Nightmare Come True...

[Loyal]

I was panicking like a whore in church about an hour ago...

To begin with, the nightmare that many successful students have is that you wake up one morning and realize that morning is the final for a difficult class that you didn't attend all year. Not only that, but you don't know where the room to take the test is located and you're late!

Welp, this is my final semester for an MA in History. I take Oral and Written exams to gain the degree. Last night I was looking at a web page devoted to this and there were no review questions. I wasn't worried because I assumed that Sept 25 was when the review questions from three professors would be posted and nothing was. Other classes useing this same format would use that date as a due date and not a post by date. I began to think this because my University started back up in mid August and I had nothing yet from this "class." I emailed the professor coordinating this graduate committe of three to see when the questions would be submitted, and then her questions appeared magically on the website with no explanation.

Just for her specialty (American Colonial History) she had 2 questions that covered two pages, requiring the synthesis of 9 sources. The first question had to do with creating a college level course for early colonial history, which engages the main theses of the sources into a sophisticated central idea. Explain why the students should care about the central idea. There is more to the question but that's too much minutiae for this forum

The second question is the development of American slavery. Where did it come from? How did it begin? How did it evolve? or did it evolve? One of the sources is Many Thousand Gone by Ira Berlin, which is several hundred pages long (great book) itself., let alone the other 8 sources.

Just this one of three professors review questions were given me today to be answered/completed by Sept 25, and I hadn't recieved 2/3rds of the questions. It was the nightmare in a slightly different form. Would my years of post graduate work go up in flames? I am still trying to recover (It was as I originally thought, the profs have until Sept 25th to submit questions, not that I have to turn in some paper amswering those questions by Sept 25th)

Anyway, tell me your nightmare that came true....or almost came true..

 

[Neil039]

That is horrible. Countless hours of preparation and for what? Positive vibes are being sent your way.

I’ll share a snippet. 19 years ago I had a sprained ankle. During recovery developed a blood clot. My primary was aware but not knowing the full extent of why I developed one, I didn’t press my doc.

Fast forward to 2013. I hurt my right knee jumping down a stair case. Orthopedic doc refused to due surgery due to the swelling at the time. When the swelling decreased my knee went back to normal size with minimal pain. So I held off on surgery ( law enforcement at the time ).

After 5 months of limited work and time off I feel a huge pain in my chest and upper abdomen. I had developed two blood clots months before that finally lodged near my heart. Literally being alive right now is luckier than winning the lottery.

So ended my career and forever change my life.

My nightmare happened when I got the clot. It all came true when my failure and that of my doctors to simply have me on a blood thinner never materialized.

 

[thirteen28]

I was panicking like a whore in church about an hour ago...

To begin with, the nightmare that many successful students have is that you wake up one morning and realize that morning is the final for a difficult class that you didn't attend all year. Not only that, but you don't know where the room to take the test is located and you're late!

Welp, this is my final semester for an MA in History. I take Oral and Written exams to gain the degree. Last night I was looking at a web page devoted to this and there were no review questions. I wasn't worried because I assumed that Sept 25 was when the review questions from three professors would be posted and nothing was. Other classes useing this same format would use that date as a due date and not a post by date. I began to think this because my University started back up in mid August and I had nothing yet from this "class." I emailed the professor coordinating this graduate committe of three to see when the questions would be submitted, and then her questions appeared magically on the website with no explanation.

Just for her specialty (American Colonial History) she had 2 questions that covered two pages, requiring the synthesis of 9 sources. The first question had to do with creating a college level course for early colonial history, which engages the main theses of the sources into a sophisticated central idea. Explain why the students should care about the central idea. There is more to the question but that's too much minutiae for this forum

The second question is the development of American slavery. Where did it come from? How did it begin? How did it evolve? or did it evolve? One of the sources is Many Thousand Gone by Ira Berlin, which is several hundred pages long (great book) itself., let alone the other 8 sources.

Just this one of three professors review questions were given me today to be answered/completed by Sept 25, and I hadn't recieved 2/3rds of the questions. It was the nightmare in a slightly different form. Would my years of post graduate work go up in flames? I am still trying to recover (It was as I originally thought, the profs have until Sept 25th to submit questions, not that I have to turn in some paper amswering those questions by Sept 25th)

Anyway, tell me your nightmare that came true....or almost came true..

You may be a skimmer, but you're still going to kick ass

 

[Merlin]

Wait so you aren't naked in those dreams? My self-torture type dreams usually have that extra layer of fun.

I had a nightmare once in the gulf about a really important piece of equipment, that it didn't have a certain special inspection completed before we pulled out. Was on the Vinson at the time and let me tell you that woulda been my ass. Woke up and scrambled to my desk to verify at like 3 in the am and thankfully yes it had been done. But it was terrifying just because of how those type of dreams usually aren't so specific when I have them and it scared the shit out of me.

 

[Raptorman]

My first marriage.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

I've had a life riddled with unusual medical problems. I first got ill, when I was 9. I remember having a fever and going to the nearby medical center. They sent me home figuring it was a virus. My mom took me up two days later and the doctor was going to send me home again. Fortunately a different doctor noticed the way I was sitting with my head back and my neck arched. He did a spinal tap, and it turned out to be bacterial meningitis. Back in the 70's you stayed in the hospital if you got an IV. So two weeks of antibiotics and they sent me home. In a few days I had it again and went back to the hospital for another spinal tap and admission. Spinal taps aren't as bad as they sound when you are an adult, but as a kid they were terrifying. So two weeks of antibiotics, I get sent home, get a fever and another spinal tap is ordered. Eventually they just kept me in the hospital and did a spinal tap every two weeks. The doctors were baffled. I was in the hospital for three months. They decided to send me home on oral antibiotics. Back then insurance for employees was fantastic. They paid to send me to Sloan Kettering in NYC. They got us an apartment nearby the hospital. The doctors there figured out that I had spinal fluid leaking from my sinuses and it allowed germs to reach my brain. So I went home and the doctors ordered another spinal tap. This time they completely packed my sinuses and I had strings hanging out my nose with labels. Then when they did the spinal tap they injected radioactive dye into my spinal column. I had to lay face down for about 8 hours. I was brain scanned every hour to check the progress of the dye moving to my brain. Then when they were confident the dye was there long enough to leak into my sinus they would unpack my sinus, pull the plegets and read them with a type of Geiger counter to locate the leak. Then they had to plan the surgery. I had skin grafts removed from my leg and then they made an incision along my nose, removed my eye and went into patch the leak, which was near the top of my sinus. They'd close me up and my nose would be completely packed for two weeks. Cured!! Or so they thought.

A few months later I got meningitis again. This time it struck fast. I remember my dad carrying me to the car. I had another spinal tap, two weeks in the hospital, then much to my terror they ordered another radio isotope study. There was another leak and more surgery. This went on for years. They tried going through my upper lip and two other times they went in through my skull to patch the hole from the brain side. That was a traumatic surgery. The second to.e that they went in through my skull I didn't speak for a week. By then I was in fifth grade.

All through my years of growth I had 13 bouts with meningitis, not counting the original three month off and on one. I had 7 surgeries through my nose, two through my lip and two through my skull. I lost count of all of the spinal taps and radio isotope studies. Once I reached my teen years they developed arthroscopic surgery and were able to make the patches from substances abstracted from my blood. They called it fibre and glue. So the surgery was much less invasive. But they still didn't know why I was getting leaks. However as I grew my face was becoming deformed. The left side of my jaw stopped growing, and so did my eye socket on the left. Add in the scars from the surgery and I was a mess. It was difficult growing up like that. No girl friends, people staring, etc... I threw myself into my hobbies and had some good close friends. Plus my classmates were never mean. Classmates a few years older weren't so nice though. Fortunately my older sisters boyfriend was an intimidating guy and he'd put a stop to it.

Anyway, Dr. Knipe was an oral surgeon and he tried to diagnose me. One day he has me come in and he tells me I have Vanishing Bone disease. He said eventually my bones in my skull would deteriorate to the point that it would lead to so many problems that death was imminent. More terror and despair. My Dad worked at the hospital and was friends with the CEO. He pushed him for another opinion, so I was sent to a specialist in Jackson Memorial hospital in Fla, all expenses paid. He diagnosed me in five minutes. I have Parry-Rhomberg's syndrome. At that time in 1984 there were very few known cases. I was so relieved that Dr. Knife was wrong. So then came the arduous planning of how to surgically reconstruct my face. Geisinger Medical Center didn't have an oral surgeon with any experience in this degree of surgery, but he was going to try. Fortunately Dr. Weisbecker moved on before the planning got that far. But he was still instrumental in almost getting me killed. I'll add that story below.

So Dr. Hood, the CEO went about recruiting an oral surgeon that had some expertise in the field. He found a military Doctor and brought him into the fold. This was not a well mannered Doctor and he was not good at dealing with kids or teens. I was in my freshman year of college at Penn State when he arrived. So the surgery was put off until the following summer. It took 13 hours. My head swelled up like a pumpkin. I had my jaws wired shut for three months, but he did a pretty good job. The following summer I had some reconstructive surgery to my nose and chin and I looked pretty normal for the first time since I was 12. I ended up getting meningitis one more time when I was in my mid twenties. It was the worst bout I ever had and led to some minor changes in my brain, like my eyes tracking correctly and my reading comprehension. Things improved over the years but I have lingering effects. Overall I've look pretty normal and can function normally, though wife may disagree with the latter.

While this entire ordeal was a nightmare for me, I was a kid through it all. Kids are resilient. But now that I have my own kids I can really understand what a nightmare it was for my parents and siblings.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

A side effect of Parry-Rhomberg's syndrome can be missing bone. The body fills the void with blood vessels and tissue called a Hemangioma tumor. I have missing bone on the upper left pallet in my mouth, so I have a hemangioma tumor. All through the years of growth it would seep blood. It was a small enough amount not to harm me but it always hurt, and when I got a cold it would swell. It hurt to brush my teeth on that side too.

As prep for my reconstructive surgery I had to have my wisdom teeth removed. This is where Dr. Weisbecker came in. I had extensive studies done on the tumor before surgery. I donated blood to myself several times months in advance. I had the surgery over winter break, my freshman year of college. It all seemed to go off without a hitch and we were so relieved. Four days after surgery I was packing to leave for college. I bent over to put close in my suitcase and suddenly my mouth filled with blood. I ran to the bathroom as I was trying to contain the blood from running out of my mouth. I got to the sink and I spit it out. I grabbed a tissue and wadded it up and bit on it, only for it to instantly saturate. So I stuffed a wash cloth in my mouth and ran downstairs. It was about 11:00 pm. My Mom is a night owl so she was in the kitchen. I pulled the washcloth and blood started running onto the floor. I put the washcloth back and she gave me a pot to hold under my mouth as the washcloth was becoming saturated. She woke my Dad and we went to the ER. The hospital was only five minutes from home. They nonchalantly roomed me, but since it was bleeding a doctor was there pretty quickly. I was still holding the pot under my chin. The Dr was a resident. He spoke to my parents about my surgery to get an idea what was happening then he gets a suture kit and pulls the washcloth out. He's eyes got wide as he saw the blood running out of my mouth. He yelled for a nurse and said he needed suction stat. By now his hands are shaking. He was so nervous that he never numbed my mouth. He stuck the needle and thread right into my tumor and began to sew. But this did not stop the bleeding and it hurt like hell. He apologized once he realized that he didn't use novacaine, and said I need surgery immediately. By now people are flying around getting me ready to go. I'm on a stretcher with a nurse holding suction in my mouth as they are all pushing me and running down the hallways. I get to the OR room and its full of people racing to set up. I get an IV and the anesthesiologist said to me, "you are not going to enjoy this." He said I can't swallow or blood could get into my lungs and complicate things. But if they knocked me out first to intubate me I could get blood in my lungs. So he had to do it while I was awake. He comes at me with this big syringe and sticks it in my throat to numb the inside of my throat. He doesn't wait long and he is holding a long metal tongue depressed shaped like an L with ridges in it. He sticks it down into my throat and pulls my tongue back followed by a tube. He was trying to get the tube into my lungs, while suctioning my mouth at the same time. It took a few tries because of my gag reflex. It hurt pretty bad too. But the moment he got it in he said "goodnight" and I was out. They had the sodium pentathol already cued up. I awoke the next day around noon. I was puking dried blood. Its like coffee grounds. I could feel that they stuck something in the tooth socket and sewed it all up. The Doctor said it was gel foam and it was somewhat new at the time. It coagulates the blood and eventually dissolves. In all I lost 1/3 of my blood. I puked all day. I had to miss two weeks of college and when I returned I was still weak from the loss of blood.

I'll never forget the urgency of the ER staff or the shaking hands of that Dr. stitching my mouth. But the worst was the look on my parents face as they wished me luck and told me they loved me before they were taken from the room. I thought it was the last time I'd ever see them. It was like the worst nightmare I could imagine.

 

[oldnotdead]

I avoided all that. I went to grad school out of the Navy as pre-law with no intention of being a lawyer. I simply decided as a businessman I needed to be versed in the law. I took the LSAT just to quiet my girlfriend at the time before I enrolled and enjoyed the classes immensely because I was simply taking what was important to me.

Years later I had 4 law firms as clients and enjoyed talking to the lawyers. The head partner of one firm said I should finish because he said I would be a good lawyer. He even offered to hire me when I passed the Bar. I laughed at him and said why would I do that when you don't pay enough. I was working 3 days a week Tuesday -Thursday with a six-figure income and I was my own boss.

Don't sweat it dude it's only school. Life is a lot more than work. I worked to give me the income to live the life I wanted. Sure I could have made a 7 figure income but the cost wasn't worth it. I had time to fish, hike, and watch football with a cold six-pack of Modelo what more could I have wanted?

Take it from an old guy. Don't waste the prime of your life which actually for most men is 30-50 chasing the dollar. Enjoy your life because the one thing dollars won't buy you is time. Once gone you can never get it back and there are no re-dos. My friend Ron spent his life chasing the buck always telling me once he's retired all the things he will be able to afford to buy and do. Three years after he retired COVID got him. His Palos Verdes home and lifestyle didn't protect him.

When my sister was at UCSB I visited her and over dinner told her something she says she never forgot. I told her as long as you are doing something you want to do at the time you want to do it, then no one has the right to criticize you, i.e live your life as you want not to someone else's expectations.

 

[Faceplant]

Well, I had this horrible dream where there was this global pandemic, half the country was on fire, Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash, we could couldn't find toilet paper ANYWHERE for like 2 mont.... oh wait.....