Food, fun, family, friends, and.....A Raccoon????

It has been quite a while since I have written.....yet again! Things have been going relatively well. Work is getting better as I am learning new things and adjusting to different people's personalities. In the beginning, people would often say, "You don't know how to do that?!?!?!?!" While I wanted to answer, "No, I don't and neither did you when you started nursing, so stop making me feel dumb and help me!", I would just politely say no. I have gotten over the fact that I was afraid to ask questions. I have gotten over a parent saying that she did not like me. I have gotten over people thinking that I am not as skilled as I should be and accepted the fact that they will not be calling me to perform brain surgery any time soon.

This summer has been going by rather quickly. My mom, sister, niece, and brother-in-law came to visit. We had a great time. My sister and mom threw me a fabulous bridal shower. So many friends were there, the decorations were great, the favors were adorable, and the food - well, anyone who has ever been to one of Dana's Chrismas parties knows what the food is like. But this was like her Christmas party on steroids. It was insane!!!! My niece was the hit of the party, as well as Ryann. Ryann is the daughter of my friend, Shannan. Shannan came all the way from North Carolina for my shower and it was a huge suprise. I got to catch up with college friends, Zeta sisters, former co-workers, neighbors, and I also got to meet some of Mrs. Byram's friends. My dad played bar tender and he did a great job. Dana made a champagne punch that was incredible and I would be thrilled if I could have it permanently in my fridge!

We spent a day at the aquarium. I loved it!!! I would like to move in with the sea otters or the penguins, but I don't think I would be allowed to. Never in a million years would I ever think that I would fall in love with a sting ray, but I did. They are really cute. When you first walk into the aquarium, there is a touch tank of sting rays and mini sharks. I actually pet some sting rays and some sharks. My family had to drag me away from them because I kept going back to see them. And I also did something that I never thought I would do. Anyone that knows me well knows that I am petrified of shrimp. Yes, cooked shrimp. They really just scare me. Well, I pet a live shrimp. A real live shrimp!!!! After the aquarium, we went to the Varsity where we all proceeded to eat too many slaw dogs, chili dogs, french fries, onion rings, and coke. I am just hoping I will be able to fit in my wedding dress now. If not, it was well worth it!
And what summer would not be complete without a leak in the HVAC system that causes the ceiling to fall in? Yup! Our ceiling in the master bedroom fell in. It was just charming. Imagine getting home from a wedding, Sam going up to the attic to see what the issue was, hearing Sam say, "Uh-oh", and then going into the bedroom only to be able to see his face in the ceiling. It was quite the shocker. He thought for sure that I was going to scream, but I didn't. I actually laughed. Very hard. But Sam did a great job putting the pipes back together. My dad and I pulled down the old ceiling and put up the new one.
The wedding planning is coming along splendidly! We have a little more than 2 months to go. Very scary! We just recently started our marriage preparation classes with our sponsor couple. They are a really sweet couple and they seem to rather in tune to us. They are kind of like the older version of Sam and myself. They have helped us sort out some things that have been the topic of not so fab discussions. We have these workbooks that we have to do before we see them and it really helps to cover topics that we really never thought about. We have learned so much about each other.

There are still a few things that need to be done for the wedding day. I still have to figure out who will be doing my hair and make up and what I will even look like that day. The favors and programs still need to be done, as well as figure out which kind of cake we want. Then there is the whole shoes thing. My surrogate aunt gave me the shoes that I will be wearing for my reception. She knows me very well and she made the perfect pair for me! I don't want to ruin the suprise, but here is a hint - sequins!!!! I love them!!! But as for the shoes that I will be wearing for the ceremony, I still don't have those yet. Plus, there are several ideas that I have that I need to start working on or they will not be done in time for the wedding day. But some of it relies on how many people will be coming, so I guess I am not totally procrastinating. I don't really have a choice but to procrastinate. Or at least that is what I am going to keep telling myself. My mom and sister are coming back down here on August 9, so little do they know, they will be sucked into helping me with everything.

Sam and I picked out our wedding rings today. It was really weird to see a ring on Sam's finger. I told him to make sure he picked out one that he really liked because it would be on his finger for the rest of his life. We had a great time picking them out and we both got the rings that we wanted. Our jeweler is a great guy. His stuff is beautiful. I get tons of compliments on my engagement ring and I made sure to tell him that today. So if you are ever looking for a good jeweler, let me know!

