Monday, January 30, 2023

 Today starts week three of block 1 and week four of MSN. Last week went well. We started our head to toe assessment. I am on some nursing forums on FB and I often see people posting about failing their head to toe assessments. So, that had me a little anxious, but now that we’re in it I don’t think it will be so bad. If you just go top to bottom it’s hard to forget things because there is a natural progression. Plus, my teachers are great. They really *want* us to do well. So, I know if I put in the work and they see me putting in the work they won’t let me fail. 

The MSN program is going well, too. I’ll be glad when it’s over though. We had to do a group project last week and it was *thee* worst. We had to do a power point presentation and we only had to cite in APA, not write out the slides in APA. One group member was clueless on that so I just did all of it for her so we could turn it in. It was very challenging. If it were earlier in the week I would have guided her to where she could learn how to do it on her own, but everything was put together so last minute that I just had to do it. Whatever, it’s over now. . .  I know I annoyed the heck out of my group because I wrote every day—sometimes several times a day— to keep everyone on track. 

Last week during a quiz I got a text message from my neighbor saying my dog, Sugar, was out in the front yard. I think she is not handling me being gone all day very well. So she escaped from the back gate and I guess just hung out in the driveway. It looks like she tried to get back in the backyard though because there were scratch marks on the front side of the gate, poor baby. She doesn’t run away, so she just stayed in the driveway.

Miriam had a pre competition last Saturday for synchro. She did great. She was the best one, in my opinion. She was also the only one I was watching. . .  But that’s neither here nor there. . .I volunteered as a “score runner” at the competition. I gathered the scores from the judges then took them to the scoring room. It was fun to watch all the different performances and see how the judges scored. I did have a moment where I thought of the episode of Glee with Olivia NEwton John when she is the judge for the chow choir competition and asks, “Is this a poor person schooL?” One of the judges asked if she should lower her standards for the “free program” group. ha! I have a video of her performance, but blogger says it’s too big to upload. I’ll figure it out and post it later.

This is her whole synchro team.

This was after her “victory lap” they do when they finish their performance.

Channeling Eleven from Stranger Things, maybe???

Yesterday we met with “Frank, the tile guy” who did our kitchen backsplash. He’s going to remodel our bathroom and front entry way for us. He starts on Wednesday! I have lab all day Wednesday so he will have the house to himself . . .  With Sugar. . . ha! That will be interesting. 

Shower floor and

Bathroom floor

Entry way detail.

Time for lab. I’m sitting in my car again writing this :) Going to get in and get in the zone!More next week.

Monday, January 23, 2023

 Block 1: Week one ✅

GCU Masters: Week two ✅

Starting week 2 of nursing school today. I’m sitting in my car as I have 25 minutes left before lab starts. My kids have to be dropped off at school by 7:20 and my school is near theirs. So, it doesn’t take long. I had hoped to write these entries every Sunday before starting the new week, but I forgot. It was Garren’s 43rd birthday yesterday. We made him a cake, I made him French toast for dinner—at his request— and then we went for a family walk. I also forgot to take a first day of school picture. Here’s a first day of the second week of school picture for you, whoever you are.

I forgot other things too. I imagine I’ll be doing a lot of forgetting things over the next few weeks. I forgot that metric measurements are on my quiz today. I thought I’d take this time to cram for that, but the Dreams by the Cranberries came on the radio, so I decided to just sit here and have a moment to myself. 

For some reason I have very little confidence in myself when it comes to school and education. I decided to try to get over that in this program and just try to remind myself that I am smart and I know things. So we’ll see how that goes when I go into this quiz and try to recall metric measurement conversions from when I did it in my chemistry classes. . .  two years ago. . . . 

This last week was crazy full of reading!! And I have an even crazier week coming up. Lots to do, lots to read. I have a group assignment in my masters class that is painful. . .  My group is not very responsive. One girl actually said, “Let’s do whatever is easiest so we can get the most points!” on a group chat that our teacher will be reading to see about group participation. 

In my core classes we have talked about vital signs and then basic CNA review (changing linens in the bed, bed pan, teeth brushing, hand washing, PPE, etc). My teacher said, “bachelorette degree” instead of “baccalaureate degree” and that has kind of been haunting me. But, we’re all human. I’ve also been haunted by my own human-ness this week. At work I missed a serious heart rhythm on a patient. The nurse came in the monitor room and I brought it to her attention. She said the patient was agitated. So i let it go. I’m not blaming the nurse instead of myself, just stating the story line. I should have known enough to say something and push it, but I didn’t. And that’s on my. I am grateful for these experiences now as a CNA and a tech. Hopefully I will work out all this smaller things like not trusting my instinct, not knowing when to speak up, etc, and working all that out now. It’s also good to be in the field before practicing as a nurse because I have a lot of great teachers and mentors at work. They are always willing to teach me and answer questions. I never feel stupid bringing something up and asking for clarification. They are always willing to take a moment and teach me something new. They never treat me like they don’t have time to teach me even though I know they are very busy. I am forever grateful for my MT Vista family.

