no sugar added

I bought some apple sauce with no sugar added to make some banana bread. I didn't end up using all of the apple sauce in the bread so I decided to have some as a midnight snack. I can't say for sure because I'm not sure what my face just looked like with the first bite, but I can imagine it looked a little bit something like this :

Yet I keep eating it!

Work has been rather slow lately...the days I actually go to work that is. I have been called off a lot due to our low census. Our floor hasn't really filled our bed space like they had anticipated. Given, this is a good thing-meaning less sick people but let's get real, the hospital is still a business trying to make money. And I'm a nurse who likes making money :) . As before mentioned, our floor is made up entirely of new graduate nurses like me. I have been asked by one of my superiors to train a new member of our staff come the middle of January. I am not too sure that this is a grand idea due to the fact I am not sure what I have to teach the new guy seeing as I am still new myself. I do enjoy many parts to my job, and there are many parts that I wish change would come about. Don't be surprised if you guys don't see me in Gainesville come 6 months from now.

Tomorrow night I am getting in a car to drive 9 hours to North Carolina to meet a few of my intern buddies from this summer. We are having a little new years get together! It will be great to see their faces again and get to catch up. I love long car trips. Something about them give me peace. I think its all that option of silence and time to think. I'm excited for the get away and for the fun events Stewart has planned! Our new years is going to be a themed party. The attire has yet to be determined. Pictures will be posted upon my return.

Can I be yo' baby Mamma!?

My friend Tammy and I were walking around Walmart last night around 3 am only to remember just how great late night walmart runs are! As we were walking around and playing in the toy aisles we were discussing the name my friend chose for her new baby girl- Lucy Mathew Eden Cruse. Tammy and I weren't making fun of the baby's name per say but we were sad because she's going to get an ear full from her friends when she's older. As we were talking, a woman from behind a Christmas tree (a walmart worker putting out more decorations on the shelves) jumps out to contribute to our conversation. "Oh, YOU think that's bad?! Well, giiirl, let me tell you. I gots this friend from high school, yeah, and I went to her baby shower and I had axed her 'What are you gonna name your baby?'. Do you KNOW what she told me?! She done gone named her baby Marijuana Cocaine Johnson. And yo' ears ain't broke. She named her baby girl Marijuana Cocaine! I axed her why she was gonna name her baby that and she told me it's what she loves the most and she loves her baby too." Tammy and I looked at each other and agreed that Matthew wasn't all that bad. We tried to continue our 3am shopping when the woman continued.. "But that ain't the worse! My nephew by 2nd husband has a baby. He done gone named his baby girl Tarantula. He named his child after an inseck! So support your friend for her name choice cuz it ain't that bad." I think I might have peed my pants a little at this point. The lady herself was cracking me and Tammy up, but the way she just kept shaking her head and saying Tarantula under her breath just got me.

The most rewarding night yet

The last few times I have written about work have all been pretty depressing. I have had even more bummer stories that I spared the few who read this blog. Work is pretty dull lately. A lot of sitting and staring off into space. We have a floor with 24 beds on it. A considerably small floor I suppose. On our unit we have had max 8 patients in the past week. On Thanksgiving night we had 5 patients with 4 RN's and a PCA. We were WAY over staffed! YES, it is fantastic that people aren't sick, burned, and spending their time in the hospital on Thanksgiving. I agree 100%. But it sure makes for a hard 12 hours of work. There is no amount of caffiene that will keep you awake at that point of boredom! Tonight I have a total of 3 patients to care for. This is RARE! Typically I get up to 5 or 6. Instead of spending most of my shift staring at the wall, (usually patients are sleeping) I have had the opportunity to talk to my patients about their lives. You know- the caring part about nursing that really got me into it in the first place. Working night shift is not the most oportune time to build relationships with patients and families. Tonight I discovered one of my patients (who has been a fairly difficult patient in the past) was a nurse in the navy for 27 years! We spoke about her faith and the many places she has traveled. She assumed I was married, when I told her I wasn't, she assumed I at least had kids. She was shocked when I told her I was 23 and with out both. Aparently I am behind. One of my other patients had a rough day yesterday. His wife and daughter were by the bedside and were certain that he was going to die tonight. They had their pastor come in to read him his last rights. After going into his room many times where he had nothing to say to me because he was so tired he finally woke up and felt like talking. This 79 yr old man made me cry! He spoke about the love he has for his wife and daughter. "It's beyond passion, like it was when we were young! We have a mature love for eachother where we are intertwined" is just some of what he said. He spoke about a curse that has been over their entire family. No male has ever lived to see 80. His birthday is in May. Under my breath I tried to break that curse and encourage him that it's just around the corner. There is so much more to say, but not enough time to write it. All in all, I fell in love with this old man tonight. A love that was different. Tonight I was a nurse and it felt good.

Ready for something good to happen.

The last week or so has been real tough at work. Like I said, things have been picking up. Honestly, things aren't anything like what I was trained for or what I expected they would be like. The night nurses don't change dressings for the burn patients. The neuro(back, neck and head) patients are pretty time consuming. The entire month of November I am working with the same group of people. I have quickly made friends at work. I run on coffee. The people I work with enjoy the nights when I drink coffee. They say I'm pretty entertaining and really talkative when I drink it. Two nights ago I came into work with a mess of patients being given to me. I had a TON of stuff to get done in a 3 hour time period. One of my patients was supposed to be transfered to a different floor. It meant that I needed to assess her, give her medications and call report. The 29 yr old had a few issues, but was medically stable when I assessed her. We transported her to her new floor and that was that. I get a call 15 min after transferring her, that the poor woman had flat lined! REALLY?!! Yeah, really. They managed to bring her back, but it just didn't make sense to me. What did I miss? Last night I had a patient (21 yr old male) who was on his call bell all night long. He asked me to give him a sponge bath. He was constantly asking me for things. One time he called me in there telling the clerk he needed me right away. He wanted me to scratch his back/butt (because he was supposed to lie flat in bed and not turn at all). He had a male PCA assigned to his room. He wanted to be "taken care of by a female" because he "enjoys the touch of a female". It was obnoxious! Guess who gave him the sponge bath? NOT ME! The male PCA :). I clocked out at 8am and excitedly rushed to my car to get to bed. When I got to my car it wouldn't start. There was absolutely no power to it. The battery wasn't even 2 years old yet! I had to get it toed to a shop, only to find out it has about 800$ in repairs it needs but i'm only getting about 400$. I suppose I better start looking into new cars. I always wanted a Toyota 4Runner! Just got home at 9:30 and am trying to wind down to go to sleep and prepare for work tonight.

I spoke too soon

I don't know what I was doing complaining that my life was too boring and that work wasn't much of work at all. I have had some days(nights) where I go to work and I have soo much time on my hands I get bored. The last 2 nights however, have been nothing but exciting and full of action...maybe too much action. Normally when a nurse comes on to her shift she will get report from the nurse getting off of her shift. This should take about 30 minutes, give or take. Thursday, my shift began with a very crazy shift change. It took me an hour and a half just to receive report. During report, one of my patients fell in her room, while unattended, and hit her head. Let's put it this way- she shouldn't have been getting out of bed for ANY reason. Her little accident set me back another 30 minutes. Another issue I ran into was when I couldn't find one of the nurses I needed to get report from. I looked around the whole floor, only to find that she had gone home for the night with out telling me anything about my patient!! I called the nurse to see if she could give me report over the phone, but she couldn't and had to drive back to the hospital to inform me about her patient. AHHHHhh! What else could go wrong? Well, let me just tell you! One of my patients (not the one who fell) was a 101 years old. Yes! Born in 1908! This poor, poor woman was trying very hard to die on my shift and I wasn't about to let that happen. She made it through the night. Last night however, I had the same group of patients for the most part and had another very hectic night. This time the lady who fell and hit her head- she started having issues that turned into an emergency. I am very thankful that I have a great staff around me to help me though my stressful moments. That's not all... Oh no. I made my first med error. I felt like a complete idiot! It was sort of a pretty big mess up. Patient turned out to be just fine. I am so thankful I have the weekend off to recover from such a crappy two days of work. I hope its refreshing and not draining.

So I'm a workin' girl

Wow, who knew that working life could be so monotonous and boring. I never thought it would be like this. Get up at eh, 3pm and start slowly getting ready for work. Pack a "lunch" and some snacks. Head to work by 6:30pm. Work until about 7:30ish am, head home, shower and get ready for bed. Sleep from 8:30 til around 3pm and do it all over again. On my days off I do nothing productive or fun because don't have anything I need to do, or anyone I need to see. On top of that, I sleep all day, and most people are at school or work. So my social life has kind of dwindled down to hanging out with the people I live with. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother and I LOVE my Lyndsey! The dog and I have become quite good friends too. I am excited to go to Busch Gardens with a few of my closest friends for my birthday--that I will be celebrating on the 19th instead of my actual birthday-the 26th. I will be working the 26th and 27th and celebrating Thanksgiving with my patients. Another thing I am looking forward to is our intern reunion! It isn't until new years and I am not quite sure if I can take off yet, but I would love to see all of my intern buddies again! Not to mention see snow and go to the beautiful NC!! Well, back to work..and yes, I am blogging on the clock!