Aside from the possum, or should I say possums as it seems to be there are more than one, we have a few more added friends to our nitely deck feeding sessions. There is also Tigger the cat and Rhoda the raccoon. I am sure it is just a matter of time before our neighbors call animal control, but we can't resist. They are all so cute!

Well, I think those are the latest updates on everything. If I left anything out, I am sure that I will be updating again in another 3 months. No, honestly, I am going to start to write a little more often. I hope everyone in blogger land is doing well. I know I have a ton of fans out there, so I just want to make sure you are all well :-)

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."
Winnie the Pooh

A little laundry can't ruin my excitement!

Boy, have I been a slacker! I have about 5 blog entries that I started and I have not finished. Most of my time recently has been dedicated to tanning and going to the gym. Sorry, I guess I just had to add some humor. While I was able to do those things while I was working day shift, I am not able to do those on nite shift. My time has been dedicated to wedding planning and working. Working nite shift has kind of cut back on my productivity. There is just no way that I can justify doing laundry at 3 a.m. I always say that I am going to do it, but it never pans out. I find most of my days, ahem, nites lounging on the couch attempting to cross things off my to-do list. But I find myself doing more internet surfing, mahjongg playing, and Penelope the Possum watching. Sam has been doing a good job of hiding his disappointment of the piles of dishes increasing in the sink, the towers of papers growing on the kitchen table and the mounds of clean clothes taking over the top of the refrigerator. No, no, you did not read that incorrectly. There is a mound of clean clothes on top of the fridge. Sam thought it would be a brilliant idea to put a mini-fridge in our bedroom. I tried to explain to him that it would be yet one more thing for crap to pile up on. I hate to say I told you so. But.....well, just read the previous sentence.

As for the new chapters in my life. I have my dream job. I work at a wonderful children's hospital in Atlanta. I work with predominantly cystic fibrosis, respiratory, GI, and diabetes patients. Thanks to Sam, I would like to think that I might know at least the basics of cystic fibrosis so that makes that aspect of my job a little easier. My school prepared me rather well for what I would face at my new job, but there are so many things that just kind of creep up on you. Changing a diaper for example. Changed plenty of pee pee diapers on my niece, but if there was anything else in it, she was handed off to Mimi or my sister. Perhaps it did not look very good when, on my first day at work, I had to change my first poopy diaper. Let's just say it kind of came back to bite me in the butt. Things also don't always go as planned in the nursing world. Normally, you put the blood pressure cuff on and you hit the little button and VOILA you have your bp. Yeah, not quite the case when you have a child squirming and screaming and kicking. You see, the machine does not actually pick up the reading. In nursing school, they teach you how to deal with children on their level. To get a child to let you do whatever it is that you need to do simply requires demonstrating on their teddy bear. According to my text books, they stop crying when you do this and they allow you to do whatever nursing task that needs to be completed. Yeah, so not the case. Sometimes, it makes them scream even louder. So much louder that one's nose starts to bleed! As time goes on, I know that all of this will get easier and it will become second nature to me. This is my dream - staying up all nite really is a small sacrifice in comparison to the fact that I have the initials RN after my name. I mean, you have to be getting accustomed to the nursing world when you are trying to fall asleep at 9:30 am after working the whole nite and all you hear are birds chirping and the repetitive sound of an IV pump beeping ingrained in your head, right?

