4 letter words

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that 4 letter words are my favorite. Much to my mother’s dislike I have a mouth like a sailor. I can reign it in when I need to, but know that when I’m most comfortable F-bombs travel out of my mouth at lightning speed.

Wednesday night I learned a new four letter word and it wasn’t one that I use on the daily. F A I L. Yep, those were the words under “results” on my CPC (certified professional coder) exam. I cried. I was battling an upper respiratory infection and a double ear infection on the day I took the exam. I didn’t actually KNOW I was sick, as I thought you just felt bad when you got up at 4:30 in the morning to drive 2 hours to take a 6 hour long exam. I didn’t expect to feel 100% fanfuckingtastic. I woke up Sunday morning feeling like death warmed over. Spent Sunday-Wednesday in bed and at various doctor’s offices, but that’s neither here nor there. I think the part that upset me the most was that I had to score a 70, and I got a 65. If I had answered 3 more questions correctly, I would have passed. I honestly believe I would have rather completely bombed and made like a 15 instead of a 65. I was THAT close, within that much of a margin of passing one of the most, if not THE most, difficult test I have ever taken. So close, yet so far. 

I have this weird like, defiance thing going on where I don't want to study because I failed by so little. I know it doesn't make any sense and believe me, I'm studying. I have absolutely fantastic friends who are coders who are going to tutor me these next two weeks as my retake is June 13th. Thankfully I only have to drive an hour each way but the bummer is that the test starts at 7am instead of 8. 

All I know is that I'm going to pass this second attempt come hell or high water because I'm not taking it a third time. I say that now, but if I do so happen to fail, I likely will take it a third time after I say more four letter words than I ever thought possible. I never really thought I would like coding as much as I do, it was actually something I decided to do at the prompting of my "friend" (the quotations are a joke, she's one of my best friends) Myra, so I could make a decent living until I figured out what I wanted to be when I "grow up." Turns out, it's really interesting and it's like putting together a puzzle and I think I would like it even more if I could get a job in an area that I'm interested in. Medical coders make really good money, you typically work 9-5, off holidays and weekends, and you can go anywhere with the certification. If you REALLY like a certain field, you can get a credential like your CRHC which is for Rheumatology, or CCTC which is cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is that once I pass my CPC, I have to get ICDM10 certified by October. ICDM codes are disease/diagnosis codes, and I hear that test isn't anything like the CPC exam, so, I hope I hear correctly because I don't know how much more I can take. 

In conclusion, four letter words can make your day better, get your point across very clearly or ruin your entire evening. I'm hopeful that the next four letter words I see on the screen will be P-A-S-S and then I'll get to add 4 letters to the end of my name. Vanessa Kaitlin Freeman, CPC-A. 

(the a is for apprentice status which means I'm new!) 

present!

I'm here! Vanessa Kaitlin Freeman is present and accounted for!  I'm still alive and well...somewhat. I have strep and a double ear infection at the moment and well, I feel like shit. I also felt like writing, so here we are. 

Things on the weightlifting front are good, kind of. My shoulders are both pretty jacked up. Turns out, I had fractured my collar bone and then they found a tumor on an xray. I had a couple of MRIs and everything is fine, but it was still scary for a hot second. My left shoulder will sublux/partially dislocate on command, when I'm in an overhead position. Which for weightlifting is bad news...as snatches and jerks both go overhead. Honestly, I'm not sure where I want to go from here. I like doing cleans, but snatches hurt and I've just been in a funk lately. The entire month of May was so BUSY. The first weekend of may, my mom had her knee replacement surgery. The second weekend I went to Charlotte to watch the Harrisburg meet. Third weekend, I went to visit some friends in Illinois (more on that momentarily) and this weekend was my CPC exam. I've not been able to train like I want, but I'm also not sure that I want to be a weightlifter anymore. I don't know what I want to do, because if you haven't noticed, I'm incredibly indecisive and crazy. surprise. if you are surprised, you must be new here. moving on.

The CPC exam is fresh on my mind because I won't know my results for probably a week or so and I'm kinda worried about it. I don't know why the hell this test isn't on a computer, but it was paper and pencil. I had some PTSD flashbacks from my high school finals. The test was fucking INSANE. It's a LOT of information to begin with, and it's 150 questions which doesn't sound like much unless you know what coding is. It took me 5 hours and 32 minutes (you only get 5 hours 50 minutes) and I only took ONE bathroom break. I feel like it could go either way but I'm leaning towards failure because there was a section on pathology that I had no clue in hell as to what I was really doing. Good news is, though, when I purchased the class the bundled included a retake if you failed. Hopefully I did better than I think I did, which is what everyone is saying, but I also know what was on that test and how many muffins I stress ate during the course of 5 hours. But I digress.

In other more fun news, I think Rebecca and I are moving up to Illinois. We have the best people in the world, whom we love dearly up there and I mean...why not? Neither of us have jobs so special we can't find work elsewhere, we don't have husbands, kids or a mortgage or any ties other than our real family, whom we love just as dearly. I just don't want to live my entire life in Asheville, without experiencing anything else. There is a whole great big America/world out there and I intend to see it. Adventure is out there! Honestly, there's really no reason we can't. If we don't like where we move, we can always come home. IF by some miracle I passed my CPC exam this time, it will also make finding a job MUCH easier. But again, I digress.

I joined weight watchers for the 4920582nd time. They have a special now where if you lose 10lbs in the first two months, they give you your money back. Money is the best motivator for me, apparently, so I'm back on track for now. At the moment I wish I had some real ice cream and not this frozen yogurt business as my throat feels like I swallowed a bunch of knives for dinner. 

So, in the last few weeks I've been on a couple trips, taken an exam I've been studying for, joined weight watchers again and made some huge life deicisons. Sounds about right for my crazy life. I really am writing a book, it's going to be called "The Life of Nessie; a quarter centuries worth of the best mishaps and misadventures a girl could ever find herself in" .... obviously the title is a work in progress, just like my life.