Tri-8 Wk12, Days 511 & 512 - Tue & Wed, 7/26 & 7/27

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY! I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

• I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!
• I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!
• I'M DRIVING LESS THAN 40 MILES TODAY!

That's 40 miles TOTAL. I've had enough - quite enough. I'm going to the St Patricks Center in downtown St Louis for my clinic shift today. there's only so many days the 5 a.m. alarm can go off with me waking up as if I've been run over by a truck.

Next week - week 13 will be my first opportunity to get out of this mandatory 5 day per week rat race. I think I summed it up best in an email I had to send one of the teachers whose class I'd already screwed up in when I said, "If everyone in Tri-8 has the same requirements then we should all have the same demands."

Amazingly enough, I got home at 5 p.m. yesterday! It was fantastic. I was also asleep by 5:30

I know Dr. Guebert has talked about his father and the pain that man has been going through. It makes me very sad. I know there has been reference to him maybe "checking out" voluntarily.

I know we've talked about the mortality rate with reflex sympathetic dystrophy and the number one cause of death with that disease being suicide.

I know my pains probably aren't as bad as others but, dropping a third of your O2 saturation levels over night doesn't feel very good either. I've read the mechanism behind it is equivalent to a severe stroke or dying.

I've come to believe that things like a person drinking soda or ingesting Splenda are probably far less detrimental to health then losing the will to live.

I've read about cultures in Africa where capital punishment consisted of ignoring the offending party until they eventually wandered off into the mountains and died.

I never was able to come up with a solution to my situation which would allow me to effectively continue to get up at 5 a.m. every day then go to all my classes then go to clinic every day as well as attend all of my weekend obligations such as Loomis, SOT or Irene Gold board reviews.

I no longer think sleep is the answer but maybe just a beginning of a solution. The weekends I did have off, especially the last weekend when I missed my final SOT classes I was in and out of bed constantly and never up for more than two hours at a time and that still didn't help the exhaustion.

Moving, being healthier and being younger were the only answers I could come up with. The idea of putting my home on the market and moving seemed too huge an endeavor to pull off with all the school demands. Healthier is an option. I know I started training for my St. Peters shift back in Tri-7 and was going to the gym quite often. Of course, at that time, I was only aware of the distance I'd have to be traveling and not the 5 day per week shifts. Younger ...nothing I can do about that and, quite frankly, .....yeah .....what is, is.

I am going back to sleep now. That's pretty much where I live if I'm not in a class or clinic.