On to the wedding planning! Thanks to the help of my mom, dad, and sister, as well as Sam for putting up with 50,000 phone calls, the major wedding planning was done in 3 days. The venue, florist, bridal party dresses, limos, photographer, my dress, mom's dress and shoes, and church were all booked. I guess working at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation paid off! I may be lacking talent in some areas, but apparently wedding planning comes rather naturally to me. The invitations were ordered from the printer last week and our en route to our house as of May 13th. The guest list is complete, the flower arrangements are designed, and we are meeting with the priest next weekend in NY. While most of the items we wanted to register for are just that - registered for - we still have a few more items to add. We have yet to pick out a wedding song, but there are 4 that we are trying to choose between. We still have not picked out favors yet - the last thing I want to do is get something that is going to be a dust collector is some one's house. Some ideas have been tossed around, but nothing even close to being final. It is rather funny because we have been engaged for almost 15 months now and I have repeatedly said - Oh, I don't need to rush, it is so far away. Not so much so! In 5 months, I will be taking that long stroll down the aisle arm in arm with my dad. In those 5 short months, we have quite a bit to learn about each other. For the past 4 years, we have gotten to know each other quite a bit, but there are still some things that we don't know about each other. For example - we were sitting on the couch after dinner and Sam and I were discussing our timeline. Needless to say, he ended up telling me that the alarm to by biological clock was ready to start blaring. Thankfully, we will be meeting with a sponsor couple and they will help us get to know each other a little better. Plus, upon completion of the meetings with the sponsor couple, we will be given a compatibility test. Hmmmmmm. Now wouldn't that stink if we failed!

In all seriousness, I am at a place in my life that I did not know if I would ever get to. I am currently in a career that I love and I am about to marry the man of my dreams. He has been so supportive of me both financially and emotionally during nursing school, while studying for the NCLEX, and while looking for a job. He was my shoulder to cry on when I was convinced that I failed every test including the NCLEX. He took joy in telling me "I told you so" when I ended up passing all those tests, including the NCLEX. He was my tissue dispenser when I cried because I thought I did not get my dream job. He treated me to dinner the day I found out that I actually did get my dream job. He makes sure the room is dark and the dog is walked when I get home from working the nite shift so that I can sleep soundly without disturbances. He has faith in me when others don't always have faith in me. He is my confidence booster on days when my hair is a little poofy and my under eye circles are a little too dark. But most importantly, he loves me for who I am. He is someone that I spent years of dreaming about, but didn't know existed. And how many people can say that they wear leopard print shoes and a shirt with jungle animals all over it and not be thrilled?

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.” - Judy Garland

A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes!

Below is the speech that I gave last Friday. I was so thrilled to be able to do it. I hope you enjoy it!

"Good evening! Thank you for sharing in this long-awaited joyous occasion with us. On behalf of my classmates and myself, I would like to start off by thanking everyone’s friends and families for being here. For the past year and a half, you have been so understanding when we have failed to return phone calls, backed out on plans at the last minute, got too involved in writing care plans to make dinner, and were too tired to clean the house, wash the dishes, and do the laundry. We studied through family outings and birthday parties, but you still stood by us. Thank you. We have been tired, stressed, worried, and on-edge with bouts of laughing or crying for no reason. And then there were those stories about clinicals that always came at inopportune times – like at the dinner table. On behalf of my classmates and myself, we apologize and thank you for having faith in us and helping us follow our dreams of becoming nurses. We would not be here today without you.

We would also like to thank all of our instructors for guiding us in our journey. You have taught us to be more efficient, helped us overcome boundaries we thought were impossible, and encouraged us to do things we never thought we were capable of doing. You have opened your hearts to us and were available to us 24/7. You have seen us thru the good times and the bad times. Thank you for being such great role models and an inspiration to be phenomenal nurses like you.

The past year and a half at times seemed slow and painful, but at other times flew by. It seems like it was just yesterday that we had the deer in headlites look on the first day of nursing school as we realized the road we had ahead of us. We quickly learned that days got longer and the amount of time that we slept got shorter. Nothing could have prepared us for waking up at 4:45 to go to clinicals. Those were the mornings when I wondered exactly what was I getting myself into? But it is amazing what a pit-stop at Starbucks can do!

Nursing school has taught us many things. We have learned, not just nursing procedures and skills, but we have also learned to not be judgmental - to find out the story before we draw a conclusion. We have learned to love no matter what, how to truly care for whomever is in that hospital bed on the other side of the door. We have learned to treat our patients as we would want our family and friends to be treated – with kindness, compassion, and dignity.
We have learned to really listen to what people are saying as opposed to just hearing what they are saying. We are eager to join the frontlines in making this world a better place.

