Sunday, October 22, 2023 (post for 10/16-10/22)

 This past week was busy with exams and school work, but it went way better than prior weeks. Monday I slept most of the day because I worked on Sunday night. I was floated to the CPCU that night. It should have been an easy night, but it was awful because I had THEE laziest nurses on earth. One had me hold up a 400lb pt for a skin check. While I did that they had a bowel movement. She looked at me and said, “You need to clean this up!” I looked at the girl standing next me and said, “Is she talking to me?” I could not believe her. Telling me to do that while Also holding up weight that should have had 4 people holding. Just insane. All of these experiences are just helping me to know what kind of a nurse I do not want to be. 

Monday afternoon and evening I spent my time studying for a lab exam. On Tuesday we had the lab exam and it was a bit of Sh*t show. My teacher tried to write her won questions and it ended up being a bit of a mess. So we got a lot of fudge points in the end (fudge points being points that the teachers give back to us because of errors on their part). I ended up with a 52.5/60, which is an 87.5%. May as well be 100%. That test was brutal. That one did, however, seal my fate. I am no longer capable of ending the semester with an A. I mean, it wasn’t that realistic anyway, because I would have had to get 100% on all the rest of the exams. However, there is some reassurance in knowing I don’t have to kill myself to try to make that A. Last semester I finished so close to an A and it made me so mad because I could have lightened up a little and got the same grade I ended up with. So now I know I can lighten up just a smidge, not kill myself trying to get an A. 

Tuesday afternoon I spent preparing for the Psych Hesi. Wednesday we had lecture. I spent the afternoon preparing for the psych exam and then I went to St Joseph’s to get my clinical badge. I drove a classmate, Ashlynn, as well. Thursday morning, my psych HESI wasn’t until noon. I was kind of nervous about that because I thought I’d spend the whole morning stewing about it then arrive a bundle of nerves. But I talked to my mom a lot that morning. For some reason I had it in my head that the day Cyndie was found was the 19th. But it was actually the 22nd. But I went that whole morning thinking it was the 19th. So I was all flustered about taking the psych exam on that day especially since she’s primarily the reason I hated psych. So I chatted with my mom about it and my mom said that Cyndie needed to feel my forgiveness and I needed to forgive her. She suggested I go to the cemetery, but it’s in the opposite direction as school, so I didn’t go. But I did take some to think and reflect and try to let her know that I was ready to move on from my bitter feelings.

I arrived to the testing center and we did the usual things to get ready. I sat in my usual seat with Nadia to my right and Sam to my left, Shannon to Sam’s left. That is where we all sit every time! We unwrapped our mints. We do this so it isn’t disruptive during the exam. Then we joking said our positive affirmations. There is one I can’t get right for the life of me. I say it wrong over and over until I finally realize it doesn’t sound right. I kept saying, “I do not control my mind, it controls me.” Then after saying that 6 times I thought, hmmm. . . Something doesn’t sound right about that. Then Sam pulls out the positive affirmations page they gave us in block 1. It says, “I control my mind and it will never control me.” Ha! Then we did the test. When I got to the end, I was one of three people left in the testing center. I hesitantly click “submit test.” I was very surprised to see this:

I got a 1062, which was equivalent to a 97.3%!!! (Still can’t get an A in the class though :( ). 

I was thrilled! Just ecstatic. I reviewed the ones I got wrong, then did the Next Gen practice questions they provided. Then I got up to leave and my teacher, Dr. Staggar, pulled me aside to congratulate me on my excellent score. He asked me what I did to prepare. I told him about my sister and told him how I think in having a moment with her that morning I was able to break down that block or that barrier that was preventing me from accessing all the information that I know I knew regarding psych. 

That was the very last thing I have to do for psych (other than the final exam). So I am thrilled to leave it with a bang!

Wednesday night I had to work. Before I left for work Miriam had finished the series, Supernatural, that I had introduced her to a few months ago. I sent her this meme because she tried to introduce my parents and her friend to it at the cabin:

Thursday night I worked CVPCU. It was a good night. Garren’s sister, Katie, wrote me and asked me if I’d be attending the family reunion next summer. I said, “Probably not.” The reunion is over the weekend one my 19th wedding anniversary. Also, the member of the family hosting it is outwardly “anti” on alternative lifestyles and I think it is not a safe place for many members of the Laymon family—possibly members of my own immediate family. So I said, no. But Garren thinks we should go. So, I told his sister it was over our anniversary so probably not. She explained that his siblings would be renting a “compound” style house for the Bob/Linda Laymon children. I said, now that I can do. If we are with Garren’s siblings for the majority of the time, that will be a safe place for my children and other members of the Laymon family. They plan to go to the beach, go to Disneyland, and then the reunion with extended family will just be one day. We’re really looking forward to it. I love how much my kids love their cousins and how well they get along. 

