Update on Brooke

Yet again Brooke has proved how resilient the human body and mind can be.

Her diagnosis ended up being pneumonia. No need for surgery- thank goodness. They extubated her on monday (two weeks ago) and within minutes she was coughing up... well, the stuff that needed to come up. Turns out, after undergoing 4 surgeries in two weeks, her throat was so sore that she didn't WANT to cough- so it settled in her lungs and turned into pneumonia. Now, two weeks later- she's doing perfectly. A few days ago they scoped her and Dr. McClay said that her vocal chords look "perfect". I'm not sure he's ever said that to us. Talk about relief. Thank God for small blessings amid absolute chaos. Since they did have to laser her vocal chords a little, her voice is very weak- she sounds like she's whispering all the time. But you can understand her perfectly most times and they say with time she should adapt around that and just have a soft talking voice. I can't believe how you go from such turmoil to peace so quickly, but in two weeks we went from watching Brooke practically dying to being assured that everything is perfectly fine. Wow.

On a different note, I finally asked for a raise. I didn't get what I want- due to a hiring glitch, I am paid through the university instead of through Dan's grant so- I have to just get 'pooled' raises with all the casual labor employees until December when our next grant comes through and he can put my name on that. He's assured me that my pay will greatly increase when that happens- and thank goodness I work for someone like Dan because I know I can believe him. In the meantime, I get a 5% increase starting Sept 1st. Not much but, I guess every penny helps.

I start my MCAT class on 9/27... I guess from that point on I'll be saving quite a bit of money... that whole- not going anywhere or doing anything because I'm studying thing kind of helps with that. Oh- speaking of class, Dan's letting me sit in on his clinical psych PhD class that he teaches... I'm really excited about that and he's a great teacher. yay :) I'm such a nerd, I'm happy about taking a class that I dont get credit for! woohoo!

the end for now.