My desire to be a nurse started when I was very young. I remember when I was about 3, I would make my mom take the rubber bands from the bottom of the broccoli and write my teddy bear’s name on it so it would be a hospital bracelet for him. My teachers from grammar school still remember that I wanted to be a NICU nurse since I was in second grade. I had all intentions of fulfilling my dream when I went away to college, but hit a few bumps in the road and quickly realized that, while this is what I wanted in life, I was not ready to take that journey. After years of trying to find a job that I loved doing and receiving articles about nursing from my mom in the mail, I knew that I had to follow my dream and pursue my passion. April 10th, 2008 will forever be ingrained in my head. I was in my A&P 2 class and one of my fellow classmates asked me if I had gotten my acceptance letter yet. Well, I sat about halfway thru the class and realized that there was no way that I could sit there for the remainder of the time. The 25 minute drive home seemed to last for hours. When I got back to my condo, I called my mom and went down to the mailroom. There it was. An envelope sitting in there just staring at me. Depending on what the response was, I did not want to have a breakdown in the lobby, so I went back upstairs. As I stood there with my heart pounding, my mom started to say, “Marisa, don’t be disappointed if….” Before she could get the sentence out, I started crying. The letter said Congratulations. That was all I needed to see. It was the beginning of my long-awaited journey. And I am sure that many of my classmates have similar stories about their experience.

Right now, we are needed more than ever and our challenge is to learn how to be passionate about our work and be just as excited about nursing 30 years from now as we are tonite.
As this journey comes to an end and we begin the next, I think about the memories we have made that will last a lifetime and the friendships that will endure. After today, many of us will part ways, but we will all have one thing in common. We are nurses. Wherever life takes us, we will make a difference in someone’s life. I would like to leave you with this quote: “To do what nobody else will do, in a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; that is to be a nurse.”

Congratulations, guys! We made it!"

Everything I need to know, I learned from Cheyenne

I first met her in June 2001. As soon as I saw her, I knew that she was perfect. She had big honey brown eyes and blond hair. She was the perfect height and the perfect weight. She had what looked like a smile on her face. When I talked to her, she tilted her head and I knew that she was actually listening to what I had to say. Something that I felt like no one else was doing at the time. I knew that it was love at first sight. I kept on going back to visit her every other weekend until it was the right time to bring her home with me. In August, I filled out the necessary paperwork and wrote out a check for the best spent $95 I have, and will ever, spend in my life. I was going to bring her home in October, but I wanted to make sure no one else fell in love with her before I could bring her home so I paid for her far in advance.

On September 12, 2001, I decided to bring Cheyenne home. After what happened on September 11th, I felt the need to bring my four-legged furry friend home ASAP. I called the foster family and told them that I wanted to pick her up that afternoon. The only problem was that I would have to drive on the highway. It is now 2009 and I am still a nervous wreck getting on the highway. Imagine what I was like 8 years ago! So, I got in my car and brought her leash and her special doggie seatbelt and got on the highway. When I got to the family's house, she was in the backyard running around like a lunatic. I put her in the car and attempted to get the seatbelt on her, but it was too big. So now I had to drive with her on the highway bouncing around the car like a jumping bean. Not so good on the nerves of someone who can't drive on the highway! I actually got lost when I was trying to find my way home again. I had to stop at a gas station and get directions. It was lovely when, everytime I would try to get back in the car, she would attempt to break loose from the car. When we finally got home, I gave her a bath in my dad's garden tub. I quickly found out that Cheyenne was not a fan of water or baths. She was covered in Georgia red clay and turned into a muddy mess when I got her in the tub. The really fun part was when she took a leap out of the tub and she started to run through the house leaving giant footprints everywhere. It was a great first nite!

My dad always came home on the weekends and I specifically asked him to call me when he got close to the house. He is always big on the element of suprise and, boy, did he get a suprise when he opened the front door and Cheyenne came barrelling at him full speed ahead barking and growling. I had a whole lot of explaining to do. The worst part was having to tell my mother. She had a few comments for me and didn't really speak to me for a few days. So, I did what any person would do and laid on the Catholic guilt. In the mail, I sent my mom a picture of Cheyenne and a story about dogs in rescue groups. This particular article was written by a woman who runs a rescue group and goes to the kennel the day the non-adopted animals are put to sleep. She selects the ones who she thinks will be adopted quickly and is forced to leave with a heavy heart. I explained to my mom that I was simply making room for another dog who needed to be rescued. Needless to say, she and Cheyenne are the best of buds now. She will always be my parent's first granddaughter (sorry, Christina!).