Friday I slept most of the day, then worked in the Monitor room that night. A coworker of mind was talking about cruises because she and her husband are getting older and getting to be “cruising age.” I told her Garren likes cruises, but I’m not the biggest fan. She told me a company called “Windstar Cruises” that does smaller cruises on ships with sails! I looked it up and it sounded amazing! So I told Garren about it yesterday and he said he would have fun, but I wouldn’t because they’re really choppy and I’d get super sea sick. I still want to try it one day, though. It sounded super fun.

Saturday Garren and I spent the afternoon/evening together. I had been neglecting some things, so he drove me around a bunch of places just to catch up on life. I had to go to the mall for my face lotion, Costco for some groceries, had to go to the distribution center for new garments (I kept calling it the dispensary. Whoops). Then we went out to dinner at YCs Mongolian Grill where I saw my high school friend, Greg Powell, And his wife. Cyndie loved YCs! I had forgotten about that until the end of our meal. I wouldn’t even have known what it was if it weren’t for Cyndie. She took me there all the time. There was one by where she lived on McClintock. It’s closed down now. Garren and I went to the one on Ray/Power. 

Anyway, that brings us to today. The kids and Garren are singing in church and Garren actually used a swear word or two to describe how it’s going to go. So I’m excited for that ;) I don’t work tonight, do the first Sunday in a long time! I start clinical tomorrow on Med/Surg at Chandler Regional. So I will spend some time this afternoon preparing for that. Then I’m going to make a meatloaf and potatoes with carrots and rolls dinner to celebrate not having to go to work! Ha!

I feel much better this week. I feel like psych is more the art of nursing and med/surg is more the science of nursing. And I think I don’t appreciate “the art of nursing” quite as much as the science aspect of it. So I am very glad to be starting med/surg!!

Flash Back Friday to October 22, 2019

 Late at night on October 22, 2019 we learned Cyndie had died. For some reason all this week I had been thinking it was the 19th. I have no clue why. I was just uploading pictures for this post and it was on the 22nd!! I’m losing my mind. I blame nursing school.

Anyway, I remember it was a school night for the kids. I was packaging up Roman shades to ship the next day. I was planning to finish up my work day and go to bed. I usually tried to finish working around 10-10:30. I was taping a label to a boca when I saw a call from my sister, Ashley, coming in on my phone. I remember having a sinking feeling because Ashley never calls me. We always text. Literally, like everyday we talked to each other at that time. Several times a day. . . . So I answered and she asked if I was sitting down. I said yes. And she told me they had just learned that Cyndie died. She was living with mom and dad at the time. Mom was sick and needed lots of care. She was in and out of the hospital. So it turns out the cops that found her came over to talk to mom and dad, but there was no answer. Ashley and Dad figured it was probably when they were both changing mom’s packing on her chest tube wound and they just didn’t hear the door. So later that night another cop that wasn’t the one that found her came and told Dad and Ashley. But he wasn’t allowed to share any details because he wasn’t the cop that found her. 

Neal and I came over to mom and dad’s. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I felt that I had already mourned Cyndie because the sister I knew died long before then. My grief was in seeing my parents so sad. They looked like little children, sitting tone hair bed sobbing into their pillows. There have been several times in my life where I’ve realized my parents are “just people too.” After I had my own children and felt very inadequate I remember thinking, “Wait, my parents felt like this too! They’re just human!” This was another time. The people I always thought were super human were now reduced to tears. It was so sad. 

My siblings and I tried to go to the police station to see what we could find out, but they wouldn’t tell us anything. They said it had to be the cop that found her to talk to us. So then we went to her house to see if we could figure anything out. We went around the backyard and tried to break into the house. Well, what we discovered next, I won’t talk about in case my parents ever read this. But we new she had probably been deceased for some time. It was heartbreaking. 

