Otter Asthma Update and Other Stuff. But Mostly Otter Stuff.

Otter had her annual lung/asthma recheck today.  She came through with flying colors, and a very impressed doctor.  He made a change in her rescue inhaler, the one she's been on is now available generic so he changed her to that.  Her daily inhaler is the same, she still has to take 2 puffs daily which she does after breakfast - she keeps it by the vitamins so that she will remember it.  She used to keep it in her bathroom, but she would forget it most days so it got moved to the kitchen table a couple of years back and it works great.  She goes back in one year.  Incidentally, she's 5' 4".  I think she was 5' 3" this time last year.  She's probably as tall as she's going to get now.

She's right in with the rest of the family as far as her height goes.  Bill is the tall one in his family, but the rest of his family are shorter for the most part.  My mom was 5' 7" if she stretched, but Dad was around 6'.  Dad's Dad was very tall, but I'm not sure exactly how tall he was.  But I'm 5' 9", Froggy is 5' 10" and Toadles is probably right around the same height as Froggy although he might be a touch taller.

I took Otter by the office after the doctor visit, so my older boss (the 95 year old teenager!) could see her.  He was not happy when I didn't bring her back after lunch, but he forgave me!  I took her to Cici's pizza and we had a nice lunch, although they were very crowded.  Then she spent the afternoon at the library.  She didn't get her weight in books, but she did find several.

Otter's rethinking her college plans a bit.  She still wants to be a librarian, but it turns out that the school she was probably planning to go to does not have an accredited program after all.  Even though they said they did!  What they do have is an accredited program for a school librarian degree, which requires a teaching degree first.  There is another school that she would consider, but it doesn't have the degree program either.  Which is kind of a problem, because the only one in the state that does have it is that particular school that no self-respecting TEXAN would ever even consider for any reason whatsoever.  Although we did tell Otter that if that was what she chose, we'd make it work - although it would be a very difficult situation because frankly we are not impressed with that school's librarian degree program.  Otter pretty much said that she wouldn't go there if it was the last place on earth, so that is not even on the radar.  Which doesn't upset us one bit!  (For the record, No the Longhorn emblems would not come off of the cars and Otter wouldn't let us take them off even if we wanted to!  Not that we would want to.  Although it would make for some interesting parent visits!)

However, she's been thinking about something for a while (before we found out about the degree program issue) and she thinks that maybe this is the indicator that she needs to change her mind and go for a general English degree.  With an English degree, she still has working in a library open to her and quite a few certified, degreed librarians started out with the English degree and then went back to complete the master's program to become certified librarians.  I think she wasn't really sure about a 5-year program and then having a specific degree in case it turned out that she didn't like being a librarian, it's not a degree that would work for too many other fields.  With the English degree, there would be other areas she could go into, if she decided that working in a library wasn't what she wanted - although I don't see that happening!  If she decides that she is changing., then the school she originally wanted to go to in 1 1/2 years is now back on the playing field.  She's still thinking, but I expect her to make the switch.  It won't affect her classes/college at this point, she would still be starting out at the college she's at now no matter what field she chose and the general classes she's taking would still work either way.  We did tell her that we'd support whatever decision she makes, but that this is one she has to make although we will help/advise her as much as we can and when she needs it.  It's not the first "adult" decision she's faced, but this is a big one.

We have faith in her.  She'll make the right decision for her future and then she'll do what she needs to do to ensure that she's able to reach her goals.

(Froggy, can I talk about your big news and your upcoming ch-ch-changes, yet?)