Most importantly, I felt like Cheyenne and I had a whole lot in common. The rescue group had her for about 3 years before I adopted her. She had been adopted by several families but was always returned. I had been in several relationships, but was always "returned", too. I felt like no one was ever listening to me and that I was not needed. I have a feeling that Cheyenne felt the same way as well. Before Cheyenne was rescued, she had been beaten and used as a bait dog in pit bull fights. She has the scars to prove it. My emotions and my heart had been scarred from what I had to deal with during that time in my life, so that was just one more thing we had in common. Cheyenne trusted me even though she had been disappointed by humans repeatedly. She taught me how to trust again. She had faith in me that I would walk her, feed her, give her water, etc. Many times, when people find out that she is a rescue dog, they say that I probably saved her life. On the contrary, she saved mine. She gave me a reason to get up in the morning, she returned the love that I gave her, she never ever turned her back on me, and she was there whenever I needed her. She got me through the most difficult time in my life. Well, Cheyenne and my family did (which I know was very difficult for them to do). I know it sounds ridiculous that a dog could do that, but she did and that is why I treasure her so much. She has been my pillow, my teddy bear, my tissue (fur absorbs tears very well), my nurse, but most importantly, my loyal friend for 8 years. Today is her birthday and I plan on spoiling her rotten with bones, treats, and doggie ice cream. I figure it is the least I can do for saving my life!

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive. ~Gilda Radner

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. ~Author Unknown

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Who said 30 is not the new 20? ME!!!!

Here I am on my vacation. My looooooong awaited vacation. And what have I done? Hmmmm. Let's see. I have cleaned out my closet, dusted our bedroom, vacuumed, cleaned the 3 guest bedroom closets, organized the office, threw out a ton of old papers, organized the cabinet under the sink in the master bath, gone to work, cooked, gone grocery shopping....well, you get the point. Where in there has relaxation fit in? No where!!!! I think I might just be allergic to relaxation. I can't sleep at nite because I am too worried that I did not clean the base boards behind the bed well enough. As for exercise, I figure that the 20 trips that I am taking up and down the stairs is substitute enough for actual exercise. The sad part is that I need about another 3 weeks vacation to finish all the stuff that I still need to get done along with an additional 2 weeks vacation to recover from the additional 3 weeks vacation and the 17 days vacation that I originally had! And, usually, people need a vacation to recover from their vacation. This could be an endless process!

As I drove home from school on my last day, I actually cried. I was relieved, tired, anxious, and frankly, had no clue what the heck I was going to do with myself now that my semester was complete. I had gone from 120 mph to ZERO in the 3 seconds that it took me to hit complete and get my computerized test score. I had nothing to worry about. I did not have a test the next day, a care plan, drug sheets, online quizzes, or discussion questions. 17 days is the most I had had off in a year. What a scary feeling! And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way.

Now that I only have a week left, I am not ready to go back to school. I am glad that I was accepted to the accelerated summer program because I don't think I would be able to go back to school after having off the entire summer. I think I would have school-itis when the 18th rolled around. But this is it. The start of my last semester. I am almost done. December 14th, I will be graduating (fingers crossed!). The thought of caring for patients all by myself without an instructor breathing down my neck is causing me to completely panic. If I am not wide awake thinking about the base boards, I am wide awake thinking about taking care of patients. This whole chapter in my life is very overwhelming.

I wish I had more exciting stuff to write about my vacation. But I don't. The banana and Nutella crepes that I made for breakfast this past Sunday morning is about the wildest I have gotten. I would like to meet the people who said their 30's were the best years of their lives. So far, mine have proved to be rather dreadful/boring. And actually rather depressing. When you start to hear music that was popular when you were in school on a classic rock station, that is when you know you are getting old. Maybe when I am done with school and I start planning our wedding, it will get a little bit more exciting!

