that Iron."

And I was right.

My exact thought at that moment was, "Huh. Where did that come from?! How did I come up with that?!" While the grade of that exam is a failing one by the school's standard, it's still better than what I expected and it's higher than the class average. I've been surprised at myself a lot--especially in the last semester, perhaps it's time for me to start setting higher expectations of myself.

I guess what I need to keep telling myself from now until that May graduation day is that I am more competent than I thought I am, and I am more than I give myself credit for. I have been pushing myself to trust my gut and go for it for the past year, and I've found out that--actually--more often than not, I was doing and/or saying the right thing. It's like this whole nursing thing has finally been coming together in my head, unbeknown to me, and I am now starting to realize it. Although, I still have to admit that believeing in yourself is sometimes easier said than done in this world.

There is still much learning to be done and confidence to be built in on my part.

But you better your bottom dollar I'll be as ready as I can be when 5.16.2009 comes along.

Huh. That's weird....

You know what I've been noticing?

I cannot recite my cell phone number in my native tongue.

No, I am not kidding.

Everytime someone--who speaks my first language--asks, I'd start telling them in said language but when I get to the last 4 digits I have to stop and cannot, for the life of me, remember it in that language. I have to repeat the number again in my head in English and resort to saying the rest of the numbers in English.

This happens every.single.time. Am I weird or what?!

Do you also wanna know what else I've known all along but has just been confirmed now?

I am slightly deaf. Or even mildly deaf.

I've known this. I find myself asking for a repeat whenever someone speaks really soft or whisper. Last year when we practice for head to toe assessment check off, I sometimes couldn't pass the whisper hearing test, to a point where my partner and I promised on what words she was going to say (Wednesday to the left ear, Saturday to the right ear) so I would be able to say those for sure instead of keep asking "what?!" and end up distracting her assessment routine (we were already a nervous wreck doing a 30-40 minutes routine under the watchful eyes of our instructor). Then last Wednesday as we practice hearing and vision screening for a check off, we did the Sweep hearing test on each other with the machine and I couldn't hear the last 4000 Hz on a 25 decibel. Forgot how far my friend went up on the decibel before I can finally hear all three of the 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, and 4000 Hz. Or maybe it was so bad and embarrassing that I am in denial and choose to forget it.

My vision is already not perfect--although, it was a relief that I still have 20/20 on this prescription, which hasn't gone up in two years based on my early exam. Then I have this memory confusion thing. And now I have hearing problem, too? Will a hearing aid be in a near future? Gah, I am such an old person!

They better give me senior discounts for this crap.

For serious!