Time to get inside because I also forgot to go to the bathroom before I left the house. When I am stressed my memory is the first thing to go! I remembered to put on deodorant today, so I feel like I’m winning already! Everything else will fall into place. Maybe. . .  

Starting Nursing School

 Hello! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. I actually forgot about blogger altogether until earlier this week. I was in Las Vegas with my friend, Trena, for one last Hoo-rah before nursing school and we were watching the Food Network. Rhea Drummond was on and we were recalling many years ago when she was merely a blogger. It occurred to me then that this might be a good way for me to record my experience in nursing school. Not necessarily for anyone to read or get anything out of, but just for my own records. Maybe one of my kids will read it one day. I’m not likely to hand write in a journal, so I thought maybe weekly submissions here would be good. Here is a picture of me from two months ago. Posting here so I can compare before school and after as I’m sure school will give me gray hair and wrinkles. 

I am not going to lie: I’m pretty nervous going into the semester. I was accepted into the Chandler Gilbert Community College concurrent enrollment program with Grand Canyon University. I will be getting my Associates Degree in Nursing through CGCC and my Masters Degree in Nursing through Grand Canyon University. I started one of my masters classes on Monday of this week. It is only 5 weeks long, but it is dense. Then I will add my first block of core classes to that next week. Yikes! 

I wouldn’t be able to do this without the support of my family. My kids are very busy with their own lives. Miriam is in synchronized swimming and taking piano lessons. She won her school spelling bee a few months ago and will competing in the school district spelling bee on Thursday next week. Joshua is almost 16 and will be driving soon. He is very busy with school work as he goes to Basis Mesa. And then there is Garren who just became a partner at his law firm. 

This was the day Garren was announced partner at his firm. It was his firm’s Christmas party. Dec 15th, 2022. 

One reason I’m nervous is because of the roll a mom plays in the family. I think we don’t talk about this very much in our society, but we really should. Everything seems to come back to mom. Mom takes and picks up kids from school, mom makes dinner, mom takes kids to appointments, mom takes kids to activities, mom feeds the dog. . .  Don’t get me wrong: Garren is very much an active part in all of these things. He takes the kids to school when I need to work. He sets up early morning dental appointments so he can take the kids before he has to go to work, he will make dinner when he gets home. . .  But let’s face it: If it weren’t for mom the kids wouldn’t be able to do after school activities, they’d eat at bedtime every night because that’s what time Garren comes home, if someone forgot to feed the dog and I wasn’t here to pick up the chore the dog just wouldn’t eat. . .If one of the kids doesn’t have time to get their chores done because they’re consumed by homework, mom does the chores! In our society this is acceptable for some reason. It’s like, if mom wants to go to school and work, okay that’s fine as long as that doesn’t interfere with everything else getting done that needs to. (Again, don’t get me wrong: this is not the attitude in our household, it’s just kind of the way things land sometimes). Because this is acceptable in our society I don’t think mom’s get the credit they deserve. Completing school or working is an achievement in its own, but being able to also balance a home and family life is a whole other thing entirely. I think in our society right now that is sort of expected instead of seen as individual feats. I hope that changes one day. 

The reason I am thinking about this right now is because I was trying to get some ideas from people I work with about study time and work time, etc. I asked some nurses how much time I should spend studying and if I could also handle working at the same time. I asked about 5 female nurses and 4 male nurses. All the male nurses said I could handle a full time job and full time school, no problem! And that that is what they did during school. All the females said part time or no work during school because it’s too much when you add life into the mix. I don’t think it’s that the female nurses couldn’t keep up with school and work and the males could. I think it’s that the females also had to add driving kids around, feeding the pets, appointments for kids, etc. I asked one of the male nurses about that and he said his wife did all that so he didn’t have to worry about that during school. I have a feeling the other guys would have told me something similar (if they were old enough to have families). Anyway, I hope this changes one day! 

During school I will be working in the monitor room of the ICU at Mountain Vista Medical Center. I have been there for over a year and a half now working as a CNA. I recently switched over to Monitor Tech in December. It can get a little boring at times, but I do believe getting these rhythms down will help me in school. I have been doing it a few months now, but I still feel like there is so much to learn about the heart and heart rhythms. I spend at least 30 minutes of each shift I work reading from an EKG text book so I can learn as much as I can. I bought my own copy of the text book and am now reading it for the third time. There’s so much to learn!

Covid is getting better in some ways and worse in others. We still get covid patients in our ICU. The current variant is really messing with people’s heart rhythms. I have to label everyone’s heart rhythms during the shift and when I get to a covid patient sometimes I just have to put “Covid” instead of “Sinus Rhythm” or one of the other rhythms because it doesn’t resemble anything I am familiar with (or anything google is familiar with ;)). 

Earlier this week I went to Las Vegas with my friend Trena.

Trena and I became friends in Roanoke, VA when we were in the same ward at church. I think we probably bonded over a mutual appreciation for swear words, or something like that. . .  We stayed at Balley’s hotel which has just been rebranded the Horseshoe. I think they forgot to take down this sign ;)

I enjoy traveling with Trena because she and I have similar “traveling style.” We don’t really need all the bells and whistles. For us, it’s about the interruption to our every day lives, the sort of reset button to the everyday things that can wear us down. We also both enjoy shopping! I think this was our third time doing this trip. This time we splurged a bit and went to a show and Gordon Ramsay’s Pub and Grill in Caesar’s Palace. We saw paranormal mind reading. That man is so good looking. And I had a short rib grilled cheese—a Gordon Ramsay Signature—at the pub and grill. 

It rained a bit while we were there, which turns my hair into glue since I mostly style with hair spray. So don’t mind my crazy hair pictures. We learned that the mirage will be demolished this year and replaced with a Hard Rock (not sure about that choice. Didn’t even know Hard Rock was still a thing people had any interest in. But no one asked me. . . ). So went and did all the Mirage things. 

I have the whole volcano video, but apparently I’m not smarter than blogger and can’t figure out how to upload it. So I’ll work on that. 

For New Year’s we went to the cabin. It snowed many many inches, feet, I believe. I’m not sure if our dog, Sugar, has ever seen snow before. She’s from Texas. She had a blast in it! And Joshua drove half way there! It was his first time driving on the freeway. 

Garren’s mom died on December 2nd. We gathered in Washington as a family for her funeral. It was nice to be with family. It snowed there too. Very cold. It was so fun for Garren and I to go through her things and find old pictures of her because she looks exactly like Miriam!! We couldn’t believe it! Each picture we found. . .  we couldn’t believe the resemblance. Garren is. . .  Well, handling this in his own way. . .  I told him he needs to realize that other people around him around grieving too and while he doesn’t want support from anyone else me and his children might like support from him. So he’s coming around on that, I think. I about came unglued on Sunday during sacrament meeting when they sang O My Father, as I played that on the piano at her funeral. I cried so hard. :( And Garren is the executor on her estate which has also come with its own challenges. Maybe one day far far in the future after processing some . . .  feelings. . .  I’ll be able to write about that experience. 

ANNND I met my new niece, Sophie and made Miriam a Christmas dress. OOOOH if I could find a way to make clothing all day and still have health insurance. . . .

ANNND I picked out my new wedding ring. I haven’t had one since I had kids as mine don’t fit anymore and can’t be resized. But, after 18 years of marriage, I thought it was about time I had one. So I picked it out and hopefully we’ll be able to o buy it soon. It is blue sapphire with white and chocolate diamonds. They aren’t mining chocolate diamonds anymore because there just aren’t anymore to mine! So I wanted to get a piece with chocolate diamonds in it.

Anyway, that’s us up ‘til now. From now on it will probably be posts about me crying a lot and everyone around me crying a lot. . .  But I know it will be worth it in the end. I am passionate about healthcare and I know this is the right path for me. I hope to eventually get my NP. I did buy MCAT study books and thought I would do that. But my future with my health is so uncertain that I couldn’t stomach the idea of paying that much for school and putting that much amount of time into it if I end up losing my mobility because of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. 

So, here we go. On to nursing school. Future self, you have come a long way. Remember where this all began. In college I volunteered at a nursing home and enjoyed it very much. I did that the whole time I was in college. Once or twice a week. I had always wanted to do it again, but I just couldn’t fit it in when I had kids. When covid hit and I heard the nursing homes were struggling the most, my heart ached for them. I was selling doors for First Impression Iron Works at the time after selling my ten year old custom window treatments business (Window Treatments by Melissa—which is still going strong today)! I decided on day in May to go to a nursing home and see how I could help. I had a job interview for a “TNA” (Temporary Nurse Assistant). I remember saying, “I don’t know anything, but I have two hands and a brain: I can learn things and I’m willing to work.” They hired me on the spot and I put in my notice with First Impressions. Around the third week of May I started at Montecito Post Acute and Rehab facility. There were plenty of bumps in the road. They gave me an 8 hour crash coarse in Nurse Assisting, but of course there’s only so much you can learn in that time. I was supposed to work under the supervision of a nurse or other CNA, but because of Covid, we just didn’t have the staff. I was often turned loose on my own without supervision. We just didn’t have the numbers. I remember learning quickly how to use the vitals machine and taking every patient’s vitals and recording them. I entered them all into the patient’s charts, not knowing the parameters for each vital. At one point in the night a nurse jumped up from her seat where she was charting and ran down the hallway. She returned and angrily asked me, “Why didn’t you tell me this patient’s O2 was at 72%?!” I said, “What does 72% mean???” I really had no clue. And the same thing happened with a blood pressure. I just didn’t know. And no one was around to teach me. This was what it was like working in Covid. Maybe someday I’ll be able to write more about that too. But not today. 

Future self, you’ve come a long way and learned a lot through trial and error. Well, baptism by fire, really. You made mistakes and learned from them. More will be made and more things will be learned. Just remember what you tell people you are training when you have new CNAs: It’s okay not to know everything right now. You’ll learn something new every day to add to what you know now. 

Here we go! Good luck, Me! We can do this!

Took a break to catch up on life.

Hello, everyone! I took a break for several reasons. The biggest one is because the next race that I am going to sign up for is ALL I want to talk about, but I didn't want to talk about it until I knew for sure it was going to happen. But as of today, I've save up enough of my pennies to buy my plane tickets for my family and I to go to. . .  Switzerland for the IronMan 70.3 in June next year!

Here's a little about what I've been doing in preparation for this:

1) RACING!
Race! Race! Race! Running keeps me from dislocating. I can't explain it. it doesn't make much sense to me yet. but it keeps me in one piece! I found a great group on Facebook for Athletes with EDS. It's such a wonderful and encouraging environment as opposed to the regular EDS FB group where people complain a lot.

I've done a few races since I last posted, but my most recent was Ragnar Tennessee!

This is me and teammate, Jessica before my first leg. It was a cold TN morning, but the smoky mountains were beautiful!

 This is Adam explaining things to me because this was my first road Ragnar. I had only done a trail Ragnar previously. Adam is responsible for making me a Ragnar Junky :) 

*All the best start at 5 am, in my opinion. . . .

Ragnar Medals!  Every teammate'a medal has a piece of this "puzzle." Together they say "Together we ran 200-ish miles." :) I believe is t was 194.6 from Chattanooga to Nashville.

We  used my van for van 1. Each team has two vans and six runners.

We wrote our names on the window and checked off each leg as we finished it.

All you have to do is go on  a long run with someone and you'll learn their reason for running. 

I don't think anyone I ran with ran because "running is fun." Everyone has a different reason for running. I loved this race and loved meeting so many wonderful people. they are a great addition to my life and I am grateful for them. I am grateful for the experience. Though I will admit, it was brutal. I don't know if I can physically do another one. But I can certainly try. I had a difficult time on my last leg in this race having dislocated my knee. My teammates were so kind and encouraging. They cheered me on from the van and reminded me that all they cared about was finishing and not time. They were very kind. It was a good group!

2) Therapy:
I've been in therapy for the past few months. I have Obsessive Dominant Disorder. It's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but I don't struggle with the compulsions as much. I am unable to control how much I obsess about one particular thought. I think about it till I have made myself sick. This happens when I start to feel stressed. And when do I feel stressed?? When my life feels like it's out of my control! When does my life feel like it's out of my control?? Every time I can tell my EDS is progressing. So. . .  EVERYDAY! I tend to hyper focus on the worst even of my life. So I have been in therapy for it. And I think I found a doctor that is just the right match for me. I've been to two other doctors in the past for my OCD. But this one is a perfect match for me. She has been so helpful to me!

My birthday is in five days. Four years ago on my birthday the worst even of my life happened. I was betrayed and hurt by two family members. This made my OCD the worst it has ever been in my life. I did and said things that "weren't me." I definitely wasn't myself. I have been spending the past four years trying to show these people that that wasn't me and that I am in fact a kind and generous person. I am very loving and I care very deeply for everyone in my life. My OCD makes me someone I'm not. My therapist has been helping understand that what happened to me was awful and my verbal responses are something I have to live with and make room for in myself because I can't take them back, She is helping me make room for the extreme discomfort I  feel when I think about the horrible things I said. On the other hand, she is also helping me to not obsess over making it up to them because she understands, and agrees, that what these people did to me was a horrible heinous crime and how human beings could treat other human beings that way is just beyond us all. So she has been helping me try to stop feeling the need to show these people who don't deserve anything from me that I am actually a good person. I've been hyperfocusing on that one day of my life when I have 29 years of goodness around that one day. They don't deserve to be a part of my life. They were cruel and horrible to me and I am slowly learning to accept it. They are not right with me and my mind has a hard time being at peace with that. I often hope that at that special time and place when they are asked if they "right with their fellow man" that they will think of me, because they aren't. My mind starts to obsess with making the pieces fit together like a puzzle. When they don't fit together, I think about it over and over and over trying to force it all to fit. Trying to think of why they would abandon me during our busiest time which they were fully and completely aware of. Why they would keep money for work they didn't do. Why they would do this to me on my birthday. What kind of a person does that to another human being? It's cruel. Its' hateful. What they did was not okay and is still not right with me. It has been four years, but no single event in my life has affect me and my family so much as this one. So when I start to get stressed out or start to get frustrated over my progressing decline in health, my mind immediately turns to that incident. I have been very fortunate to find a doctor that I am making great success with, but the road is long. I remain diligent in my treatment with her, but it is a constant battle. I am constantly fighting with my thoughts and battling them and it is exhausting. But I am in a much better place now. She is teaching me to be committed to forgiveness.I know it's working because my other fears have started coming to my mind lately when I get stressed, not just this single event. More on that another day if there are any other EDS readers out there who struggle with OCD and want to chat about it. . .

Basically, I've been trying to get this "mind, body, spirit" thing figured out and I wanted to get my mind in a healthy place so I could be at my best for next years race season. I'm feeling really good overall these days. I'm still working on things and still struggle with my thoughts. It will be that way for a while. But I am so much better now than before. I don't get sick over the obsessions anymore.

3) Surgery
I had surgery in August. I had to have a uterine oblation. With EDS being a tissue disorder, it's no surprise that the various organs in my body are fighting against me. I was going to go with the partial hysterectomy, but my doctor advised we go this route first. I am pleased so far.

I have an intolerance to pain meds? Any of you EDSers like that?

6 hours post op. Doing work emails :)

24 hours post op. Walked 1/4 mile!

Then three weeks later, I ran the Rock N Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon!

So, suck on that, EDS!

4) Working
Work has been going so well. I just hired my 20th seamstress! This team is getting out of control! Luckily, I have a great assistant who can manage all these people! For any new readers,  I own and operate a custom window treatments business. It has been wildly successful! We are now on Amazon Handmade. Still getting inventory in there, but you can check us out here. And we're finally getting our snazzy new website. In anticipation of an influx in orders I've been hiring everyone who asks for a job :) So hopefully this all works out! ha!


Where I'm going:

Upcoming events include a marathon in February, a sprint triathlon in April and an olympic distance tri in May. Then I'm off to Switzerland! That may be my last race. I've had to have some long hard talks with myself about being realistic and facing reality. My body is deteriorating and as much as I hate to say it, I think Switzerland will be my last race. I hope it's not, but I need to be realistic about my health. if I'm not realistic, I might do more damage than good. It has been very  hard to accept that. I still don't think I've fully accepted it. I think I've said it out loud, but not really let it sink in, if that makes sense. If there is one thing other than my past experience that I mentioned above that gets me down more than anything, it's thinking about my deteriorating mobility. I get in a serious funk over that. So I think I'm trying to avoid accepting it entirely for that reason.

Anyway, I know this journey coming up is not going to be easy. And a lot of people ask why I'm doing it. I can't explain it verbally yet. I will be able to one day. But for now, support and encouragement without knowing the "why" would just be an amazing and kind thing to do. And if any of you have athletic pursuits while suffering through EDS, please let me know. I'd love to follow your journey. We're all struggling at the same time even if our struggles are all unique to our own bodies. Let's encourage and uplift instead of nay saying. I look forward to hearing any tips from any of you who train with EDS. Leave them in the comments! Can't wait to get to know some of you!

In closing, I just want to add that the last few years of my life have not been great. But I have a wonderful family. I have a husband who goes along with all my crazy ideas and encourages me to do all I can. I mean, running an IronMan with EDS? It probably isn't realistic. but who's my #1 cheerleader??? My amazing husband! So, yah, the past few years  have kind of sucked. But my birthday is in 5 days. i'll be leaving my 20s and entering my thirties and I couldn't be more excited! It's a  new decade and I have a great person by my side to go through it all with. It's going to be a great year.



M.