In actuality, my sleep has improved ever so slightly. But I am still working from a several month pattern of interrupted sleep as well as stress, all things that can impact the smart part of my brain. I keep running into the consequences of bad brain days and today I discovered that my bad brain days preceded my breast cancer diagnosis.
Every year, I have to renew my Washington State Psychology license. The renewal date is my birthday—that’s the way the licensing board likes to honor us. “Happy Birthday, please send us $316 or if you would prefer to wait until after your birthday, please send us $471.”
Every three years, I have to sign a statement that I have met the continuing education requirements. I do a lot of continuing education so this is no big deal. In all of the years I’ve done more than the required amount without even thinking about it all that much.
Did I say, “In all of the years…?” Well, today I found out that during the last three years, not only have I not completed more than my minimum amount of continuing education, but as of 8 am this morning, I hadn’t even finish 50% of the required amount. In truth, I’d completed a little over a third. What happened three years ago? What kind of horrible stress could have occurred that took me so off of my game? Hmmmm.
Oh yeah, three years ago, I became a parent to an adolescent!
Well, there’s nothing like realizing that I have to do two years of continuing education in two weeks to get the old adrenaline pumping. Also, the B12 that I started taking this week does seem to be boosting my energy a little. So far, I’ve gotten about 6 months worth done. That has meant a lot of reading, listening to webcasts, and last but not least, a lot of money paid to take the continuing education tests online. I’ve also been using my printer like crazy to get hard copies of the reading materials. The printer could have used a little B12 this morning, too. It is almost out of black ink and is printing only intermittently as it is in “Cool down mode.” I’m glad my printer has good self care skills and can set healthy limits with me.
The other limit setters, however, was my credit card company! Concerned about wanton spending on educational materials for psychologists, they disabled my card, right when I was buying three courses, one on childhood bipolar disorder, another on mindfulness, and the last on behavioral sleep medicine. (And in respect to the last two courses, I did some others this morning related to self-care, namely some ethics courses on handling a serious illness and it’s impact on one’s competency.) About five minutes after my card was disabled, an agent from the fraud department called, asked me a bunch of questions, apologized, and reset my card. At the end of the call, he informed me that I had $18K left to my credit card limit. I promised him that I wouldn’t spend it all on continuing education classes, at least today. He laughed. I bet he would have thought yesterday’s tattoo joke was funny, too.
D’oh, thanks be to online courses. I have utilized those myself! I have to renew my state massage license annually, and we have to show proof of 24hrs continuing education as well…but they don’t trust us to sign a statement, we have to pony up the certificates of completion and send them in with our annual renewal application. I guess massage therapists can’t be trusted. :- )
Beth, Washington might just be cheap. I’ve had to turn in my certificates in other states. I got myself up to 41 hours yesterday. 19 more to go!
Oh man, I can’t believe how much you must be busting ass to get this done! I’m impressed.
Oh man…Sure glad Thanksgiving is at your mom’s this year! Hey nothing like focusing on what is near and dear to your heart…your family! Print on….
Thanks, friends and yes, I am so glad that I’m not hosting Thanksgiving this year. And I’m extra extra glad that I decided to only have one clinic day that week even though I wasn’t hosting. Phew!
Am willing you on with all this continuous education, I know the feeling and how much work it is. Hang in there, you’ll do it!
Thanks, Tracy!
Aside from all this….what’s up?
Mom, you are so funny. I will give you a call over the weekend and we can catch up.
I’m very proud of how hard you are working and how much you are keeping it together. You are amazing!
Thanks, John!
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