Today was hard, but I got through it. In operating rooms we have special air exchange systems. The pressure in the room is higher than that outside the room. You actually have a hard time opening the doors and hear wind around them. I say this because the air is very drying to everyone's eyes, but especially my impaired eye. It stung the whole day. I have to wear my glasses that I thought I was finally rid of and then a mask and your breath comes up into your eyes and adds to the problem. That was crappy but manageable.

The really shitty part was having to tell each and every person as I came along. We all know some people are just idiots and say the stupidest things to you. I got a lot of that today. I just wanted to use the intercom system and get it over with, but my speech isn't clear enough for the intercom. People don't seem to understand that I just want to be left alone and that it is not only difficult but painful for me to speak.

I got a terrible start when I came home from work today. Molly greeted me at the door. One of the last things I am supposed to do in the mornings before I leave is close the door on her kennel. She knows she has to go in there during the day so she just goes and gets into it as I am finishing getting ready. This is the third time I have forgotten to close her in, in the last two or so months. However, this is the first time she went nine hours unattended in the house. Mike was in bed sleeping the first time and caught it withing a couple of hours and the second time was the day I had surgery. When Mike found her she had only been out for about 4 hours. I feel like a bad mom. She was almost panicked when I opened the door. It was like she was worried that something had happened to me since I didn't take care of her. I couldn't find that she had any accidents anywhere. She probably just slept the whole day, but I still can't believe it. She has calmed down so much and is a much better behaved dog than she used to be. But, she still gets naughty when she gets bored. I couldn't find that she had chewed anything up but I was mostly looking at the big things like the couch.

I told her I would take her on a longer walk since she had been such a good girl. She acted like she was proud of herself. We went too far though and it just about did me in. I have only been taking her about a mile lately (that is after I worked up to it after surgery). I know she needs to and wants to go farther. We went a little over two miles though and I was trying to convince her that I could just ride on her back the last four blocks. She wasn't going for it though.

Mike is out right now and has made it off the train. He is now supposed to have a trip home and one more round trip. I am so excited I can hardly wait. There is a glitch, of course. He didn't fully explain to me about his "driving test." He told me his manager had to ride along and watch him and so forth, but implied that it was for ONE trip ONE way. That isn't true he now says. If his manager had ridden with him a couple of times early that would be the case and he would just have ONE official run. What he has to do now is have the manager ride one time when the train is empty and two times when the train is full. CRAP!!!! He got the one empty done on his last trip, but couldn't get reach the manager to ride home with them like he was supposed to. Mike tried to call him today and let him know he was going up but couldn't reach him again. So if he can't get the manager to ride home with him tomorrow and then the very next trip he has to KEEP GOING. Not good. His assigned vacation starts a week from today. If he is "qualified" by the time he goes on vacation for two weeks then he doesn't get the level of pay he earned for the vacation. That doesn't sound right. This is his vacation he earned as a conductor so he should be paid his conductor rate for vacation. Until he passes that last driving trip he is still a fireman (otherwise known as engineer in training). So the crazy, half facially paralyzed, hormonal, pregnant wife may be hunting down this manager herself.