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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A brain dead lupie attempts chmistry

OK, so I have an idea of what I want to tell people about as far as the what I love posts I promised and have only done one installment of and some commentary on the whole health care reforms that have been passed and the complete idiocy of some of our representatives in Washington (starting with Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of course!) but things have been so insane since Spring Break ended that I simple haven't actually put the things I want to say into coherent sentences yet. I am exhausted, insomniac, and having issues w/ weakness and brain fog....mostly due to stress and trying to overdo things, I think.
I am fairly used to the exhaustion where I feel literally drained of ever last drop of energy in my body and to the insomnia (hence the reason why when I manage to post it's usually 2 or 3am) but the mental blockage and brain fog I don't think I will ever get used to.
We have a take home quiz due tomorrow in chemistry. It's 5 questions. Shouldn't be TOO time consuming, right? Wrong. I have spent at least 8 hours on those 5 questions. Question 5 had 3 parts- write a balanced equation for the reaction, name the metal in the reaction, and tell how many mL of acid are needed to complete the reaction. The quiz gave us the products, the acid used, and how much of everything except the acid. I had no trouble writing an equation or figuring out how many mL of acid was needed....well, relatively little problem with that part....identifying what the metal was though took me about 2 hours...and there were only about 5 possible choices to start with.....like I said, brain fog. The brain fog creates mental blocks way to often that make it hard to do the easy stuff. How sad would it be if I turned in 5 pages of equations and solutions but couldn't come up with even a guess for the easiest thing we've done in weeks? (the metal was magnesium, in case you're wondering)
Never mind the 500 word essay I still need to come up with....it's gonna be late BUT that will be OK since it's only worth like 50 points and I have somewhere around 280 extra credit points in that class right now....it's for interpersonal communications and that is one thing I can definitely do. LOL
On the bright side of all of it though is that by continuing to try and work through all of my issues and illnesses I am making progress and even gaining a bit of notice. The nurse who is the research coordinator for my rheumatologist recommended me for a Lupus Patient Advisory Board that is being held in Washington D.C. next month. I won't know for sure if I am going to get to participate for a few days BUT it is nice to be recommended and considered.
If you were invited to participate in a project like this, what would you want to say about treatments, research, or your journey as a patient or in general? I'd LOVE to hear feedback from both lupies & non-lupies.