I stopped by wal mart on the way home to get snacks. it was about 3am at this time. I remember going through self checkout and something wasn’t working and I started crying. Someone came up to me to try to help and I just unloaded. I said, “I’m sorry! My sister just died and it felt productive to come here and buy snacks for everyone while we sit around and plan a funeral and all that.” I don’t remember exactly what the person said, but I remember that she said something along the lines of “whatever you do in the next few days is exactly right and exactly what you’re supposed to do. There’s no rule for how to handle this so if you need to buy cupcakes at 3am, that’s what you need to do right now.” It was one of things right time right place situations and I was really glad I crossed paths with that person.

In the following days we planned the funeral. I can’t remember if it was me or dad that came up with it, but we decided to have bagpipes play at her funeral. I can’t remember exactly what he played now because I wasn’t there. I watched the funeral on my mom’s ipad with her in the hospital. I think they played Danny Boy and Amazing Grace or something along those lines. 

Well, I’m actually not sure I can talk about this anymore. There’s so much more to record about this time, but I think this will have to be enough for today. 

This was Cyndie’s high school senior picture. We used this one for the funeral programs. 

This was at our favorite Mexican Restaurant, Matta’s.

I took this picture in mom’s hospital room, I believe the night of the funeral.  She was in really bad shape. I think she even made a comment about having two funerals :( It was rough there for a little while.

Neal, Ashley and I selected this site for her burial. We wanted it by a landmark so Seamus could find her easily to come and visit. So We picked this spot under this tree. 

We had the funeral dinner at my house. 

I remember shopping for the funeral dinner and thinking it felt weird buying a “party mix.”

Dad wanted a Mickey Mouse decal of some kind put on the lid of the casket on the inside. . . He said, “to remember better days.” The lady that dressed her and put her in the casket said she put it in. I found it at Joanns or Hobby Lobby. I can’t remember. 

Cyndie’s wedding day to Tim.

Fun family pictures. This was the last time we took any family pictures. She was in pretty active addiction shortly after this and we never really did anything again as a family after that. We tired to go to the cabin once together after this, but she overdosed on our way up there. At the McDonald’s in Payton. Terrible memories. . . .

This was before the funeral. My kids went to the cemetery with Garren and the rest of our family. I went to St Joseph’s hospital with my mom’s sisters to watch the funeral with her. 

Graveside.

When we were planning what to put on the casket I was beside myself, I kept saying, just Disney study, put her name in the Disney font, etc. The funeral director said to me, “would you trust me to take the reins on this one?” I said, “Yes, please!” I couldn’t think of another detail. I am so glad I trusted him because this came out better than anything I could ever have imagine!!! I know Cyndie loves it!!

Monday October 16, 2023 (post for Tuesday October 10th-Sunday Monday morning, October 16th)

 Sooooo I am wildly depressed and I don’t have the energy anymore to pretend that I’m not. I can’t say, “I think I’m coming out of it” one more time or I will scream!!! I can’t even talk about all the things I am feeling right now. Some times I feel everything all at once and sometimes I feel absolutely nothing at all. 

I still don’t think I want to be a nurse. It makes going to each lab and each class harder and harder every time. it’s like wading through molasses. I talked to Garren about stopping and he said, “Do whatever you want to do, but I think you should finish what you started. So, I know he’d be disappointed if I dropped out of school. I don’t want to disappoint him or anyone else that has helped me get this far. So I’m going to keep going. But it gets harder and harder every day and I think I will eventually EXPLODE. I have no idea what else I would do, though. Window Treatments by Melissa was a genius idea at the time and it worked out well for us. But, I think genius ideas are only once in a lifetime :/ Every once in a while I sit and try to come up with another once in a lifetime idea, but I’m so depressed that I can’t think of anything!  What I’d really like to do is fashion design, but there are ZERO jobs for that here. If we lived in LA or New York there are all kinds of jobs! There are tons in pattern making that I think I would be really good at it! But. . . .  I don’t particularly want to live in either of those places. They’d be cool places to live, but I don’t know. . . . Anyway. . .  I’m just depressed out of my mind and I can’t stand it much longer. It’s starting to take a toll on my health. I want to go get medication from my doctor, but I don’t even have time to do that!

Anyway, moving on. . . .  Last week.  . .  I think I wrote about my last day at Arizona State Hospital and how it made me want to lie in the street and will my death. So let’s move on to Tuesday. We had our last Lab day at school. We did an “escape room.” I kept hoping they’d run out of room for me because fun gives me anxiety. But, alas, they made room. Luckily, I was given a patient that needed cardiac monitoring which I could do in my sleep, so that was good. The patient also needed an IV and I was in a group with a phlebotomist. Go Stephanie! Then in the next class we did a VSIM and the patient was having a STEMI and needed to go to cath lab, so of course this was me:

I love looking at EKGs and diagnosing heart problems. I love the cath lab! I love STEMIs!! What kind of weirdo loves STEMIs????? This one!!! So anyway, I was a big giant dufus in that class because I was way overly enthusiastic about everything. 

Wednesday we had lecture and began our cardiac unit. I feel bad because my teacher taught something incorrectly and I brought it to her attention at lunch. She didn’t like it, and now I think I made things weird. She taught the class that the Left Main Coronary Artery is the “Widow Maker” but the Left Anterior Descending is the “Widow Maker.” Like, it’s on the national exam for CCT! So, I thought it might be an important detail. So at lunch I said, “I wanted to bring something to your attention, but you’re the boss, so stop me if I’m crossing a line.” Then I explained. Then she said, “Well, the must be teaching it differently now.” But she said it kind of irritated. She also said if someone has pulmonary edema it would back up into the branches of the aorta that deliver blood the the head/neck, upper body, and lower body. I told her those aren’t even connected to the lungs and that if there are lunch problems we’ll see it in the left side of the heart because that’s where the lungs are bringing oxygenated blood into the heart. She just said, “Well, I just wont’ ask any questions like that on the test.” I said, “but do you see how it can be confusing when we need to determine which type of heart failure the patient has?” And she said, “That’s just patho. I’m not going to ask anything about that.” I just said, “okay” and moved on because I could tell she really didn’t like it. I feel bad, but at the same time, there are students in my class that will challenge her in the middle of class and in front of everyone. . .  very disrespectful. 

Wednesday night I worked. It was the anniversary of Cyndie’s death. I was in the monitor room. I wanted to talk about it, but that would be weird. So I just kind of sat in silence. Then I decided to text Ashley. We never really know what to say about it so we end up saying something like, “Cyndie’s passing time acknowledged.” During this time I often replay all the things I did while she was dead in her house. I was just living my life. I was running my business, went for runs outside because the temps were cooling, I remember I got a massage. All the while she was dead in her house. It feels so weird. This week will be the anniversary of the day she was pronounced dead. Ashley and I were able to determine from the last test she sent and the first text unread in her phone that she died sometime after 8:45pm on the 11th. 

Thursday I slept most of the day. Miriam was at the cabin all week with my mom and came home in the afternoon. These are some pics from her trip.

She got to take her friend, Audrie, which was nice because I wanted her to be able to do that, but whenever I go to the cabin I like to super duper relax and want to hang out in my PJs and all that. I don’t think I would have felt like i could do that if Audrie was there. 

Friday. . .  I can’t remember what I did on Friday except that Friday night I worked and got floated to the CPCU where I had never worked the floor before. I had the laziest nurse on the planet and she made me hold up a 420 lb patient by myself. I should have thought to tell her no and to ask for help, but I wasn’t comfortable yet, didn’t know anyone and didn’t feel like I could say anything. I wish I had thought. My back still hurts today :/ Very frustrating. He starting having a bowel movement while she was doing his skin check and she looked at me and said, “You need to clean this up!” I said, “Are you talking to me?” Because I was right in the middle of holding up 420 lbs. Body mechanic can only take you so far where weight is concerned. I got mad at that lady. She asked me to help her again around 5am because he pooped again and I told her no. I said, the time before did me in and I have nothing left to give on this shift. Sorry. My body is spent. So that was frustrating.

Saturday there was an eclipse, Miriam made this time laps of pictures she took by putting her phone up to the eclipse glasses. 

Saturday night Garren and I planned our 20th wedding anniversary trip. We’re going to take a 10 day Mediterranean cruise in June 2025. It’s a long way away, but those things sell out quick. Especially the nicer rooms because there are fewer of them. So we hope to book it soon. We just have to put a deposit down. 

Sunday was church and had more offensive talk about the family proclamation, but I won’t go off on that tangent now because it will push me farther into depression than I already am. Sunday night I worked and it was a good shift. I was back on my regular floor with great nurses. The other aid always walks around with a scowl on her face. So that’s unpleasant. She is in a constant state of looking like she just ate a Lemmon. But everyone else is great and I think I have the best unit ever! Despite not really wanting to be a nurse anymore, I do like my job. I don’t know what to do with myself. I do think I need medication though .. . . I thought about maybe trying the buspirone anti anxiety. Supposedly there are minimal side effects and no dependency. We’ll see. I have to find time to actually go to the doctor. 

This week I have two exams and Cyndie’s death anniversary. So another unpleasant week. But next week should feel easier, lighter. . .

Here’s this week’s pic of Sugar thinking she’s a lap dog. 

Sometimes you just need a good hug from your pup. Sugar always delivers.

Monday October 9, 2023 (post for October 2nd-9th)

 This past week was the busiest week of the semester as far as having to be places. I had to be somewhere for school 4 out of the 5 days of the week. All day. I was petrified going into it, wondering if I’d be able to handle it. Here I am a week later and still alive! But just barely. This upcoming week will be my busiest week of the semester as far as homework, assignments and preparing for exams go. i have two different exams next week to prepare for, a virtual simulation, a paper to write on psychiatric care all on top of all the regular things I do during the week to prepare for lab and lecture day. I know I’ll be right here next week having come out of alive. But it’s terrifying to face head on.

My week began at Arizona State hospital on Monday morning. We had to be there by 5:30a. So I woke up at 4am. Then I went to the school to pick up two classmates who I offered to drive to Phoenix for the clinical. We got there are listened to shift report. It all sounded a bit terrifying. They talked about patient’s behaviors. It was all a bit overwhelming. Then I went to do med-pass with a nurse. That all went fine. But about an hour and a half into it there was a code gray. I can’t really talk much about it because it would violate HIPAA. But to this day, a week later, I still don’t know if the person involved is dead or alive. So I’ll just leave it at that. It was terrifying. We were told if patient’s aggressor that we should go to the nurse’s station and stay there. The event took place in front of the nurse’s station door so I couldn’t go in there. I tried going in the med-room, but someone came in after me and said I couldn’t be in there because I was a student. So I went out and watched it all. It was quite traumatizing. It was for the patients, too. They kept asking me to let them into the quiet room or open the bathroom doors so they could get away from it. But I wasn’t allowed to do that. I wasn’t allowed to do that quiet room, but a nurse said I could let two people into bathrooms. Anyway, I don’t even want to think about it anymore. So I’m not going to write about it anymore, but basically it was traumatizing and I hated every second of it. 

Tuesday was lab day. I can’t even remember it because it was so much more uneventful than Monday and Wednesday. So Wednesday we had our second psych exam. I did much better this time around than on the first one. 

I ended up with a 92% which is an A by nursing school standards. I am very happy! However, something did dampen the day. . .  A fellow student decided to cheat on her exam. She had her phone out and was looking up answers. Another student who saw it told the teacher and she was kicked out of the program. That student did right by all of us to tell the teacher. She did the right thing. Unfortunately, it was just one of those times when doing the right thing doesn’t feel good. 

Wednesday night I worked in the monitor room. I love working in the monitor room, but it is getting a little frustrating because she only has me in there once a week or once every other week. So every time I go in there I feel like everything is new. 

Thursday I started to feel a little sick. Josh has been sick all last week so I figured I picked up something form him. Or I’m just run down from doing too much.

Friday we went to a place called L.I.F.E. It is a school for special needs people. It was a neat place. I enjoyed that much more than ASH.

Friday night I worked and didn’t sleep very well on Saturday. I worked Saturday night and then literally slept the entire day on Sunday. I slept until 5pm! This is a picture of the view I have in the morning when I am leaving work as I am waiting for my elevator down to the parking garage. 

It’s a little different every morning as the earth moves in relation to the sun and the time the sun comes up changes. So it’s something different every morning!

This post was a little rushed, but I didn’t want to wait another week to do it because so much happened. This upcoming week I have one more rotation at ASH. Lab Tuesday. Lecture Wednesday. Wednesday also happens to be the anniversary of my sister’s actual death. Her death records say Oct 19th, but we were able to determine from her phone and the sent text messages and unread text messages that she died sometimes after 8:45pm on Oct 11. I work that night :/ I also work Thursday and Friday. Busy week. I can’t believe we’ve made it through this far and I haven’t had a break down! Well, I may not have had a breakdown, but I have been severely depressed. I’m getting better though. ON TO MED/SURG!!!

Flashback Friday to May 5, 2022–Miriam’s eye injury

 Sooooooo One time Miriam went to swim. I often stay and watch or do homework while she’s swimming. I had to work that night so I came in my scrubs and planned to go to
work right afterwards. Garren was going to pick her up from swim so I could go to work.

I was sitting on the bleachers doing homework, and all of a sudden I saw Miriam pull herself up out of the pool crying and I saw blood dripping down her face. It was everywhere! So much blood! So I ran her over to the first aid people. She was covering up her eye so I couldn’t see it really well. The first aid person soaked up some of the blood with some gauze and I could see it really well then. Her eye lid looked like when you tear a paper in half down the middle! I said, “I’m just going to take her to my hospital.” So we drove to Mt Vista which was about 1/4 mile from the pool. I couldn’t really look at it because it was making me queezy and I needed to be alert to answer questions. I asked if Dr. Parker, the pediatric plastic surgeon for our hospital, could be the one to fix her face. They called him in Phoenix and asked him to come. He is the best! 

A girl on her team jumped in the water and landed on her face. it looked like maybe her nose clip scraped up her nose then when through her eye lid. We were very lucky that it didn’t do any damage at all to her eye. 

So, Garren had joined us and I had to go to work. It was too late for me to call out. So Garren stayed with her while they stitched her up. I couldn’t even imagine the horror of it all because she had to get stitched up with her eyes open! And they couldn’t cover it up or anything., So she had to watch all of it!! Poor thing. I told my charge nurse I wanted to go down and check on her after I did my first rounds, and she let me. Then I brought Miriam and Garren up to the floor to show them where I work. After seeing Miriam my charge nurse told me I could go home. So that was nice. She stayed home from school the next day and I was able to be with her. 

I had to help her take a bath so she could keep her eye covered. So she bathed in her swim suit. Hee hee.

Dr. Parker did such a nice job with her eye. I am so happy with it. You can hardly tell at all. And the scrape on her nose didn’t leave a scar at all. 

Luckily, Miriam was not too traumatized by this event. She still swims and is great friends with the girl that hit her. And the eye looks great. You really have to look for it to see any scar. 

Sugar took good care of Miriam, too. Sugar is not the greatest dog we’ve ever had. . .  But she is a good friend. Whenever Miriam is sad Sugar is right there. When Miriam had her panic attack before the piano recital last week, Sugar would not leave her side. She’s a good dog. 

I think Miriam should get pink hair again. So fun! And so cute on her! But she colored all my towels pink. 

Sunday October 1st (post for September 18-Oct 1)

 I have a test on Wednesday I should be studying for, but, alas, this is me: 

My friend Trena from Virginia sent me this. I was like, PERFECT! 

The last few weeks have been hard. I’ve been suffering from depression. I find myself just going through the motions. When I get in my car after school or work I used to plug in my phone and list to inspirational “life speak” videos on my Virgin Pulse app (an app that my work provides to get points to put toward our health insurance. I basically get health insurance for free with it). Or I used to turn on the radio or a podcast from Straight A Nursing. Lately, I find myself pulling into my driveway and only realizing then that I drove the entire way home in silence. I find myself disconnected from my friends that I sit with at lunch. I catch up on homework on my iPad instead of taking the break time to catch up with them. I can feel it physically. Every move I make seems to be like wading through molasses. I want to sleep all the time. I find myself at work having no emotion in my reactions or responses to people. I don’t even realize it until after the interaction has taken place. I walk away and think, “Hmm normally I would have been more enthusiastic about that, or I would have felt bad about forgetting a bed alarm, but I felt nothing and had no emotion.” So, I recognize it when it’s happening. But I don’t know what to do about it.

In that past few days I have felt things getting better. I spent sone time playing the piano this morning and really enjoyed it. I took care of my citrus tress last night and all of my indoor plants. I even planted some new plants in mY Gardyn nursery. Those are all things that add to my life and that I really enjoy. So I think I am coming out of it. But it has been very hard. I don’t know what’s contributing to it either. I have been struggling with whether or not I actually want to be a nurse, but I don’t know which came first. I don’t know if I’m depressed because I don’t actually want to be a nurse or if my depression right now is making me think I don’t want to be a nurse. Also, we’re doing psych in school and we’re learning about everything that makes my life sad. So I am just tired of it and I don’t want to hear it anymore. I’m tired of hearing about OCD, about bipolar I (pretty sure my sister, Cyndie, was bipolar), and I’m sick to death of hearing about opioid addiction and abuse. Opioids have ruined my family. I hate them and hate that my family is a statistic. I will never use opioids. Ever. I don’t don’t how severe of a surgery or procedure I have, I will *never* use opioids. I hate them so much. I hate what they’ve done to my family. What they’ve robbed my family of. My children should have had a different experience with their grandmother during this time in their life, but they have what they have. I am just sick to death of all of it and don’t want to read another thing about it.

Here’s one thing that has put a smile on my face these past few days. Someone in our neighborhood has a pet sheep and walks them with their dog!! I want a sheep! Miriam sent me this one night when I was at work. And she texts me every time she sees them around the neighborhood. 

I’ve been really busy with my time very limited. But I still try to be there for my kids to help them when they forget things. Josh has to go to work at Peter Piper right after school some days. He usually just wears his shirt to school, but he forgot to on this day. I happened to be driving by his school, so I brought his shirt. He thought he left the door unlocked, but her didn’t. So I left it on the door handle. Hee hee

Miriam made this in school. She’s a talented artist! I want to hang it up in our house somewhere. 

I also enjoy seeing Miriam do her synchronized swimming. Sometimes they go to other pools if there are scheduling conflicts. This day she was at Mesa High School pool and jumped off the high dive before we left swim that day.

After swim practice, Miriam and I went shopping for a new dress for her to wear to her piano recital that evening. We also got my dad a new tie for his birthday. 

Unfortunately, the piano recital was not to be. Miriam had a panic attack (the first one I’ve seen her have) right as we were supposed to be leaving. She didn’t feel ready for the recital. She was, but for some reason she felt like she wasn’t. I had just learned about panic attacks in school and I recognized what was happening. So we sat on the couch for a little while and just waited for it to pass. It took a while, but we finally got in the car and went to venue. My mom and dad were already there. I had hoped once she got there she would feel differently and want to get up and perform. But she didn’t. When the concert was over and the room emptied, I asked her if she’d play her song for her teach and for grandma and grandpa since they had come out to hear it. She did do that much at least. She played Claire De Lune. Only in my wildest dreams could I play something so pretty. She did a wonderful job.

Joshua has decided to be social this year. He went to homecoming with some friends on Friday night. My shift got canceled at work due to low census, so I was able to get some pictures before he left. So handsome! He looks so good in a suit. Yesterday he drove all the way to Phoenix by himself to go to a Diamondbacks game with his friends! So independent. So proud of him. 

Work is going really well. I love my job. I love my unit. I’m on the CVPCU at Banner Heart. The teamwork on my unit is unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. Sometimes I work in the monitor room and I really like everyone I work with there too. There’s a sort of “culture” there. Everyone comes to work with a new joke to tell everyone when things start getting slow and we start getting sleepy. One cool thing about the monitor room is that I hand off to a young guy on day shift with autism! It’s neat to see someone with autism able to hold a job like that. Sometimes he has to ask me, “Are you being sarcastic right now because I can’t tell.” I do love my job, but it’s killing me physically. I just try not to think about it. I bought a portable tens unit to wear at work. That helps. But it’s killing me and I won’t be able to do this forever. My manager is letting me do “nurse extern” next year. Starting February I will be able to work as a nurse extern one shift a week. So that will help. And working in the monitor room helps too. But there are weeks when I am on the floor for all 3 shifts and my EDS doesn’t love it! The unit is great for my PTSD counseling though. We can’t have anyone with serious infections or illnesses on the unit because everyone is recovering from open heart surgery. So I won’t be working with any COVIDs. So that’s nice.

In other news, here’s more Fiesta Mall destruction. Such a big part of my childhood! Hard to see it reduced to rubble. Cyndie used to take me shopping here. I remember shopping with my cousin Senta (who is now dead) at this mall one year for Christmas. The Wilcox’s had come down from Utah for Christmas. All of us cousins picked names for a gift exchange and I went shopping here with Senta. We went to Bath and Body Works. This is also where we took our last family picture before the addictions in the family got out of control.

I have an exam coming up this week that I feel good about. I am much more confident than I was last time around. I start clinical rotations tomorrow. First one is at Arizona State Hospital—a psychiatric hospital. This upcoming week is probably going to be the busiest one of the semester. So I’m a little nervous. 

Here we go!

OH! We’re watching conference right now as I type this and they just announced a temple in Roanoke, Va! WOW!! I have no idea where they’ll put it. . . .