We left off with me spending like 5 hours writing my thesis intro and lit. review. It actually wasn't incredibly difficult--just tedious. It took a long time to be make sure all my research has been thorough and my thesis makes sense conceptually within the different theories I'm using. It's pretty amazing to have a draft of my thesis done in my first semester of grad school, so I'm not complaining. It's awesome. Today is the next section--my methods. So after this class (which miraculously I'm attending...) I'll be spending the rest of my day in solitary confinement pumping that thing out since I haven't started and it's due tonight. Yayy...
I have some people asking me about my pain since it's been a while since I updated. The drug-induced menopause HAS HELPED immensely. I went like 2 weeks with no pain meds at all and that's better than I expected!! My pain has gotten SO much better which means it must actually be invisible endometriosis, despite our skepticism. Because it's worked so well, I'm going to be getting my second shot today (the current one is wearing off since it's only a month's worth of medicine) which should last for 3 months. Then I'll get one more 3 month dose and from there we'll either have to get pregnant or the endometriosis will most likely come back. ...We'll cross that bridge when we get to it...
So I started seeing clients!! I was pretty nervous for my very first client, but I feel like there's so much support in this program. While I was waiting for my client to arrive, I was freaking out and there were some second-years in the room with me helping me relax, giving me ideas of what to do in the session, reassuring me, and basically, helping me feel like I can do this. It was so nice :) That first session was a little scattered and I felt like I was anxious and all over the place, but it's gotten better since then. I've been able to keep my sessions slower and more focused and overall, I absolutely love it! I'm glad because I've been really worried about my ability to empathize and I've found that it's coming easier than I thought. I still have times where I just can not understand some of my clients, but that usually means there's just something I need to work through about my own beliefs and expectations of people.
I have a lot of clients (more than most people start out with) because I've asked the clinic to give me as many as possible in case I need to get pregnant for my second year. I want to be as close to done with my thesis and my 500 hours as I can before that happens. I'm sure you can understand why. As bad as menopause is, I imagine pregnancy will be much worse.
So overall, seeing clients has been awesome. I do feel slightly under qualified because I just feel like I have no idea what to do most of the time. But it seems like just being there for the clients and letting them have someone who listens to and cares about them is pretty healing. That's comforting, right?
After starting to see clients, we had Thanksgiving Break! Hallelujah. I was so ready for that. This year is my family's turn for Christmas and the in-law's turn for Thanksgiving, but Dave's family lives on the east coast so we can't afford to fly out there--especially just for a day or two. So we decided to drive down and be with my family since we didn't want to be alone on Thanksgiving.
I think I'm going to split this blog right here because Thanksgiving is a lot, and this is already pretty long.
(to be continued....)
Pregnancy is not worse! It's so great--and you actually have something to show for the 9 months or so of surprises, so there!
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