Ready or not, here I go!

Not too much to write about these days. My orientation time is coming to an end this Friday. Next week I start working on my own which is a bit nerve racking for me and my patients! It's a going to be a LOT to adjust to next week; new shift (I'll be starting to work night shift 7p-7a), new patient population, all new nurses(new grads, not just new nurses to get used to),and new management to work under. Luckily the floor won't be changing any. The last month of orientation has been good at trying to get used to where things are but I still have to ask tons of questions. Oh, so I don't cry as much as I used to. When I first started out working, I would cry at work, leaving work and thinking about work. I'm still very unsure of myself and decision to be a nurse a LOT of the times, but my confidence level is somewhat on the rise again. I did however get "fired" by a patient on Saturday. She was absolutely ridiculous! Nothing I could do or say could have changed this crazy woman's attitude or ability to not be a complete tool! When she fired me and told me to get out of her room, I set down the stuff I had in my hands, and walked out with a smile and didn't go back in her room for the rest of the shift. Don't worry, she got taken care of, just not by me. It's nuts how much crap nurses get from people. Nurses go into work daily to help people cope, mourn, heal and return to their normal lives. Nurse burn out doesn't come only from the hard long hours and work loads, but rather the difficult patients that make doing our jobs 10x harder than they should be. HA! Sorry I just needed to vent for a minute! I have noticed the last couple weeks, I absolutely LOVE burn nursing. It fascinates me! Who would have thunk it?

Mr Sun, Sun, Mr Golden Sun, please shine down on me!

You would think someone who lives in Florida would not have a problem getting enough sun. There are so many reasons why God created the sun and here are a few reasons why I've grown to appreciate it a lot more lately:

1. The obvious reason-it gives off light. I have typically been a night person almost all my life, but with my crazy new work schedule with long shifts that start before sunrise and end at sunset, I have really been enjoying the daylight when I can get it.

2. The other obvious reason-it gives of heat. I've been looking forward to cooler weather for quite some time now and we have finally gotten a cool (not cold) front come through Gainesville. I love this time of year when I can turn of the AC and open all the windows. It has been down in the 40's and 50's and it is GLORIOUS! Occasionally the wind will get a little gusty and send chills down my spine. So I, like many others, appreciate when the sun is not hiding behind the clouds.

3. The good UVB rays. My new work schedule might be more demanding than I had anticipated, but lately I have been more fatigued than the norm. There have been many moments in which I will just be sitting, standing or talking and can't seem to stay awake. It's like my body slips into this weird comatose state where shaking me violently (what my roommate has had to do) is the only way to keep me awake. Science lesson! UVB rays are soo important because they help your body produce Vitamin D because it can not make it alone. I haven't been getting my minimum of 15 min of sun exposure a day I suppose thus creating my fatigue.

Outside of all of that, work is good. My social life has been booming the past few weeks. Most people think I'm just busy with work, but I've just been plain busy. My roommate is great at keeping entertained. We spent last weekend in New Orleans/Baton Rouge for the LSU game and some fun. This weekend was homecoming and Lyndsey had an extra ticket to Gator Growl so I attended that with her on Friday night with her family, and went to the game against Arkansas with her on Saturday (most intense game I've been at in a while). After the game we hung out with a bunch of her engineering friends. That's when my hand got shut in the door of a Ford Explorer. When I say shut, I mean the door was latched for a good 20 seconds before someone got the message to open it. It could be broken. If it's still throbbing tomorrow after work I might go down to the ER and get it x-rayed. Never a dull moment around this one.

Nervous Newbie

This blog post is simply for my own attempts to self sooth, not necessarily a way of informing those who don't see me often about what goes on in my life these days. Since the very beginning of it all, back when I was a kid and I knew that my calling was to be a nurse. School was hard to get through. Passing my boards was another scary and difficult milestone. Finding a job proved to be troublesome. Finally, here I am again, facing probably the most scary of challenges thus far. Sure, I have a license that I've worked so hard to earn and I don't want to lose it, but it's sooo much more than that. Today was day 5 for me on the Burn Intensive Care Unit (BICU) working as a newbie nurse. You would have thought that day 1 would have been the most horrifying and intimidating day and it would only get better from there. In all actuality, day 2 was harder than day 1, day 3 harder than 2 and so on. Why is this so, you ask? Well, because I am given more and more responsibility as my preceptor backs off more and more. I am expected to know more each day. So many times in the day I ask have conversations in my head that go a little like this, "Have I learned this yet and just forgotten?" or "Ok, Lacey told you this, this and this, wait, what was the first thing again?" It's completely normal to experience nerves as a new nurse. In fact, it is EXPECTED!!! Without some level of anxiety, one must have stopped caring about their job, and mostly the lives of their patients. I have heard that a lot from friends, teachers and Lacey.

Wednesday of last week I was so tired from a combination of never getting sleep and working three 12 hour shifts in a row. I was sitting at the desk with Lacey and Angela the clerk and all of a sudden just started to swell up, get puffy, turn splotchy, and you guessed it...... started crying, well almost. Lacey looked at me and asked in an attentive and caring voice "Are you crying?" Trying my hardest to hold it in, my response was "NO..maybe..I'm not sure." Lacey tried to get me to go take a break in the back and asked if she was pushing me too hard. I eventually sucked it up, told her that if she stopped looking at me with such a concerned look and pretended I was ok than maybe it would go away. It worked for about, eh, a couple hours or so. My anxiety hasn't been this uncontrollable in 2 years. Waking up for work in 5 and a half hours sounds miserable, so I'm going to try to sleep to avoid another breakdown at work. More on this topic later.

Sorry, I've been in the TANK

What a crazy last two weeks it has been getting used to working a REAL job with real hours that I don't create to work around my social life. I've already put in 78 hours since the 22nd (8 days). Work has been intense. The first week was such a bore as I sat through 4 days of classroom lectures with power points and annoying people that love to ask a ridiculous amount of personal questions to the ones putting on the class. Or the ones who have an example to share with everyone about every topic we discussed. I think there were a couple of times I slept with my eyes open or maybe was having petit mal seizures as I was staring off into space (ok not really). After my long week of lectures and computer modules I spent my weekend at Southwind, a Young Life camp in the Ocala National Forest about 50 min south of Gainesville. At Southwind, I carried a walkie talkie and keys again as camp nurse. It was quite different than how it was this summer at Sharptop. I think I administered a few Ibuprofens and some bandaids, nothing too difficult. After a long sleepless weekend of fun and friends I started my first day on the unit of the Burn ICU working with my preceptor. I've already been incredibly blessed this week! Not only do I have a preceptor that is extremely cute, bubbly, and gets my sarcasm w/o getting offended by it, she also is very grace filled. News flash, I'm not perfect. Especially at my new job that I know hardly anything about. I mess up a lot and have so much to learn. Lacey (my preceptor) has been very patient with me and doesn't try to pass me off when things need to get done. She'll slow down and actually teach me what she knows even if it takes 2 or 3x longer than it would take her if she did it on her own, especially in the tank- the hydrotherapy showers for the dressing changes we have to do daily. I'm so thankful for that. Somehow, I didn't notice that when I set my alarm clock for work each night that it wasn't set for each day of the week, just specifically Thursday and Friday which was silly because I'm not working those days this week. My alarm clock did not go off Tuesday morning and this morning. Miraculously I woke up 15-20 min before I needed to be at work. Good thing I live less than 3 miles from the hospital! Today, Lacey noticed tears in my eyes and my nose all red and asked me, "Are you about to cry!?" I was SOO tired today that I was to the point of tears. I managed not to cry thank goodness because that would have been embarrassing! Things I'm looking forward to this weekend: SLEEP, studying burns (so I don't look like an idiot on Monday), visiting good friends in Tallahassee for Octoberfest weekend at the Hammonds, and a little bit more SLEEP! More updates soon on the many things I get to do as a new burn nurse. Thanks for all of the support!

Domestically Challenged

Brooke's Baby Shower

Some wouldn't or maybe even couldn't imagine I could be so crafty. In fact most might even go as far as saying I'm domestically challenged. I have been working on a quilt for my friend Brooke's new baby girl. It isn't finished because the trim had to be ordered and hasn't come yet for me to put it all together yet, but I had to have something for her to unwrap at the shower.Once completed I will post a better picture of the quilt I made for EJJ (the initials of the new baby girl!) I also baked for the shower, everyone was in awe of my new skills.

A new obsession

After being home from camp for just over a month, I have found nothing productive to with the time when I'm not working or sleeping. My time has been spent trying to beat Chris James on bejeweled on facebook or reading about the new gossip in hollywood. Lady Gaga is a freak and Kanye West is a jackass. Serena Williams makes me laugh, and I'd be scared of her too. I am not that concerned about Patrick Swaze, Farah, or MJ. When I die, I'm sure there won't be some huge tribute to me on TV. That being said, my time has not been put to good use. So after hanging out with Aly monday I have decided.. I'm going to be crafty! Not maliciously crafty, but rather Betty Homemaker crafty. I have taken up a few hobbies. Etsy has been around for quite some time now and has not been a new discovery for me, but definitely a new obsession. I have spent endless amounts of time looking at things on Etsy that I KNOW that I can make. I was going to post some pictures of just a few things that I have started and some that I have already made. Some of my friends say they just never knew all of this creativity was inside of me! Others are just jealous. Ok, not really. Lyndsey my roommate has also been inspired and has made many decorations for our new appartment. I love having an engineer for a roommate because she is very creative and will draw things out exactly (in the paint program on the computer) before making them! Tomorrow's project..silhouettes of our heads (all the roommates- Lyndsey, me, and my brother Robbie)on black cork boards. Should be interesting and fun to make! Why did I become a nurse? Answer: To support my new hobby of making things!!! Good thing my new schedule at work is 3 days on 4 days off! Get ready Etsy here I come!

Seek, Knock, Ask

For the past 3 to 4 years (I can't keep track anymore) that I have been attending St. Andrews there is one lesson that I always appreciate learning again. Though I've heard it a hundred times before it always takes one more time hearing it for my heart to receive and understand another peice of that lesson. Seek and keep on seeking! Knock and keep on knocking! Ask and keep on asking! Do this and the Lord will bless you. It took 5+ months but it finally happened! I GOT A JOB! I have become quite discouraged due to the hard process of finding a job and the many rejections time after time. I was so tired of hearing people say to me, "You're a nurse and you can't find a job? I thought there was a nursing shortage! Shouldn't you be able to find a job anywhere!? You must not be looking hard enough." I was almost sure that if I heard it one more time I just might slap a'ho. Haha! Not really but it was frustrating for sure! I went in on Thursday morning for my 10th interview. The 5th thru the 9th I had just not put in my best effort. My heart wasn't in it, and many people kept telling me it just wasn't the one God wanted for me. Number 10, however, felt different. I was very excited, nervous, and unsure of myself at the same time. I was preparing in my car for almost a half hour what I was going to do if I was rejected yet again. To my surprise the interview went great! They liked me and I loved them and that was that! So the adventure begins. I will be starting work on the 20th of this month on the Burn/Plastics/Neuro unit at Shands Hospital. The next 12 weeks of my life is going to be chaos and fatigue but can I just say how THANKFUL I am for the opportunity to have that chaos and fatigue! God provided in just the right time and with just the right job for me! More updates soon. I'm sure I will have tons of fun stories to tell you about.

To sleep or not to sleep?

It's almost 4am. WHY AM I AWAKE!? It's often that my thoughts are running a million miles a minute right when I should be sleeping. It doesn't help that I had 12 hours of sleep last night. Some of that sleep was recovery sleep from yesterday (Tuesday) when I woke up sick. I have a job interview at 10:30 this morning at Shands on the cardiac unit for day shift. It was supposed to be Tuesday but I had it rescheduled. Do I bother going to sleep? Do I stay up and get some things done that I've been wanting to get done? If I go to sleep now (by some miracle), then I will have to get up in about 4 hours or so. After my interview I will have a friend visiting, and at some point need to go to work. I think my best bet is to sleep as much as possible during the day tomorrow after my interview and work night shift 7pm to 7am. I never have had an easy time sleeping since high school. When I am stressed I have an even harder time! I think I should try sleeping pills but have always been too scared to use them. Something has gotta change. I can't live like this forever.

Home again

It's been a while since I've posted. Mostly because I haven't had too much to write about. I'm back home finally. I miss camp a lot. It still doesn't feel like home to me here yet. I'm living with my younger brother and my friend Lyndsey from Young Life. We're still working on unpacking things and cleaning. The condo we moved into is owned by one of Lyndsey's friends. It wasn't cleaned before we moved in and still has a lot of the owners things in it. He gave us permission to toss out what we didn't want or need which is great for making more room for us, it just means more work too. My allergies have been driving me crazy since I moved in. The location of our place is great for getting to Shands and campus, but not so great for getting anywhere else in town. You can count on it taking at least 20 min to get anywhere! I'm still on a job hunt. I've been working as a PCA still for some sort of income until I find a position as an RN somewhere in the hospital. I sort of gave up on the dream of becoming a pediatric nurse for now. It's been very difficult for me to find a job. I've been searching high and low since May. It's been weighing pretty heavily on me emotionally. I just accepted a position working in a immunization clinic giving flu shots for 8 hours in which I'll be making nurses pay. I also have an interview to work day shifts on a cardiac unit at Shands tomorrow morning. We'll see how that goes. I'm very nervous. I don't know how well I could handle rejection again. I'll keep you updated!

It's the END! Is this real life?

The end is coming near. The summer interns and staff have almost become different people. Everyone has become so much more intentional and is trying to soak up every last bit they can. The statement "Oh, this is the last time we'll or I'll ever do..." has come up a lot. It's bittersweet. This summer has been so much fun, despite the rough days when swine flu took over camp. But it was the rough days that really made me realize how much growing I was doing this summer. A few of the interns have mentioned to me lately how different I am than I was at the beginning of the summer. That I've clearly grown a lot and but point out the places that I need to seek growth. It's been a blessing to have such loving people call me out and direct me in the places I'm weak. I've needed a lot of grace this summer. There has been a lot of talk about the goodbyes that will be happening next week. There are the people who hate saying goodbye so they'll probably leave with out doing so, or the people who draw out the goodbye with multiple hugs and tons of tears. I'm not sure where I'll be in that crazy mix. Hopefully at a happy medium. So much of me is ready for something new and ready to be back home. Parts of me know that a lot of things I have here I don't/won't have back home. I'll definitely miss it.

THE DAY THAT DETERMINED THE REST OF MY LIFE...or at least the next chapter

Last week I was given 4 days off to go home to Gainesville to take my NCLEX (nursing boards). I was sooo excited to go home and get a break from camp life. It wasn't, however, anything like I was hoping it would be. I was stressed out to the max, thinking that I'd have to cram tons of crap into my brain the 48 hours I had before my test. As much as I wanted the 4 days to be filled with visiting friends and hanging out with family, my free time was very limited. I have never been more scared for anything in my life. Never felt more unprepared and unsure of myself and all of my abilities and knowledge! When I went into the testing center at 7:30 Friday morning the nerves and anxiety that had been wrecking my entire insides for the weeks before had some how subsided. I felt calm and ready to face this thing head on! Unlike most of my friends who got done with the test with 75(the minimum) questions in only an hour, I took my time and was stuck with 211 questions (265 is the max) and took a total of 4 hours and 12 minutes. Before submitting each answer after I reached the 75th question (it's a computerized test) I prayed that the test would shut off and it would be over. Friday night my mom made my favorite dinner to help calm me down. I went to go hang out with a few of my friends to debreif from the horrifying feeling of failure. Two of my friends I was hanging out with had already taken the boards and knew exactly how I was feeling. The worse was the people asking how it went. Honestly, if you dont walk out of that test feeling like a failure something is wrong! I had to come back to camp Saturay after I took the test not knowing still if I passed or failed. Sunday afternoon the anxiety crept back into me and made it hard to do my job here at camp. The thoughts of having to face that test again and telling people I didn't pass were taunting me. I made my friend Kim check the website to find out my results for me. She looked it up and called me right away. She called me 2 or 3 times in a row but I refused to answer! The fear took over! She texted me "ANSWER YOUR DANG PHONE!" She called one more time and I still couldn't answer. I knew it had to be the worser of the two results! She texted me that I PASSED and I couldn't believe it! I called her and then had to check for myself. It's funny because I've actually check the site multiple times since then to make sure it wasn't a computer glitch or all a dream. I'm so thankful the Lord was with me on that day of the test. The peace he surrounded me with as I was testing had to be only from Him. To top it all off. As I was leaving the testing center I found on the ground a small 1 inch figure of Jesus in a red robe with his hands raised in the air in praise (it could be a pencil topper)!! I put him in my pocket and wanted him to be present with me for the rest of the day! After this really long post.. The point to the story is this.. I'M A REAL LIFE REGISTERED NURSE.. BIATCH!

Rubber Gloves

Things here at camp have stayed consistently busy and interesting. I'm finally over being sick and have for the most part my energy back. I don't always get the amount of sleep I need, but when have I ever? This Saturday marks the end of session 2 which means we have had 7 full weeks of campers. Approximately 415 campers each week x 7 weeks = 2905 campers that had the opportunity to hear the gospel. How exciting! 3 more weeks to go! It's hard to believe it's coming to an end.