"So what are you reading?" "I am studying for one of my nursing classes." "Oh, so you are not smart enough to be a doctor. My daughter is in med school. She is going to be a doctor." "That's nice. I am smart enough. Nurses are just doctors with a personality and bed-side manner."
-Actual conversation between myself and a lovely meat head at Gold's Gym.*
*Please note, I was just defending myself and I know doctors have both personality and bed-side manner. Especially those named Kathleen Walsh who I love with all of my heart!!!!!

How precious is each memory.......

Sometimes all we have to get us thru the tough times when life gets hectic are hopes, dreams, and memories. I am smack dab in the middle of my summer semester and there have definitely been some tough and trying times. There have been days when I felt like throwing in the old proverbial towel and saying, "To heck with it all! Give me a margarita, some red nail polish, and a bikini with a beach cover-up and take me to the nearest ocean!" But there is always something, or someone, that stops me from doing it ~ usually my family and Sam. I can't throw it all away now. I have come too close. Plus, I don't think I have a garbage bag large enough to get rid of all the nursing paraphernalia that I have accumulated.

So, instead of getting in my car and zooming away from all of my responsibilities, I have been using my "free" time to remember vacations that I have taken in the past. Some days, I dream about my past summers that I spent in Mattituck with my grandparents and my sister. I can sometimes still smell the coffee, bacon, and pancakes that my grandmother would make in the mornings. When I put on my makeup, I am reminded about how my sister and I used to stare at my grandmother while she would put her makeup on in her lighted magnifying mirror. There was one summer when my mom, my grams, my sister, Min (the dog) and myself were home one nite because there were really bad storms that day. We decided to make Jiffy-pop. I am not really sure exactly how it happened, but it started a fire ~ and it was not a small one, either. Needless to say, that was the last time we ever made it! There was also another summer when my neighbor's dog had me cornered on the edge of the boat dock and my sister went to get help. What a site it was to see my sister and my grams running towards me ~ grams with a wiffle ball bat in her hands! Luckily the dog ran away before my grams started swinging! Then, there was the Fisherman's Wharf restaurant. For anyone that knew me as a child, you know about my woes with restaurants. I had restaurantitis. As soon as I would walk in, my eyes would glass over and bulge, my mouth would start to water, and I would turn green ~ think Kermit the Frog with pigtails. This was something that I inherited from my mother and I can only hope that it stops with me. At the Fisherman's Wharf, I would always get spaghetti and meatballs. My sister would try desperately to keep me entertained - mostly by playing tiddly winks. Well, before long, the food would come out, I would have one bite, and then my grams would have to escort me out of the restaurant as I christened the bushes in the front. And it was not just Fisherman's Wharf. It was also at Howard Johnson's ~ I would get the clown sundae ~ my grandparents would always let me get that in hopes that I would get a good laugh out of it instead of thinking it was food. Well, no one was laughing by the time I left there because my head would usually be in the bushes. It did not stop there ~ it also happened at Pizza Hut, Arby's, Wendy's, Roy Rogers, if it was a restaurant, I was in the bushes out front. Luckily, it stopped when I was about 16.

When we would go to the beach, we would always bring a cooler full of different flavored sodas from the A&P. Somehow, mine always ended up with sand in it ~ I am sure Dana had something to do with that. Plus, there would be every type of sandwich you could imagine - salami, turkey, bologna, etc. And yogurt. My grams always had yogurt. I remember that I would use the empty cups to make sandcastles. I would pretend that I worked in a bakery and I would ask my grams what kind of pie she wanted and I would pretend to make her sand pies. She would let me bury her feet in the sand and she would wear a big floppy straw hat. When we would go in the water, my grams would splash her fingers in the water and call them sea fingers. Nothing would make me squeal with delite more than when my grams would come after me with sea fingers. I used to hold onto my gramps's arm and he would walk out as far as he could into the water. Then we would take long walks along the beach looking for sea shells.

I would do anything just so I could go back in time to do that again. The past few nites, I have been thinking a whole lot about my grams. It has been 6 1/2 months. I miss her with every ounce and morsel of my body. I realized last nite that there are some things that she used to say and I can't remember what they were word for word. I think I remember her voice, but I am not positive. Words cannot begin to describe the special relationship that I had with her. No matter what I did, she was never disappointed. I don't know what I did in life to make her think so highly of me ~ she made me feel special and she treated me differently. While visiting my grams in the hospital, my gramps talked to me alot about how my grams felt about me. When I think back to my childhood and even my adulthood, there are not many memories that don't involve her. It seems as though my busy schedule since she left has kept me from going thru all of the process that people go thru when they lose someone they love. But for some reason, it is all catching up to me now. I find myself thinking about her all the time ~ in the morning when I wake up, in the shower, in class, at work, at nite as I am trying to go to sleep. I want to cry, but I am stopping myself. My faith and my religion tell me that I will see her again one day and that she is always with me, but I can't help but wonder.......

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death." - Robert Fulghum

The Best of Life's Treasures

Things have been ridiculously hectic since I posted my last blog. I hate going this long without updating. School has been keeping me so busy, but I am absolutely loving it. If there was ever a point during my recent return to school that I thought that I was not cut out to do this, after doing my OB clinicals, those feelings are no longer there. I KNOW this is what I was meant to do!

I got to see a c-section my first day at my clinicals. I didn't really know what to expect. I have never seen any kind of surgery before and I was petrified of going in there. I didn't want to be the one who threw-up, passed out, or even worse - drop a Junior Mint in the patient. So, I kind of stood there off to the side and the doctor told me to get closer so I could get a better view. Then she started to cut. And cut some more. And cut some more. Once she got through the skin and fat layers, there it was, staring me in the face. A pregnant uterus. It was huge. And scary. But, I did ok. Then, she made her incision thru the uterus and this beautiful little face popped out. He took his first breath and he and I both started crying at the same time. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

On my last day of clinicals, I was back to labor and delivery. When I got there, all of the births were done and the patient that was furthest along was only 4 cm. I went in there and she was screaming. All I kept thinking was - Holy crap! If this is her at 4 cm, I don't want to be in here at 10 cm. This patient was not an English speaking patient, supposedly. When asked on a scale of 1 - 10 what her pain was, she had to had someone translate. But all of a sudden, when the nurses and doctors were talking about having to reinsert her epidural, she was able to understand that without a translator AND answered in perfect full sentences without any accent what-so-ever. Hmmmmm. I was a little irritated.

Luckily, I was only in there with her for about 15 minutes. The nurse told me that there was another woman in the room next door who was about to give birth within the next few minutes. So, I flew out of the room I was in and went next door. The patient was an 18 year old girl who had no pre-natal care except for one ultrasound 2 weeks prior because she thought she was in labor then. She was given an estimated delivery date of 8/2/09. She had gone into labor at 4 am and thought they were just false contractions. Well, they weren't. So at 11:15, she was transferred to a bed. The NICU team was there along with the respiratory therapists. No one really knew what to expect. The doctor instructed me to hold one of her legs while she pushed. For anyone who knows how big, or actually how small, I am would know that this would be an interesting job for me. Well, mom pushed.........and I went flying across the room. So 2 other nurses had to come and help me hold the leg. On the second push, the baby was out. It was a little girl. Again, baby cried and so did I. The mom really did not want to see or hold the baby. She was kind of indifferent about the situation. About 15 minutes passed and the respiratory therapists and the NICU team were gone and we were still waiting for the placenta. Well, the doctor examined the patient and asked her if she had ever had any abdominal surgery or uterine surgery. She said no and that is when the doctor stated that we had a problem. Apparently, there was another baby in there. In one push, the second baby was born - 4 lbs 6 ozs. Again, baby number 2 cried and so did I. And again, mom was not impressed. That is about all I am going to tell of the story because once dad got there and kept repeatedly saying that he wanted a boy and was not happy with the twins, I got really sad. I don't even want to think about the life these 2 little girls will lead. And to top it off, dad had 2 other children - 2 boys - a 1 year old and a 6 year old all by different women.

I fell in love with all of the babies I took care of - in the nursery, on mother-baby, and in delivery. My heart was filled with happiness with each little hand I held, each little hair I combed, and each little heartbeat I listened to. I wondered what they would all grow up to look like, what they would be when they got older, and if our paths would ever cross again. I was also praying that the little boys that I witnessed getting snipped would not remember my face! Now that whole process almost made me pass out.

This is something I can easily see myself doing for the rest of my life!

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone