Flashback Friday to lots of November 17ths

 

So, three years I go I took my nursing school entrance exam! Sweet, naive Melissa. . . . I do believe this is a good path for me. I don’t know what else I’d do. Interior design wasn’t going to work out because WTBM wore me out dealing with customers. I lost all my patience. And Fashion Design wouldn’t have worked out either because there are no jobs here for that. So nursing it is! I hope going into nursing will allow me to do those other things though. I’d like to finish my Interior Design and Fashion Design degrees and I think nursing will let me do that. I also want to get the culinary associates :) hee hee. So many things to do!

4 years ago I ran this half marathon in Las Vegas.. It was a few weeks after Cyndie had died. I remember I was supposed to go with Trena. We had booked a hotel room at the Luxor. But it didn’t work out for her to go. I think it was meant to be that way because then Garren went with me and since it was after Cyndie’s death it was just meant to be.  

This one is fun. I drove my kids to school then drove to the airport, hopped on a plane to Los Angeles, got a rental car, drove to San Diego, picked up Ashley at her house, went to a Bastille concert, took Ashley home, drove back to the airport, flew home, drove home, picked up my kids from school (the next day) and went home and crashed! SO FUN!!! We had a blast!

Soooooo this one hurts. There is actually a lot of pain behind this picture. Garren bought me a harp for my birthday. I was so excited as I had wanted a harp for a while. I messed around with it most of the day and could pluck out a few tunes by the end of the day. I made a video and posted it on Facebook. Then I got an email from Garren’s sister saying, “I’m glad you got your harp!” Then it was immediately followed by something along the lines of “I’m not going to work for you anymore, I will be sending all your supplies and unfinished orders back. . .  BUT I’ll be keeping all the money you prepaid me for orders!” (The last part wasn’t included, but that’s what happened). I can’t even tell you how I felt in that moment. I am tearing up now just recalling it. This was the worst day of my life. The pain they caused me cannot be expressed in words. If I had been anyone else they wouldn’t have done that. If they had worked as seamstresses in a window treatments business for someone that wasn’t their sister they would not have done this. So why me? Why do this to someone who helped you in a time of need? This was our busy season for work as everyone is decorating for the holidays. They sent back unfinished orders that needed to go out before Thanksgiving which was the following week. I actually had people from church that stepped into make up for them. They should be embarrassed about that. Thankfully the people from church didn’t expect payment because I had already paid them in advance for this work and they were not going to pay it back. This was also my first holiday season with Miriam and all I can remember of it is this pain and working 20 hours a day to make up for their shortcomings. To this day one of the sisters has never acknowledged any wrong doing. The most I’ve heard from the other is “There was wrong on both sides.” They did wrong by me then and are still not right by me. I try to forget and move on, but this event was so significant that I can’t forget it. It was cruel and hateful. It caused me more pain than I have ever experienced in my life (oh, yes, I did mention my sister dying. Nope, this event has impacted the course of my life more so than my sister’s death). While I was working 20 hours a day trying to get their orders out on time as well as mine, I was writing out checks for my other seamstresses and I remember thinking something was wrong when I couldn’t remember how to write one of my seamstress’s names. I was trying to write a J and I couldn’t remember how. I called Garren and told him he needed to come home from work and stay with the kids. I drove myself to the emergency room (very slowly, like 20 miles an hour because I wasn’t all there cognitively). I got in and told them I thought I was having a stoke. They brought me into triage and asked me several questions. I remember being able to tell that they were talking, but not being able to make sense of what they said—kind of like the Charlie Brown teacher. They immediately got me back fro a CT, but it didn’t show anything. They said I was probably having a nervous breakdown from stress. Oh, how I wish I could have sent his sisters the bill for that ER visit. 

The cruelty of their actions haunts me to this day. It was personal. Like I said, had I been anyone else they would have sucked it up and finished their work then quit. Not sent back unfinished orders during the busiest time of year. And during a time when I should have been enjoying my daughter’s first Christmas. I don’t recall anything of her first Christmas. And I hate them for that. The cruelty of it all. . .  Unimaginable. The only comfort I get from this is knowing I would never do to anyone what they did to me. One of the sisters even behaved this way toward Garren earlier this year when he was doing his mom’s estate. She blew up at him over the estate stuff and it really hurt Garren. He even brought it up the other day and it’s been almost 6 months since it happened. The reason it is so impactful when they behave like this is because it’s not a brother/sister tiff: it’s a disrespectful jab at what we chose to do with our lives. It is an insult to our work, our profession. Brother/sister tiffs are generally forgivable. But insulting what someone has chosen to do for their career is just cruel. It’s personal and it hurts. I don’t think I will ever get over this. It haunts me. How on earth someone could treat another human the way they treated me is something I will never understand. I can’t put those puzzle pieces together. I gave them work in a time of need and they stabbed me in the back. 

I have not played this harp in years. I joined a little Harp Circle in Virginia for a while and played with it then, but it just reminds me of this day and that stupid email: “I’m glad you got your harp!” I am working on not letting things like that ruin things for me that could add to my life. So I do plan to pick it up again soon. Possibly over the summer when I am on a break from school. I am working in therapy on disconnecting things from events. So hopefully I will be in a good place this next summer and I can enjoy the music again! Maybe even teach Miriam! I just don’t want to hold on to this anymore. They did wrong by me and have never made it right. I know I can’t expect that of someone, but they should. I’m their sister. They hurt me. Why is it so hard for someone just to say they’re sorry? That would do so much for me just to hear those words. I am working in therapy on accepting that those words will never come. But it’s hard because whenever I interact with them I know that if something ever happened between us again they wouldn’t accept responsibility. Nothing is ever their fault. So I avoid interactions with them altogether. They want to have a family reunion next summer and I don’t want to go. I don’t want to spend time with people that could do what they did. Ugh! Okay, I need to stop writing about it because I’m going to a bad place. I must still care for them in some way though, because deep down, I would never wish them to feel the pain that I have felt as a result of their actions. I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. Ever. I just wanted to be a part of them. I wanted to do something great with them. And it could have been great. They were so talented! But they took some things personally and took offense where none was intended. We could have made a really cool thing together. I just wanted to be a part of the family. Well, I did go on to make something incredible. Just did it with other amazing, talented women. I guess this experience did do that for me. it led me to the most incredible group of women. In my time leading WTBM I employed 26 people. When this happened, that was the worst time of my life. What it led me to became the best years of my life. And that business I created and most of those amazing women are still with the company! One of them that is still with the company was one that stepped in to finish some of the sister’s orders when they sent them back to me unfinished! She offered to help me in my time of need and it ended up being a good fit for her and has blessed her family for more than a decade! Her husband has lost his job a few times over the years and we were able to keep them afloat with the income from the business. Such neat experiences in the business that I will cherish forever. So while their actions were cruel and painful and continue to cause me pain to think about, it led me to some beautiful women that gave me the experience of a lifetime!!

Tuesday November 14, 2023 (post for 11/8-11/14)

 This past week has been a bit overwhelming. Well, not so much overwhelming, I guess. Just starting to feel a little run down. I don’t think I’m going to last much longer in my current position at work. It’s too painful physically. I spend all my time off trying to recover from work. That’s no life. Yesterday when I got home from clinical I was the only one home so I didn’t need to make dinner for anyone but myself. I was starving after running around all day, but all I could do was lay on the couch. I could barely move. A few days ago I went and told my manager that the job was getting too hard for me physically. I asked her if I could be in the monitor room 2 days a week and the floor one day a week or if my monitor room night could be in between my two floor nights. She said she’d do her best. If she can’t accommodate I’ll have to find another job :( And I have to pay back part of my sign on bonus. If I can make it to February then I can start the nurse extern program which would mean I’d be a CNA one day, Monitor tech one day, then nurse extern the other day. That might be enough for me, but I don’t know how physically involved the nurse extern will be. And I don’t even know if I’ll make it through next week! The pain is getting to be too much.

Anyway, in other news. Miriam is becoming quite an accomplished artist. She made this picture of Dean Winchester. 

I think there is a more final version than this, but she hasn’t sent it to me yet. She turned it in last week for her art class. She is very talented!! I posted it on Facebook and everyone loved it! Garren’s side of the family said she had Schadd genes (Garren’s grandparents were both artists). That may be true, but I don’t want to be left out! ;) I didn’t say this on FB because I wanted Miriam to have her moment, but I’m not half bad either! Here is a water color I did of the mesa temple. 

Also, I have these books I’ve been making for the kids with drawings and sayings, etc. This is latest drawing I’ve been working on in Joshua’s book. His favorite movie is Ratatouille. 

I need to do this more often. I find drawing very therapeutic. It calms my mind when I am overthinking. 

So as far as work goes, I found a CNA job at the Stem Cell Transplant unit at the Cancer Center. I wrote about wanting to work in that area last week. Only problem is that it is a day shift position. I could make that work, it would be fine. But they are only open Mon-Fri. So I would have to work on all the days I don’t have lab or lecture. Then weekends would be for studying. Which would be fine, but they’d have to let me do 3 12s and they’d have to always be those specific days. So I am not sure that would work out. But I guess I could try. Also, I’m not a day shift person. I’m not making friends with anyone before 10am. Only enemies. Day shift people and night shift people are two different species. 

Last week I had a “run in” with day shift CNA. The last two weeks at work I have been doing “bed side shift report.” It is best practice and safest practice. It is good for the CNA leaving to show accountability for what they’ve done, good for the on coming CNA to have a clear idea of what they’re getting into, and it is good for the patient to feel involved with their care and feel peace of mind that we understand what their problems are. After two rooms this CNA said, “I will be taking report outside the rooms now.” She made a big deal out of it in front of everyone at the nurse’s station. It was rude and embarrassing. I asked here to talk to me away from the nurse’s station so we could keep it between us. She said that only nurses do bed side shift report and all we’re doing is waking them up, etc. We’re supposed to wake them up and have them in their chairs for their meals! Our manager asked us to do this and told us to turn on all the lights and look at all the things! Anyway, I was really upset about this. Two of my favorite nurses on the unit, Stephen (Wilson) and Loni (Johnson), followed me into the break room because they could see I was upset. Stephen assured me I was doing the right thing. He reminded me that doing the right thing can be very lonely and unpopular. We got away from bed side report during covid and getting back into it is not going to be easy. People have gotten comfortable in their ways and don’t like change. So I am going to be lonely in my endeavors. Loni told me I was a great CNA and she supported me in bed side report. Before I even started giving report Stephen had come up to me and said he felt compelled to tell me that I was a great CNA and that I was always there right when he needed me and I went above and beyond. Later in the break room he said that he wasn’t a religious person, but a spiritual one, and he thinks he was inspired to tell me that right before this incident took place so I could be in a good head space to receive her criticism of bed side report. I think he was right. This is a great unit I work on and I am grateful to be a part of it. I don’t want to have to leave, but I might have to soon :(. So I say, ‘As for me and my house, we will do bed side shift report.’

Clinical yesterday was a good experience. I got to go to the OR. My patient had been in a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago. They needed the wound cleaned and a wound vac put on. When they unwrapped the dressing I could see clear through their ankle!!!! It didn’t make me want to pass out or anything, but I did have some PTSD. The smell of the dressings when they took it off smelled like decomposing flesh. Unfortunately, I have smelled that smell once before. . . . I was in a funk the rest of the time and determined that the OR is probably not for me. I think I determined that already with my physical limitations, but yesterday confirmed it. It was still a cool experience to see the whole process from beginning to end. I followed this patient from the med/surg floor to pre-op to OR to pacu then back to floor. I got to see the entire experience from beginning to end! It was amazing!! My nurse, Faith, was also great. She let me do a lot of things, but also took over in a lot of areas I wasn’t comfortable with. I told her I wanted to watch her do the sub q injections because I was really clumsy and fumbling around with it. She said, okay. Then she prepared everything and was about to do it and she said, “You know, the only way you’re going to get over being clumsy is by doing this over and over and finding your own way. So get in here!” Then she handed me the syringe! It was great encouragement and I liked that she did it right before I had to do the injection. If there is time in between the time I have to do it and actually doing it I get all flustered. 

Now on to this week. My birthday is on Thursday but I work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So I am going out to lunch with my parents and Neal (and I think Garren is coming too) today. Then On Saturday we’ll go bowling and out for dinner afterwards to celebrate. 

TTFN.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023 (post for 10/22—11/7)

 It’s been so busy these past few weeks that I find myself falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I hate that. I like to lay in bed and unwind, read from my cooking magazines and watch some garbage on tv. 

Monday the 23rd of October was my first clinical day on a med/surg unit. It was spectacularly dull, which is exactly what I needed for day 1. I got to do med pass with the nurse and sub-q injections. 

Work has been good. We’re getting busier because the snow birds are coming back. I get to remove IVs on discharging patients now, so that’s an exciting new responsibility. Working the floor is kind of killing my body and kind of killing my spirit. I am going to try to transfer to the monitor room full time in the spring of next year. I’m going to wait until after I get a position as a nurse extern. 

School has been good. We’re in med/surg now and this stuff kind of clicks with me. We’re doing the endocrine system, cardiovascular, immune system, etc.

The temperatures are finally dropping a bit so I can go with Miriam to swim before I go to work. I enjoy watching her. 

This is my view from where I sit.

Miriam is in the white cap.

. . . Holding her hands up.

On Monday the 30th of October, I had my second clinical at Chandler Regional. It was another boring day. I was on the trauma med/surg which sounds exciting, but it was not. And that was fine. I like it when it’s dull so I can absorb what’s going on and take things at a slow pace. I asked my clinical instructor if we could leave early so Josh and I could go to Phoenix for the World Series game. It was so fun. We got there about the 5th inning. We got hot dogs from a vendor and sat on the sidewalk and watched the game on screens outside the stadium with everyone else who didn’t have tickets. They lost. So that wasn’t fun. But it was a good game. Then Josh and I went to a place called Insomnia Cookie. We got to custom create our own ice cream sandwiches with cookies. Good memories!

Miriam has been taking pictures from the telescope. It’s broken so she’s asking for one for Christmas. The pictures still come out great even though it’s broken!

Halloween was busy. I was studying for an exam, there was another World Series game to watch, and it was halloween! Garren passed out candy while I studied. Miriam and her friend, Audrey, went trick or treating—dressed up as ghost busters. Joshua worked. 

 I studied while watching the World Series game. They had a moving moment during the game that made me cry. Stand up to Cancer gave everyone cards to write names on of people they knew that had cancer. Then they had everyone stand for a few minutes and hold up their cards. It was really emotional. I thought of both Linda and my very good friend, Cecilia, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. 

On Wednesday, Nov 1st, I had my first med/surg exam. I didn’t do too bad! I scored in the “upper quartile.” I’ll take it! It’s equivalent to an 86%. Fine by me!

Sometimes when I’m at work I like to look around at what jobs banner has available. I found my dream job. It’s in oncology. That’s an area I’m passionate about. It’s in the stem cell transplant unit. I went with Linda once to one of her infusion appointments. I loved the environment, I loved the process, I loved it all. It’s not an exciting area as it is outpatient and people are just hooking up to bags of stuff being infused through a port. But I still loved it! With my masters it could eventually lead to research in that area!

I hope this job is available when the time comes. I’d really love this to be my first job as a nurse. 

Yesterday, I had my third clinical day. It was great because I got to start an IV and do a straight cath. I did both with success, though my teacher had to do a lot of the “finding” work for the IV. So, I didn’t love it. . .  I felt like I should have been excited, but I wasn’t. It also was very painful for me with my EDS to stand over the patient for a long time to find an IV site and to wait for their bladder to drain. I am still in a lot of pain today from it. I think that bed side nursing is physically not something I’m going to be able to do, unfortunately. That also throws out any thought of doing CRNA as well. I’ve spent most of the day kind of coming to grips with that and accepting that I am limited. Going back to the job I found , though, I think the job in the stem cell unit could definitely be realistic for me. It’s outpatient so the patients are mobile. I’m not going to be lifting people, turning people, transferring people, etc. So I am feeling more and more like an outpatient situation is going to be best for me.

On the more silly side of it all, when i did the straight cath I was so nervous that I was clumsy about everything. First I put on sterile gloves that were too small so my hands were all contracted looking. I took those off and went to put on another pair and I dropped them on the floor! Then all I had left were the ones that come in the straight cath kit and I pulled to hard on them getting them on and tore them! My teacher said, “You have to keep going, we’ve already started. Can’t leave the sterile field.” It was embarrassing. But I emptied the man’s bladder so the task was accomplished.

Today as I was still in pain from clinical and wildly depressed, I took the day to just catch up on some things. I went to the plasma center to find out why they are deferring me (low protein—I knew that, but whatever. I’m doing plasma so I can get extra $ for a family vacation. Garren’s biggest anxiety in life is our retirement money, so he doesn’t like to spend money on vacations. So I am doing what I can). Then I went to the dentists office to make our next appointments because I forgot to do that when we left the other day. Then I went to Costco, then Fry’s. Then I went to lunch with Garren. Then Got Miriam from school, then took a nap and now here I am! I just needed to sit with this new realization that I am limited and not going to be able to do all of the things I want to do in life. 

Oh, and about clinical. I also left feeling really bad because my teacher was teaching EKG rhythms, but she said something that I could not let go. I’m writing it here so that anyone who might be reading this will please learn from this and please DON’T BE THAT NURSE THAT WE TALK ABOUT IN THE MONITOR ROOM! She said a monitor tech called her and asked her what a paced patient’s underlying rhythm was. And she told them there is no underlying rhythm, that’s why they have a pacemaker. But that is 100% wrong! They can have underlying AFib and heart blocks! The heart goes into AFib as a sort of desperate attempt to make a beat. So little impulses start firing in the atria and it quivers. It kind of has a little freak out. So when a pacemaker is put it, an artificial heart beat is created. But the atria doesn’t know that so it is still firing impulses. The pacemaker will make the rhythm regular, but it won’t stop the atria impulses from firing. That has to be corrected with medication or cardioversion. So you can have a regular  paced rhythm with underlying Afib. Here is a picture of it.

Don’t be that nurse. :)

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!!

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. . . .