I haven't blogged in a while, so of course I have some stories to share, but for now I'll leave you with this one. The other day I was hanging out at the snack bar in the game room because it's only 7 feet from the infirmary and easy access to pretty much anything I might need. While I was sitting behind the register with the snack bar girls a camper came up to me (maybe 15 or 16 yrs old) and asked me for a rubber glove. Having access to rubber gloves, I was curious what he was going to use it for before I gave him one. The camper said, "Well I need to go to the bathroom really bad, so I need a rubber glove." This made me even more curious. He then explained that someone had clogged the boys toilet with paper towels because there wasn't anymore toilet paper in the stall. I immediately grabbed my radio thinking about who I could call to come fix this problem. The camper said it wasn't a big deal and he'd unclog it himself if I just gave him the gloves, that he was just in a hurry. I was not comfortable with this idea... A camper having to stick his hands down a toilet on his 2nd day being at camp, I mean that sure sounds like the "BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE" too. Wearing my blue shirt, representing Sharptop, I decided I needed to step up. Come on, a clogged toilet isn't the worse thing I've faced in my career of nursing. I put on the surgical gloves because they come up almost to my elbows and went fishing. The camper held the trash can close as I pulled the 6 3ft paper towels out of the toilet while avoiding... The both of us were gagging and laughing. I've come to a conclusion that many have probably already made, BOYS ARE GROSS!

The Night That NEVER Ends

Today is the day at camp that kids are introduced to their own sin. They're called out for who they really are and what they really are made of .. and for being completely separated from God because of it. It's quite a downer to hear, so naturally they make the rest of the night one crazy night of organized chaotic fun! They get dressed up and have bbq up the mountain at a little place called pioneer and then have what they call opera, which is just the program guys putting on a show. After opera is the square dancing/hoe down, followed by an insane carnival (that gets set up in just about an hour) in the gym where kids get to play games for tickets to exchange for the privledge to pie a leader in the eye or dunk them in the dunking booth. Oh what a night! Tonight we had a visitor up at pioneer that didn't seem to want to leave. He was a large black bear that took many gun shots to try to scare away. He left temporarily for campers to be able to eat dinner, but showed up on the road only 15 min later eating the trails of peanuts left behind from campers. Luckily no one was injured, bear or human. Last week there were a group of adult guests who dressed up like this..

I have been to Young Life camps a million times and can't believe I forgot my 1800's attire this year! I'm stuck wearing my blue polo. Oh well.

Independance Day!

My roommates are decked out in their patriotic attire and flare and working while I have been taking another sick day to get well from yet a new illness. My bosses made me go to the doctor yesterday to get tested for Type A flu and told me I was not to work today. I'm enjoying my day off. I slept in late, showered, studied, called some friends, and now I get to blog! Kelli told me I haven't been nearly witty enough. I blame it on the lack of energy I've had lately.
Friday the interns and our bosses went into the thriving town of Jasper for a cookout and the Jasper Fair. I have never seen so many: mullets, mohawks, pregnant or teen mothers, morbidly obese, rebel flag wearing people gathered in such a small vicinity. We were given 15$ each to either get a pass for unlimited rides or get 15$ of fresh squeezed lemonade and funnel cakes. I decided to pocket the money due to the fact that I had a fever(and deathly ill) and was not sure I trusted the rusty metal light up death traps they assemble in 2 days that they call "RIDES". The pictures speak for themselves! I was kind of "mom" for the night. I stood by the gates to each ride holding multiple purses and cameras. After about two hours I had enough of that so my friend Amber and I went and sat in the grass to wait for our friends. We were having good conversation until my runny nose interrupted. *This could be gross to you! It turned into a faucet! Here is how our conversation proceeded... Me: Did you see that?(as I wiped the clear fluid that was dripping down my face) Amber: (without even looking at me) No, but Santa did! (as a large man with a bald head and a white beard down his chest walked by) We laughed together then there was this pause as I was thinking. Me: Yeah, because Santa is always watching! He watches to see who's naught or nice. (trying to sing the song) Amber: Uh..? Then there was a break of uncontrolable laughter and crying!Me, Amber and Bailey watching as some of the interns were on the octupus/spider rideThis is the front seat of one of the rides. CAUTION TAPE! No thank you!Jeff and Hannah showing their excitement for the spider/octopus ride. Brittany in the background not so sure about it.This picture captures the essence of the Jasper folk. If you look closely you can see the woman on the kiddy ride with the ballin' mullet!

Amber right before our moment in the grass.
Just another piece of scrap metal they like to call a ride!

Lungs- Don't fail me now!

Fact #1:Thanks to a group of campers who we thought were infected with the swine flu but really had upper respiratory infections (which might I say are quite contagious) I spent last week fighting my URI. 2 full days off of work and a full 5 days of my antibiotics I was SURE I was set. W R O N G!!! Often people who have URI's develop acute bronchitis 3-4 days after URI's peak! Well here I am... wheezing and hacking up a lung. Coughing to the point where I lose my breath and get light headed! Sometimes acute bronchitis can last up to 3 weeks or turn into chronic. Here's why this all sucks: I am a horrible sick person. I complain a lot. I also have to lead a group of 360 campers on a 1.5 mile hike to the top of the mountain tomorrow. You might ask, why can't another EMT/Nurse go on the hike tomorrow? Well, all of us are ill and I just happened to be scheduled.

Fact #2: there is a mouse in our kitchen and I can hear him scampering in the cupboards.

Fact #3: There is a corner of our living room which is known as the bug corner. In the corner there is a table with a lamp on it next to 2 very large windows. Some how there are bugs that can seep through the window and attack the lamp and other objects around the lamp.. such as my FACE! Outside of the window there is a very large spider that looks rather deadly that feeds off of the multitude of bugs that don't make it through the window into our house.

Fact #4: I shared a story with two of the Tawashi girls (housekeeping) when hanging out with them and getting to know them a little better. One of the girls was Sam Dillon, a high school wyld life leader from back home. Well, I had them all rolling on the floor laughing and disgusted at the same time..2 days after I told this story I had people coming up to me who weren't a part of that special moment asking me about more details of the story. Somehow the story had gotten retold from high schooler to high schooler to the point where things weren't true at all! I had to straighten them all out!

I must get to bed and try to stop hacking. It's taken me forever to write this post because of my limited lung capacity. Peace yo!

Transformers

It's 2:26am and the interns have just gone to bed. After our intern bible study we headed to Canton, Ga to watch the newest Transformers movie! Well, I'm going to give it a two thumbs up! It was pretty freaking awesome! It was on the long side (especially when you see it so late) but oh, so enjoyable! I actually wasn't going to go with them to the movies, but rather come back home and study then go to bed. I am so glad I chose to be spontaneous instead!
I kind of wish I had a giant machine bot to take care of me and protect me when my world seems to be attacked by crazy aliens or even just the common upper respiratory infection (URI). I am not invincible as much as I like to think sometimes. I happened to catch this horrible URI 2 days ago after treating approximately 35 kids with the same thing. It was inevitable. 425 kids here this week and 35 with URI's breathing all up in my infirmary, and spreading their germs on every surface of camp. I didn't just get the URI, it brought some friends with it, tonsillitis and pharyngitis! With the help of the Zpack and my Rx cough syrup I will be back to work tomorrow.
As far as transforming.. I really hope that I am transforming this summer! I want to be a changed person. Not stuck in this hole I've been in for so long. We're already going into week 6 of being here and my daily prayer is for transformation.

Pigs and homemade bombs blow up the camp

This is going to be quite the quick little entry, but let me just tell you how crazy it's been this week. Session 1 ended on Saturday. It was a relief but also SO sad to have to say goodbye to all of the summer staff, work crew and assigned team. The month was full of craziness but we got through it and a part of me misses that craziness. We're in a whole new ball park of craziness for this month. The new summer staff, work crew and assigned team started off this Sunday as well as a whole new week of 424 campers. I was on call Saturday night and worked all the way thru Monday morning. It was the longest shift I've had since I've been here. Tuesday night some high school boys thought it would be a fantastic idea to create and set off a homemade bomb made some how from electrical tape, a coke bottle and some cleaning chemicals. The explosion was so large the fire ball was probably as large as a golf cart. It was so loud that you could hear it for 2-3 miles out. I took of running after hearing and seeing the explosion. I was so scared people had just blown up in the game room and I alone would have to attend to their wounds! Come to find out it was boys being rebels...but it could have been bad. 15 feet from where they set off their bomb was a VERY LARGE propane tank.
I don't know if you're fully aware of the pandemic that's sweeping the country.. but the SWINE is out to get everyone it seems like. There have been 3 different cases at YoungLife camps this summer already! Let's just say we had a pretty large scare tonight. My life was pretty much hell for almost 5 hours! FYI SharpTop does NOT have the swine flu!

Breathtaking!

The title of this blog is exactly how I'd have to describe the last 2 weeks! Absolutely breathtaking! The schedule hardly permits one to breathe! My anxiety level is constantly through the roof, thus making my chest feel heavy, physically making it hard to breathe. Then, the beauty of the mountains and the love of people around me overwhelms me daily. But even more, I have been reminded how breathtaking it is to see God move in lives of kids who didn't understand what FULL life is really worth. To see kids pile in buses and drive hundreds of miles to get to camp and act a fool the first day or two and then transform throughout the week because God's heart is penetrating theirs to the point where they are hardly recognizable after 6 days of love by a father they weren't aware was there for them. God continues to amaze me. Here I am at Sharptop, pretty far from where I had planned on being this summer. Pretty far from all expectations I had after graduating nursing school.. but SO close to everything HE wants for me! WHO knows where I'll be in August when I leave Georgia? Or what I'll be doing? Who knows other than the one's who's plans are to prosper me and not to harm me! I will take hold of that!

BTW its 2:18, I'm awake- should be sleeping because my alarm clock goes off in less than 5 hours! OH and I really really miss my 10 lb dog, Joey and snuggling with him at night! :(

Today could not have been any more ridiculous

It's 1:21 am and instead of sleeping like a sane person would be, I'm blogging about my incredibly awesome day. I hope you can sense the sarcasm in my words. Instead of having the morning off like I thought I did, I woke up at 7:30 and just felt the need to check my schedule one more time. Good thing I did, I had to be into work at 8. I jumped in the shower and rushed out the door. The day was filled with fake injuries of kids that just wanted attention. I was given attitude by a lot of the kids when I told them that I didn't have the supplies they "needed" but could improvise with something similar that would do the same trick. When I gave them the second option they said, "I think I'll be ok." I can't tell you how frustrated I was with kids today. They tried my patience all day. I tried to keep a smile on my face and love in my heart for them, but it was hard. I had a diabetic start crashing this afternoon with a blood sugar of 42. That was scary, but I gave her some OJ and crackers and she was set to go, back up to 94. (for all you non medical people a normal blood sugar is 60-120, 60 being close to problematic). Handled that just fine, deal with that in the hospital settting quite a bit. Something I haven't dealt with too often is separating 140ish urban kids from fighting. I was scared for my life. But I managed, then treated the wounded. Then after that drama, we were setting up for carnival and one of the summer staff got bit by a COPPERHEAD! I kept him calm and cool and rushed him to the thriving city of Jasper where the closest podunk hospital is. It's a good 25 min from camp. He's going to be ok too. But I didn't get home from the hosptial until 12:30. My adrenaline is still pumping from the day. Haven't stopped thinking about how stressful and upsetting the day was. But I should, because its 1:30 and I have to be up for work at 7 am. OH Lord be with me! Amen!

Did the girl conquer the mountain or did the mountain conqeur the girl?

So it's the end of day 3, week 1, session 1 of urban camp. Let me just say one thing first.. I have never been more exhausted in my life. Campers started arriving at 2pm on Sunday and didn't finish getting here until around 6. I had 4 hours of going through every health form of the 460 kids that are here this week to check for allergies, health conditions, and insurance. OH tons of fun! Urban camps tend to run approximately 15-30 min behind schedule, so when it came to the obstacle course (OC) that was supposed to start right at 10 it didn't begin until 10:30. And when it was supposed to be over at 11 it didn't end until 12:30. It was kind of crazy. Both EMT/Nurses were to be working that night because OC night is known for having a lot of broken bones and sprained ankles. Sunday night, Nate and I were so excited to hear that not even one person reported injuries that evening. I was spreading the great news all night and some more on monday morning at work crew/summer staff breakfast. It wasn't until after camper breakfast that I was oh so wrong! The injuries flooded the infirmary one after the other. From things as simple as a splinter to a possible wrist fracture. Working as camp nurse has been a lot of fun, but definitely tiring. For urban camps they split up all of the activites by guys and girls. Today was the girls hike up SharpTop mountain. It's called SharpTop for a reason. I took 260 girls up the mountain with the help of 2 of the head leaders, a program member and one of the ropes interns (my roommate). It was a hike that would take the average person 1 hour hike up to top and back to the bottom but took us 3 hours to do. I was bringing up the rear with the girls who were struggling. My fight was mostly that I was being called on the radio ever 5 min that another girl was having an "asthma" attack and forgot her inhaler. There actually was one real emmergency that we had to send to the hospital, but she's ok. Anyway, I wasn't planning on writing this much. I'm exhausted and need my beauty rest for tomorrow.

new blog name

Can anyone help me to come up with a blog name less uh... rude? I really do love what I do as a nurse and as a PCA and it has been weighing on me a lot lately to come up with a different blog title. Anyone creative? Aly, Ethan, Val?

Kathy copy Kathy

It's coming to the end of my second day here at Sharptop. I haven't had too many opportunities just yet to deal with medical issues. There is another EMT intern (Nate) here as well. He's a sweet little guy who is going to nursing school who is even less confident in his skills than I. He has been getting most of the action because people know him from being here all week. I kind of got up here in the middle of work week, and am just starting to get to know names of people. There was a girl last night that came up to me and the other EMT during dinner and told us someone had gotten seriously burned in the kitchen and we needed to come back there immediately. So we dropped our forks and rushed back to see her. The girl barely had 5 splotchy spots on her forearm. I told her to rub some burn cream on that baby and get back to work. LOL. Then this morning Nate came up to me after breakfast and asked me if I knew anything about fractures. He told me his plan of action with the kid and I said sounds good. He seemed to manage just fine. I know I am lacking in confidence, but I most defintely know how to serve him this summer. By just building him up. He knows his stuff, just lacks confidence. I worked HARD today. After breakfast I helped rake the trails and the entire ropes course area, move rocks to make the trails look better for 4 hours. Then after lunch became in charge of my own crew of boys and spent 2 hours cleaning cobwebs from EVERY corner in camp. It was fun, let me tell you! So now I'm sitting here for all of my 5 min of break at "home" aka SouthFork and resting my feet. Oh, dinner is soon. I better get a shower.

SharpTop... I made it!!!

I AM HERE! After a long long week of packing my apartment and moving all of my stuff, some back to my parents house and the rest at my friend Nikki's house I was ready to get the heck out of Gainesville, but nervous as a mo' fo to start real life as a nurse. I met some of the interns I'll be living and working with the next 3 months and I'm very excited so far. More updates later bc my roommates are trying to sleep. Don't want to start off on the wrong foot the first night.

Now what?

I've graduated and moved on up in the world and officially accepted the role and title of "adult". They always say at age 18 you are considered by law an adult, but I think that it's insanely too young to be considered an adult. I'm 22 and not sure I want to accept the full responsibility of claiming to be an adult. I seem to have mentioned this concept a lot in recent blogs. Maybe there is some sort of fear I have linked to it..?
The month of May seems to be going by rather quickly and has also been full of many emotional roller-coaster rides already. It's been very hard for me to have not heard from Shands about a job. It was something everyone told me was a sure thing, so I think I believed them. It has been hard for me to share in the joy when my friends get 3 or 4 offers and get to choose their top choice out of the group of offers they received. It's been hard not to take it personally. I was given all of the steps for the best way of finding a job as a nurse, and I took every single one of them, yet things have not worked out the way I have planned. Though I've been given this AMAZING opportunity to be camp nurse at SharpTop, I can't help but to be curious and concerned for what is going to happen come August and summer is gone. One day I say, screw Shands! God has better for me! Then the next day, I still wonder "WHY NOT ME?"
This week is a crazy one. I have to: move all of my furniture and belongings to multiple places for storage, pick up a friend from the airport and somewhat entertain her, laundry, pack for camp, work three 12 hour shifts, babysit for a friend (don't worry Aly- this is part of my week I'm looking forward to!), and get some good quality time with my roommate before I leave for 3 months and never live with her again. Ok so that's only some of the stuff on my "to do" list. It's a very long list. I leave for SharpTop the night of the 19th, or early early morning of the 20th.

I got pinned!

I DID IT!!! I made it through the ceremony without even one tear! Well that's all I wanted to say! Smell ya later!

It is time...

Well.. we are only hours away from graduation! It's 2am and I am up worrying about life and how it will be different after today. Where will I end up come August 19th after my internship at SharpTop is over? God, PLEASE direct my ways to be your ways! Since Tuesday of this week my friends and fellow colleagues have been receiving phone calls from Shands with job offers for their "dream jobs". My friend Julie was the first to recieve a job in Shands ER. I had so much excitement for her and was overwhelmed with joy! I couldn't stop shouting in public "JULIE HAS A JOB! JULIE'S AN ER NURSE!!" The two of us got out of the car and ran around Sonny's parkinglot screaming with excitement...This meant that they had started the calling process and I knew it would only be a day or two until I got my call. They have been going unit by unit. Taking their precious little time to call people to offer them positions. Today my friend Nikki told me that she was given the job she has been only hoping and praying for, which is in the Pediatric Intermediate Care, also being something I have been praying for as well! Throughout the day, I ran into people here and there from school and my phone was blowing up with texts about people who were getting calls left and right. I was sure to keep my phone in my pocket at all times in expectation that I would be getting my call today. Around 10pm tonight, it hit me. This isn't going to happen. I am not going to be getting a job with Shands pediatrics. Now, I don't know for sure that I won't be getting a call tomorrow, but I have this pinching feeling in my heart that says that it's all wrong. It's not where I am going to be. Well, I'll update you more on this later. When I'm a little more sure about my gut feeling and a little less bummed about it all... I do know one thing. I do love and worship a God that loves me and has a crazy awesome plan for my life that I can't wait to unravel!

Count Down

6 more days until I dress in all white and walk down the isle to start a new life! Ha, a new life as a college graduate and a brand new nurse that is! Time to grow up. I've been living on my own for a while now, so in some sense I have become an adult. But really, I have so much more growing up to do! I am still waiting to hear from Shands about a job. I interviewed back in February and was told I'd be getting a phone call the first week of April. Well that's come and gone! Shands has had some difficulty with hiring right now while they are in transition of hiring people for the new cancer center and moving people from AGH over before they close it down. So I'm trying to be understanding and patient, but its hard. In the mean time, I DID accept a position as CAMP NURSE/EMT summer long intern at SharpTop Cove in Jasper, Ga. I am more than excited for this opportunity, it will probably be the last chance I will have to do something like this for a long time. Most of you who talk to me on a regular basis- none of this news is really news to you.

On another note.. I spent 9 hours in the ER Friday night/Saturday morning. Don't worry, I'm fine! I actually was there as support for a friend of mine. It was a huge confidence boost that the nurses and doctors all suspected the same things I did when I went to pick her up from her house before heading over to the ER. When I got to her house I did a quick assessment of her and decided that the ER was a smart choice. I felt very proud of myself for having actually learned something in the past 2 years of nursing school! After doing blood tests and CT scans, turned out to not be nearly as serious as I (or the nurses and drs) had thought it was, praise God! It ended up being 9 hours of let's play the best friend game and get to know each other really really well, with just a really big bill to follow. My sleep schedule is way out of wack now. It always has been, but even more so now. I got didn't get home from the ER until 10:30 am. I went to sleep and woke up at 4:30 pm to go hang out with a friend. Was awake until 4am and then got up at 9:30am for church. We'll see what happens tonight.

OK.. this post is long enough.. I am going to leave you with a link I found on one of my friend's pages. It is a little french girl named Capucine telling a story. She is soo cute and so creative! I have decided that when I have babies I'm only going to speak french to them so they turn out as cute as this girl. I need to learn french first. Anyone wanna teach me?

sleep deprivation

This week wasn't as bad as last week when it comes to clinical. Things actually seemed to go pretty well. I started my first IV! Did my first female cath! And got a 7 yr old boyfriend all in one week! The 7 yr old was one of my patients! He was the cutest thing ever! He made me a present and wrapped it up in a paper towel! It was so precious!
So... I feel kind of bad about my last post.. and how I talked so horribly about the nurse I was working with. I found out this poor woman is narcoleptic and the mountain dew keeps her functioning at the level she does! Sometimes I wish I could be narcoleptic. I have the opposite problem. I often am stuck awake and don't get enough sleep.
This week was Holy week; the week before Easter. I attended an all night prayer vigil at St. Andrew's (my church) that was from 10-6am. Then there was a 6am service that I attended. You'd think someone might be churched out after being in one for that long, but after the service we went to breakfast and then I hopped right over to another service, at the church I grew up in, to hear my sister sing and attend with the family. Wow was that weird. When I say I grew up in that church, I mean I was 5 or so when we built the church, then stopped going there in my junior year of high school for many many reasons. Which would make it 5 years now that I haven't attended that church. I felt very awkward, and most people didn't even remember my name or recognize me. Both of which upset me because of HOW extremely involved I was in that church. Oh well, I love St. Andrews! I really do! I have grown to be a different person because of how much love the people have poured out on me there! I have grown to see what it's like to really be a follower of Jesus and to be more like him! Praise be to God for the work he has done in my life in the last 5 years!
OH.. and if you really want to be a good friend.. don't ask me about Shands job offers! No I haven't heard anything back yet and don't know that I will until the last week of April. They sent us out an email saying they have delayed the hiring process yet again. I'm nervous and more anxious as to what the future has to hold for me! I've been given a few opportunities for this summer and I'm uncertain of which one might be best for me. Keep me in your prayers!

Official countdown= 17 days til graduation!!

Caffiene Junkie

Wow! I can't believe how close I am til graduation! May 1st is just around the corner! ONE more month! I'm doing my practicum/transition right now, which means that I am strictly working in the hospital. <--this was from a post I began to write march 31st, shows you how busy I am.. so here is the continuation.
I have been soo busy that I haven't had time to sit and read blogs or write my own in a while. Blogging has actually been the last on my list of things to do. I haven't had time to see friends, do laundry or the most important of all, SLEEP! The nurse I am working with at the hospital is one of the oldest ones on the floor. She takes a little more time than most to get the job done. So I have worked (for free) 48 hours this week for school. I managed to work 4 hours and get paid for it after I had already done a 12 hour shift Saturday which made my total hours at the hospital up to 52!! Let me just tell you how anxious yet ready I am to start working on my own. I'm kind of having a rough time with the nurse I am working with. This lady is nuts- she drinks 4 mountain dews before 12pm (when we take a lunch). Let me give you some info about mountaindew. In one 20 oz bottle of mountaindew there is 90 mg of of caffiene! 90 x 4= 360mg of caffiene!!! DANG yo! So you'd think someone who has consumed that much caffiene would be having heart palpitations maybe even be extremely excitable... well, this is not the case. Of the two times I have taken my lunch break with my nurse, she has fallen asleep WHILE chewing her food. Next time it happens I might take a picture with my phone. Anyhow.. any of you who read my blog to keep up with me and want to lift me up in prayers..I'd greatly appreciate if you lift me up right now. Though I LOVE working in pediatrics, the nurse I am working with has made it very difficult to love what I'm doing. I am also waiting to hear back from the hospital as to whether or not I will be offered a job this week! I'll keep you posted!

Sorry to admit to this

So she drives me nuts. I can't stand her and her teeny-bopper ways. When I heard the song on the radio I hate to admit.. but I was "moved" (something Jim one of my instructors would say). I was so in love with the song immediately! I had the chorus memorized by the end of the song and was singing it all day. I didn't know who wrote this awesome song.. until I asked one of the waitresses at Applebees when I was there for a friends birthday dinner. Get ready.. the song I have recently been obsessed with is....... THE CLIMB by Miley Cyrus!!!!aka HANNAH MONTANNA!!! BARF in my mouth a little! I thought about changing my mind and disliking the song, but I will lay down my pride and share with you the inspiring words of the Achey Breaky Heart King's daughter and let you decide for yourself if its good or not. The music video does the song NO justice.. so if you do decide to listen.. ignore the horrible cheesy video. I mean she is owned by Disney after all.

p.s. 36 more days til graduation! ALL of you are invited! Ceremony May 1st!!! woohooooo!

Clean your plate

I forgot to blog about this the other night after it happened, but again, I was caught up in school stuff and didn't have the time most likely. I went to bible study at Papa Ron's on Tuesday night. Every Tues night they have an awesome dinner, then worship then bible study. I was sitting at the table next to two of my friends I hadn't seen or talked to in a while. The one on my right had a whole plate full of food, and commented after having eaten literally 2 bites of bread and 1 of the main course that she was full. Joking around like I typically do, I said "Guuuurl! You better clean yo' plate, there are starvin' children in Africa!" The ironic thing was, the two girls I was sitting between were from Africa. The one I made the comment about was from Zimbabwe the poorest and one of the most sad countries in Africa. The table went completely quiet, then an uproar in laughter at how ridiculous I am for saying something so rude!! I hadn't realized just how offensive I was at first, until the one from Zimbabwe said to me, "Those starving children are my familes." I couldn't seem to apologize enough to keep from feeling such tramendous shame and guilt! My friend from Zimbabwe knew my heart and that my intentions were not to be rude or to hurt her or to offend the people of Zimbabwe. We have spoken many times about how I want to do medcial missions to Zimbabwe and one day work at an orphanage there and adopt all of the starving kids! My other friend from Africa is from Nigeria, she couldn't contain her laughter. I had gotten myself into a deep hole REAL fast!

Spring Break Blues

Today officially starts my spring break. I skipped class this morning to sleep. It was much needed because I slept until 1:30!!! It is nice to not have to think about papers or final exams, but it would be great to get out of Gainesville for a little bit. Nearly everyone I know is going somewhere awesome like on a cruise in the caribean, to the bahamas, to jamaica, to NYC, Washington DC, the Fl keys.. you get the point. Where will I be? Probably working 6 out of the 8 days we are on spring break. I drove a friend down to Orlando last night to take her to the airport. My sister rode along so I wouldn't get lost coming back. We went shopping after we dropped my friend off and were so jealous of the outlet malls they have there! The best part of the night was when we drove around down town orlando completly lost for an hour with my friend Tammy on speaker phone trying to describe to us how to get to the hospital (that she is doing practicum at). She has only been there for a week and knows nothing about the street systems there. There are LOTS of hospitals in Orlando by the way. When we finally found Tammy's dorm, we took her to dinner at Outback. We were expecting at least a 30 min wait like we would have here, but we were able to sit down right away. I forgot to ask the waiter (Brad) to not put lemons in my tea and water. I was explaining to Tammy how dirty lemons are and how i didn't like them (in my drink-which i thought was implied when I was fishing the lemons out of my drink). Her response was, "I'm a woman, why do you think all women are dirty?" I love Tammy and the things she says! Anyway, if anyone has anything fun or interesting to do, or see in Gainesville hit me up! I'll be working 7 to 3's all week for the most part.

Evangelism Linebacker

Sometimes I can be completely oblivious to things. I went to BIG group tonight (which is mostly all of the small groups at First Assembly meeting together corporately) and watched this video before someone came up and gave a lesson on evangelism. Please watch the video it's pretty funny! I was laughing up a storm and couldn't wait to get home to share it with my friends. I shared it with one friend who wasn't that phased because he'd seen it a million times before. He said "Young Life actually did a spoof". I said "Man, I bet that was great!" He gave me the link to watch the spoof and as I was watching it, it seemed familiar like I had seen it before. It wasn't until the near end when I realized WHY it was so familiar! I WAS IN IT!!!!! I thought the video was pretty funny when I saw it at work week 2 yrs ago... but I hadn't seen the original video so I didn't know just how funny it really was! Oh man, how embarrassing!

Sun Tan or Sand Man?

Yesterday was such perfect weather that I just couldn't stay inside! I laid by the pool for a little while with my friend Jen but it wasn't enough. Sarah (my roommate) and our friend Laura were headed to St. Augustine for the day to celebrate their birthdays, my friend Nikki and I tagged along for the ride. Nikki and I decided we could be productive and do 3 things at once: study for our finals, work on becoming a color other than pastey white, and hang out at the same time. The weather was perfect. When we got to St. Augustine we ate at this awesome restaurant called Mango Mangos off of beach blvd on A1A! They are delightful, try them out the next time you're in that area! After lunch, Sarah and Laura dropped Nikki and I off at the beach while they went to explore the shops of St. Augustine. Nikki and I found what seemed to be a great spot on the beach to get the perfect amount of sun and not be around too many people. We descovered very quickly that this was not the perfect spot when the wind started blowing! We were INSTANTLY covered in sand! That's when Nikki found an abandoned fold out beach chair (also covered in sand) and had the great idea that we should go down to the water to wash it off so she could lay in it and the sand wouldn't get her (too bad for me though ha). When we were coming back up from the water we noticed far off in the distance our note packets from school were blowing EVERYWHERE! We quickly took off for our notes, but it was like one of those America's Funniest Home Video things where once we thought we were going to grab one, it would catch the wind again and fly away. It had to have been a sight to see. There were soo many papers flying it took about 15 or so people to help us. Thank GOD they did! Nikki and I would have been screwed for our finals! As we collected what we thought were all of them and headed back to our spot, MORE flew out of our notebooks! This was ridiculous. When we finally had them all, we were trying to peice our notes back together by first figuring out who's notes were who's. Then the ones that got wet and covered in sand had to be flattened out and dried. The ones that got ripped and torn from the staples had to be put back in order. It was a disaster! After getting it all sorted, neither of us wanted to study anymore. We were afraid to open our books in fear that the wind would take our notes away again. We couldn't risk that! We just laid out until Sarah and Laura came to our rescue to go home. I'm pretty sure I had a pound of sand in my hair and at least a half a pound in my ears! I love the beach but I hate how sand can manage it's way in any crevase it so pleases!

Wan Hung Lo

Ok... so the title of this post is only to bring a bit of light and laughter to a situation that has had soo much doom and gloom lurking over it. The title is actually one of my dad's ridiculous jokes.. My friend Daniel is 23, he is my friend Lauren's bf/fiance. I've known Lauren for almost 2 years now, she is in my nursing program. She and Daniel just found out last week that Daniel has a very agressive form of testicular cancer. Monday of this week, he had surgery to remove the right testicle. Thursday the pathology had come back to confirm the diagnosis. The visit Thursday also brought more bad news. The cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and has been traveling through the lymph. Please keep Daniel and Lauren in your prayers. Lauren has soo much to deal with having being in her last semester of nursing school and her concern with Daniel.

Crazy

I haven't blogged in a while! It's almost been a month. This blog won't be too long because I have a friend coming over to study with me in just a min, but I wanted to give a short update on my crazy life. With in a period of 2 and a half weeks I've had to deal with: 5 days of pediatric (I will call it peds from here on out) clinical, a 20 page peds paper, 1 pscyh exam, 4 days of psych hospital, another 15-20 page paper for pscyh, and 2 finals next week.
As most of you who know me personally would know, I was NOT looking forward to doing my psych rotation at the psych hospital. The idea of being surrounded by crazy people scared me. Turns out, we're all a bit crazy. Some of the people there made me feel quite uncomfortable, but others were just normal people, with normal lives, experiencing really hard times. I met an 18 yr old girl the last day of my rotation, who was in for an overdose in pills. When she realized what she had done, she had called her sister right away. She says she wasn't trying to hurt herself, just dull the loud thoughts in her mind that screamed at her that she was worthless, ugly and fat. All of which she was not. Such a young girl with SOOO much trauma in her life. My heart broke for her. I enjoyed the little amount of time I had to speak with her. The Young Life leader in me just took over. So the over all experience, though very difficult at some points, was not as bad as I had anticipated.
Ok, the weather is too great to not be outside at the pool. So my friend is here and I'm going to get my study on pool side!

playin a game of hookie

Who decided that when you skip school that it's a game? And who decided it should be called hookie? What does that mean anyway? I know we're only a month into school, but I really needed a day off to just relax and not have to think about so much. Because I have nothing interesting to report I will tell you a story our teacher told us in class last Friday. I warn you now- THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS DO NOT KEEP READING!

We are in our psych rotation right now which is always interesting. Our teachers have tons of stories about working in pysch. Friday our teacher spent more time telling stories than he did going over the lecture material. He spent about 15 minutes telling us about a guy on the pscyh unit that had a Jesus complex- where he genuinely thought he was the son of God. One of the techs who was a Christian and going to school to become a priest decided he was going to go in and tell him to stop claiming to be Jesus. The tech spent almost an hour in the room with the man and came out only more puzzled and frazzled than he did when he went in. This guy memorized the whole bible. This guy thought he really was Jesus and there was NOTHING the tech could do or say that could prove other wise. Well, on the psych unit, rounds must be made every 15 minutes to know where your patients are and what they are doing. During rounds my teacher said he was going in to give "Jesus" his afternoon meds, but he wasn't in his room. He and the tech looked in other rooms and in the halls to find him. Finally they found "Jesus" in bed with one of the women from psych unit. I'm pretty sure that the son of God wouldn't get away with that...anywho.. My teacher and the tech separated the two and made "Jesus" go back to his room and he was put in "time out". The female patient was not one under my teacher's care, so he went to go find her nurse. When he did, he told her, "I found "Jesus" and Ms. so and so in bed just now". The nurse said, "kissing?" My teacher said, "Yeah, that and then some." The nurse said, "I have been in the bathroom for five minutes throwing up, when I went in to do my rounds I found Ms. So and so drinking the contents of her colostomy bag!"

Would you say something?

Hahahahahahahaha! Good I'm glad I got that out real quick. I got up at the butt crack of dawn (5:25) and came to Panera to study for my psych exam and eat breakfast and drink gallons of coffee. I'm pretty exhausted because Sarah and I watched Fatal Attraction last night and I wasn't able to sleep. I kept waking up every 15-20 min! Well here is my dilemma.. When there is someone who is on their laptop in a public resturaunt and has their ear phones in and thinks that they are plugged in but in reality they are BLASTING the classic hit My Girl.. Do you say something?

The funny things teachers say

I'm quite confident that most of the time when our teachers are lecturing they too, are bored. Sometimes they say random things to check if we're still paying attention. But sometimes, I can't tell if the funny things they say are on purpose to make us laugh or just part of their normal thought processes and they don't think about it. Today, I was pretty sure that my teacher didn't notice that she said IT! "If the child pittles here and there, it should be brought to your attention that this is not normal." In this context, I'm pretty sure she meant definition 2. She was talking about the pediatric patient and UTIs (Urinary Tract Infections) when she mentioned one of a few ways to notice if a child/your child could have a UTI is by change in their pattern of urination. I was the only one in the class to pick up this little bit of slang! I laughed out loud.

I don't like being rushed...

Did anyone know that the Starbucks in Hunters Crossing shopping center closes at 9pm and they will kick you out at 8:50? Well my friend Traci and I didn't know. Most Starbucks in town stay open to at least 10 or 11 to accommodate for the caffeine driven college students that like to sip their coffee at late hours of the night while cramming for tomorrow's test. Traci and I had plans a week ago to meet at Starbucks to catch up at 8pm. I was running late and didn't get there until about 8:15. Around 10 til 9, the bartista shooed us out of the early closing shop so that he could go home. Traci and I quickly got up and walked outside and continued our conversation for about an hour and a half longer. We watched as they cleaned up, put the chairs up and locked up. Around the time we were saying our goodbyes and heading to our cars I realized I couldn't find my keys anywhere! I searched my big purse, my pockets, the ground, and peered through the window of my car to make sure I didn't leave them in the seat. There was only one option left- I must have left them in Starbucks! Well indeed I did! Traci peered through the dark window of Starbucks and found my keys in the cushion of the big chair I was sitting in. My wonderful roommate Sarah was gracious enough to drive me to Starbucks this morning to retreive my keys bright and early this morning before I was even dressed and ready for school. When I went to class, my friend Anne came up to me and said, "You have a smile on your face like you're going to tell me about something ridiculous that happened to you over the weekend." She was right!

Anyone for a bucket ride?

I have been quite the slacker lately. Working on rare occasion. I decided to go into work on Saturday for the first time in a while. I was assigned to be a sitter in a room with two elderly women. It is not often that when you are assigned to be a sitter that you are required to watch more than one patient. The report I got from the night sitter was that the lady in BED A was a very calm and nice old lady who was slightly confused and would often try to pull out her IVs and take off her heart monitor. I was sure she wouldn't be much of a problem. The lady in BED B was an entirely different story. She was admitted for psych issues but also had some sort of infection (possibly c-diff , which in itself is an adventure!). This lady had been very combative the night before and cursed like a sailor. She was very irritable and agitated easily. I was in for a ride! Luckily for the first couple hours B Bed was sleeping. I mostly had to keep A Bed busy folding towels and talking about random things to distract her from pulling things off. When B Bed finally woke up she was screaming for someone to help her to the bathroom. It took 3 of us staff people to do the job. This woman absolutely HATED me. Some of the other staff people she had been used to seeing since she had been there for a while. I was a new face and someone she did not trust or like. It took me a good 5 hours to gain her trust and "friendship". She kept asking me, "Why do you just keep sitting there on your butt? Why don't you go and do your job!?" Too bad that was my job for the day! It was hard to keep her calm and from hurting anyone. When I did manage to calm her down I sat her down in a chair by the window so she could see the men doing construction on the building. She became a new person. Calm, sweet, and really funny! Of course none of her stories made any sense. She sat by the window for a while with out saying much, she was practically mesmerized by the crane and the construction. Then out of the blue, she said to me "Are you coming?" I said "Where?" "On the bucket ride of course! It's going to be fun! The men are going to take us in the bucket. If you want to come you need to get ready, they'll be here any time to take us for a ride." At this point she walked over to her bed, put her jacket on over her gown and put on her knit hat. "I don't have a yellow hat (i think she meant a hard hat), but this one will do." I told her I was afraid of heights and needed to stay with the lady in A bed. She sat there until the end of my shift waiting for the crane to come by her window so she could get in for a bucket ride. She invited every staff person who walked in the room along for a ride. It was an interesting day.

Excuse me officer

Wednesday after I got kneed in the face by a small child, my friend Krystal and I were on a mission to find my white scrub top for my graduation pictures. The one I am wearing in the pictures below wasn't actually the one I purchased on Wednesday night. Well back to my story... Krystal and I went to 2 scrub stores but they had both closed at 6pm and we showed up at 5:55. I know I am a procrastinator but I didn't think it would be nearly impossible to find a white scrub top. We went to both Walmarts, TJmax, both Beals Outlets, Khoals.. well let's just say it was close to a 3 hour mission. Somewhere in between maybe the the 3rd and 4th store we were driving from Newberry Rd to Archer via I-75. I noticed when we were getting off of I-75 that there was a police car behind me, not that I had anything to worry about. I wasn't speeding on the interstate. In fact I was going almost 5 under because I was driving in the slow lane and there was some old lady in front of me that I didn't feel like passing. Well, as we were sitting at the light to turn onto Archer I told Krystal I had a feeling that the cop was going to pull me over. She was confused because she didn't think I did anything illegal either. Sure enough, as we were driving I notice the cop getting pretty close to my car.. he was reading my license plate. With in seconds he turned on his lights. Krystal told me to get over so he could pass me. When I got over into one of the turn lanes he followed me. OH BOY. We pulled into the parking lot by Ross and the At&t store, right by the 4-way stop. He got on his loud speaker and said, "Come out of your car with your hands up and your license in your hand!" WHAT THE CRAP!!? What did I do? I was for sure he had me mistaken for someone else! I didn't steal the car, I own it! I didn't kill anyone and as far as I knew I hadn't done anything illegal. Every other time I've been pulled over I've never been told to get out of the car, so I was a little worried. I did as he said and walked over to him and handed him my license and said, "Excuse me officer, can you tell me what I've done wrong?" He took my license and called into someone over the radio and asked me to confirm my address and information on my license. He then told me that I had been driving with an expired tag for 3 months. At this point I almost peed my pants with embarrassment and laughter. I didn't know how else to react. He was definitely confused. I had my new license plate inside my car since October and forgot to put it on. If you know me, my idea of cleaning out my car is to throw everything in the trunk to make room for people to sit. Well, that's what happened to my license plate. It was thrown in the back along with everything else that I own. I told him that I had it and he asked me to fetch it for him. At this point I told him it could be a minute or two and told Krystal to get out of the car to help me look. We dug for about 5 minutes pulling out random objects like a wig, prom dress, sleeping bag, books and backpacks, gallons of paint, shoes, movies, boxes that I never moved in from when I moved into my new apartment...A lot of the stuff I have in there is from when I was still a young life leader 2 years ago. Yeah, so the cop starts chuckling and asks if we need help and if I was sure it was in there. I was 100% sure it was! He got his huge police flashlight because it was about 8:30 at night and started helping us dig and pull things out onto the road. We had many cars stop to look. Krystal said it looked like we were two white girls getting drug searched. Eventually we found the plate still in the package it came in when I got it in the mail. The cop put it on my car and didn't give me the 96$ ticket. He left me with some words of wisdom, "This will give you motivation to keep your trunk clean, have a good night."

new eye color every day

My life is never boring. It is full of random funny things that happen to me. Some things are not so funny at the time, but funny later on. I am thankful God gave me a good sense of humor and the ability to laugh at the stupid things. Let me start with Monday night. I babysat for the James' on Monday so that Brooke and Chris could have a date night before Chris left town for about a month. Being the cool and efficient baby sitter that I am, I had the 3 kids fed, bathed and ready for bed by 6:30 pm even though they don't go to bed til 8. McKenzie wanted to do make over's on each other. I didn't want to go through the process of having to clean everyone up again so I told her I'd let her do a make over on me. This was NOT a good idea, though I thought it was at the time. Turned out the eye make up that she got as a Christmas present wasn't eye make up at all. It was lip gloss that stains your skin! When they came home, Brooke tried everything she could to help me get the pink goupy stuff off of my eyes. We weren't completely successful. Tuesday morning when I went to school everyone asked me what was wrong with my eyes. I got questions like: "do you have pink eye?" or "have you been crying?" or "you must be really tired because it looks like you have been rubbing your eyes a lot".
Brooke had me come over again yesterday after I got done with class. It was an easy day babysitting because the youngest, Jack, was sleeping. When Brooke got home with the girls and Jack woke up, we were playing around and wrestling on the floor. All 3 of the kids were on top of me. Lily then fell on top of my face and kneed me in the nose. Instantly my face was red, I had a headache, and tears filled my eyes. I was pretty sure I broke my nose again, but luckily I didn't. Brooke and I were worried that I'd have two black eyes the next day (which would be today). Two black and blue eyes would not have gone well with my white scrubs for my graduation pictures today. My friends Julie and Alex and me were playing around taking our own graduation pictures today while we were in line. Here are some of them: