New Job!

Way, way back in February/March, I applied for a job. I saw it listed on craigslist, I was qualified, and it was a pay raise. I figured it wouldn't hurt, but that I probably wouldn't get it.

The company is called On Site, and what they do is they work with big companies to open clinics that are for the employees of that company and their families. The goal is to save money and provide better healthcare for these employees. The job would be a medical assistant at a clinic inside of Blendtec, a company that manufactures and distributes high quality blenders. (You can watch their "Will it Blend?" videos on YouTube.)

They called. I had a phone interview, I had an interview with the office manager, I had an interview with the CEO and medical director of On Site, I had an interview with the provider at the clinic, and a group interview with the president of Blendtec, the liason between Blendtec and On Site, the CEO of On Site and the provider, and a working interview. And, after all of that, I got an email saying I didn't get the position.

I was crushed! Throughout the whole interview process, I had really fallen in love with the job and with both companies. I loved On Site's commitment to affordable patient care, I loved Blendtec's focus on providing a healthy working environment to their employees and the way that they provided for the needs of the whole person. I loved the clinic, it was so beautiful and clean.

But, I didn't get the job. So, I licked my wounds, I picked up where I left off, and life continued.

About two or three weeks ago, I got a call. It was On Site, and they were wondering if I was still interested! Perhaps if it had been a different job at a different company, I would have said No, but I was so impressed with both organizations and I felt very strongly that I wanted to be a part if their team. On Wednesday, I got the news that I was finally, finally being offered the position, and I gladly accepted!

I am very, very exited to embark on this new adventure! On the other hand, I am sad to be leaving the clinic. I will miss my coworkers, I will miss seeing my father in law every day (although we will most likely be over at the house to visit more often now), and most of all, I will miss my patients. Yes, even the ones that drive me crazy! I love them all, and I am honored that I was able to help improve their lives, even if it was only in a small way.

Of course, now I will be moving on to a new set of patients, and a new group of people I can help, even if it's only in a very small way. As Walt Disney said in one of my favorite movies of all time, "We keep moving forward." Forward I go onto the next adventure!!

Sick!!

I've had a lot of people ask what's been going on with me, so I thought I would share what has been happening up to this point.

In the wee morning hours of Friday, I was awakened with severe abdominal pain and nausea.
I discovered my mom was awake. After a brief consultation, I threw up, and decided it was time to go to the ER.

The beautiful, kind, amazing ER nurse (I think her name was Donna) gave me some IV fluids, zofran, and dilauded. I'd never had dilauded before, so that was an experience!

They drew labs, which we all normal except a slightly elevated white blood cell count, which could mean something, could mean nothing. I had an abdominal ultrasound, which was normal. They sent me home with meds and an appointment to have a HIDA scan done on Tuesday.

I diligently took my medication, but I was still having pain and by the time 4 hours was up, I would start with the severe pain and vomiting again. When I shot out of bed at 1:30 to throw up a glass of water, I decided to go back to the ER. I had taken my pain and anti emetics 3 hours before, and was still having pain and nausea and vomiting.

Thus began what I like to call The Worst ER Visit EVER! They gave me a GI cocktail, which I promptly vomited back up. Oral zofran, still vomiting, so now oral phenergan, which the ER doctor said, "If you can't keep that down, we will give you a suppository!" And laughed.

Hello? Where's my IV fluids? And, for heck's sake, can't we try injecting three phenergan before you shove it up my butt?

After four hours, one abdominal xray, and no IV, I was sent home feeling just as crummy as I did when I arrived, except now I had a prescription for carafate. Which I have thrown up every time I take it.

Later on Saturday, my amazing angel if a father in law gave me some IV fluids and IV zofran, after which I was able to eat. Who knew what a difference eating and not throwing it up would make?

I slept the rest of the weekend and took my pills. Every morning, I would wake up hoping and praying that I would feel better. So far, nothing.

Yesterday, I tried to work. That was a disaster. I didn't take anything except the carafate and some Tylenol, and by the time the morning was over I was in tears. Dr. Bingham gave me more IV fluid and zofran, and my amazing husband made pork cops for dinner, which I was able to eat. Hallelujah!!

This morning, I had my HIDA scan done. Nothing to eat or drink and no pain medication for 6 hours. They injected a radioactive tracer into my vein, and we watched for an hour as my gallbladder lit up like the sun on the screen. Actually, we watched Criminal Minds. Shemar Moore is a great distraction when you are very uncomfortable...

The tech was waiting for the tracer to start to move from my gallbladder into my small intestine, which never happened. After the hour was up, she gave me a medicine that is supposed to make my gallbladder contract and release bile into my small intestine. 4 or 5 minutes after she started running the medicine, I started to get extremely nauseated. A couple of minutes later, I was in horrible pain. I started to wonder what the procedure was for vomiting, and tried to breathe through the nausea. At one point, I started crying because it hurt so bad. I couldn't really move, but my hands were clenched and I kept wriggling my feet and just tried to breathe through it.

Overall, a pretty miserable experience.

Eventually the pain and nausea faded, and I was all disconnected and sent home. We are waiting on the results, which will hopefully come tomorrow.

In the meantime, I feel craptastic. Hopefully, I will get some answers, but right now it's looking like surgery is still on the table. Thoughts and prayers are always appreciated, and I will try to keep everyone updated!

Ivory Marie

Here is her birthday story, as told from my perspective:

I called Sylvee one morning when she was about 38 weeks along. She answered the phone saying, "I was just going to call you!" and went on to tell me that she had been having contractions all night. They were about 5-7 minutes apart and about 90 seconds long. We walked around the mall, had some crepes, then went to Labor and Delivery. They sent her home.

This pattern continued for the next two weeks! The contractions never stopped, but she wasn't dilating. Her due date came, and it went, and still no baby! The night of August 10th, she went into Labor and Delivery once more. They gave her morphine and sent her home to sleep, but she didn't sleep. She was up all night laboring. I got a phone call at about 9 am from my mom saying, "We are going to the hospital!" I just had a feeling that this was it, my mom probably did too because she called me. I got up, took a shower, got dressed, kissed my hubby, and I was out the door. My mom texted me to tell me that Sylvee was about a 3 and 1/2, and 80% effaced.

I arrived at the hospital to find Sylvee in panic mode. She was "Oooing" through contractions, but it was really high pitched and her face was all wrinkled up. I knew that she was tensing up and that she would get relief if she just relaxed. I started doing her Hypnobabies cues, but she was still so tense. She started to cry, and say she couldn't do it. My mom looked her in the eye and very calmly told her that she could do this, she wanted to do this, and that she wasn't alone. The nurse offered her some Fentanyl to take the edge off. She checked her and this time she was at a 4 and 1/2 and 100% effaced! So she was officially in labor.

After that, Sylvee calmed down a lot and we were able to get through her contractions. I was usually by her head, giving her the "Release" cue and reading the scripts. Jack would hold her hand and just be a comforting presence. Mom was usually down rubbing her thighs and her feet. We would switch around occasionally, but that was what we did the majority of the time.

Dr. Juchau came in and broke her water. She labored so well through the rest of the day, but at about 6:00, she hadn't progressed past a 6 and her cervix was starting to swell. I think that that news discouraged her, because she kind of fell apart then. They put in a monitor that measured the intensity of the contractions, and they weren't strong enough to let her progress. They gave her some Pitocin. By that point, she was tired, we were tired, the Fentanyl wasn't working anymore, and she was looking at possibly having a C-section if she didn't start progressing. We talked it over, and she decided to get an epidural.

By that point, she had labored for about 20 hours after having regular contractions for about 2 weeks and she was just exhausted. She got the epidural, and she relaxed a lot. Jack took a nap, mom did some crocheting, Sylvee and I talked for a little while until she fell asleep, then I just stared at the monitors. I was getting a little anxious and cranky because all I had eaten all day was a scone and a turkey salad, so I went to the cafeteria and got some hot tea. When I came back upstairs, Dr. Juchau had just come in to check Sylvee and she just had a little lip. He let her labor for about a half an hour then checked her again. She was complete!

The nurse and the resident, Dr. Black, came in and started getting things ready for pushing. I held Sylvee's left leg, mom had her right, and Jack was by her head, holding her hand and supporting her. She pushed through two or three contractions and all of a sudden, she was crowning! I thought it would take a lot longer, and so did the nurse. She got Dr. Juchau, and he got everything set up. She pushed through a couple more contractions, then Dr. Black was "at bat". A couple more pushes, and the head just popped out! We could see a ton of black hair. Out popped an arm, out popped another arm, then WOOSH! Dr. Black pulled her out and held her up for Jack to see.

"It's a girl... I think..."

Yes, it was a beautiful baby girl! They plopped her right on mommy's chest. She didn't really cry, just kind of whined a little bit. They had to suction her out a because she was so gunky. She was 7 lbs 11 oz, 20 inches long. Sylvee and Jack had picked out names when she found out she was pregnant, for a girl they picked Ivory Marie.

I went to go look at her, and my first impression was that she looked just like Sylvee! She got Jack's long fingers and long feet and his lips and chin, but the rest of the face is all Sylvee!

Here is me holding her for the first time:

And here is Eric holding her the next day:

All in all, mom and baby are both healthy and happy. Daddy is happy, too. And, I am a very proud auntie of a very beautiful little girl!

Why Being a Perfectionist Sucks

My mom is seriously the most amazing woman I know. I know this because she raised me into adulthood without killing me or herself. I was not, I repeat, NOT an easy kid to raise. I was, how do you say, awful. Just rotten. Someday, I will have a kid just like me, and I'm not sure that either of us will get out of that situation intact.

Anyway, my mom, raising me, she put up with a lot. One thing that she (and I) had to deal with was my perfectionism. Being a perfectionist sucks. It sucks because nothing you ever do is good enough, because nothing you ever do is perfect. Your goal is unattainable. Other people will look at the things you do and be satisfied or even impressed, while you look at the same thing and see every little mistake in glaring detail. It would have a much simpler life if I could just let go of that need to be perfect and enjoy my life as it is. I'm making progress. Slowly but surely.

The thing that I think has been the hardest for me is school. I love school. I love learning new things. I love expanding my mind. I love having intellectual conversations and learning new words and conquering new challenges. I find the whole process very satisfying, EXCEPT when I fall behind. This last block was really, really hard for me. I was really sick the first couple of weeks of it, and since the classes were only 7 weeks long, I was immediately very behind and at a disadvantage. When I got into the class, I landed in a pile of assignments and concepts up to my knees. My knee jerk reaction was to be extremely overwhelmed, fall apart, cry, and crawl into a black hole. I decided instead to be very overwhelmed and do my best to trudge through it all.

There was one assignment in my English class that I really, really struggled with. I was supposed to be writing a synthesis using two readings that the professor chose for us. I got the reading, got into it, and realized I didn't understand it. Physics. More specifically, Stephen Hawking describing the Uncertainty Principle. I read those two pages over and over and over and over again and I just didn't get it. It was too abstract. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. My mind was rejecting it. I tried not to panic, I kept telling myself, 'I will look at it again tomorrow and maybe it will make more sense. I will sleep on it, then I'll wake up and I'll understand it.' Nope. No such luck. So close, but no cigar!

So, after doing this for a couple of weeks and finishing all the rest of my homework and taking all of my tests, I came to my English professor with my tail between my knees and admitted that I didn't do the assignment because I just couldn't understand it. Then, the word 'procrastinator' got thrown out there, as well as the words, "You got a B," and yes, I started to cry. In my defense, I did just start my period today and I've been dealing with the fact that if Kat was still here she would be turning 23 today, and just thinking about how much I miss her. Still, here I am, an adult woman, standing in a classroom in front of my English professor, crying. I started blubbering how this isn't like me and that I'm usually pretty smart and I'm a good writer and I don't usually put things off and I tried really hard but I failed and, and, and...

I think I scared him, because he said, "Oh, no, you are doing fine. You are doing good work."

And I say, "No, I didn't. I got a B!" See where the perfectionist rears her ugly head? I'm standing there crying because I felt like a failure. Because I got a B. Because I don't understand quantum mechanics. Because I usually do so much better, and I didn't. I didn't do a good job, I just screwed the whole thing up. And here's where the really negative thoughts come in: What if I'm not smart enough to get into the nursing program? What if I'm just not good enough to be a nurse, and I'm deluding myself into thinking that I could ever aspire to be one? Because in my mind, a B just isn't good enough. I don't even like A- that much. Actually, I hate A-. That little minus sign makes me crazy! The only way I'm going to be good enough is if I always gets As. I always do my job right. I always make dinner and it's always delicious. If my patients are ever upset, I'm a horrible Medical Assistant. If my husband is unhappy for any reason, I'm an awful wife. And, if I don't understand an assignment and I get a B in class, I may as well just drop out of college because I am so, so stupid!

So, after I sob like a two year old in class, I find myself sitting in my car, presenting myself with the verbal beating I had listed above. And that really is the nice version, it got much worse. In the midst of me verbally berating myself, my mom suddenly pops into my head. She just calmly says, "NaRhea, did you do your best? Did you try? All I want from you is for you to do your best. If it was hard and you did it anyway, that is a success."

This block was hard. Really hard. Maybe if I only had one class, it would've been easier. Maybe if I hadn't had the migraine from hell at the start of the block, it would've been easier. Maybe if these past 7 weeks I was at 100%, or even 90%, I would've gotten better grades. I wanted to give up at the very first. I wanted to just walk away, because the amount of work being presented to me coming in late was so overwhelming. And then, there is just the rest of my life that I have to deal with. I don't want to sit here and make excuses as to why I didn't get As this block, but I'm just so hard on myself all of the time and I need to cut me some slack.

This is me saying something to myself that I don't believe I've ever said before: You are allowed some screw ups. You are allowed a block where you got Bs instead of As. You know that you are smart, you know that you usually do really well in school. You know that you will do better next semester. Right now, just enjoy the fact that you finished this semester. And, remember, if you had just given up like you wanted to do so many times, you would have Fs instead of Bs. And Bs are so much better than Fs! You worked really hard this block and you really did a good job, all things considered. So (this is my mom talking now, I can hear her saying it), Stop crying, take a bath, and go to bed. Fall semester is a whole new page, a clean slate, and you will do better then, I promise.

Ok, mom. I'm getting in the bath now...

The Other Shoe

As human beings, we have the amazing ability to rebound from terrible things. I have a patient, I love her to death. This incredible woman has been through so much.  In a few short years, she lost her mother, two fiancees, and most recently her only daughter.

Despite all of this, she gets out of bed in the morning. She takes care of her dad and her son. Believe it or not, she still smiles sometimes. I admire her so much. The fact that she had had to bury so many people that she loved in such a short period of time, and yet she survives. It is truly a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

Sometimes, when life gives us a blow, we fall, we scramble back onto our feet, but even though we are upright, we are now tense, guarded. We are waiting for the other shoe to drop. We have lost our faith. Not totally, our else we would still be on the ground, but we are not the same.

Any woman who experiences a miscarriage will tell you that subsequent pregnancies had her living in fear. Living, yes. Going through the day to day, but with that nagging fear constantly in her mind. What if it goes wrong again? Its sad, because her innocence is lost. She had lost the ability to enjoy her pregnancy without fear.

I can't eliminate this fear. When I get pregnant again, it is something I have to live with. But, I make the vow here and now to do everything in my power to keep that fear from keeping me from enjoying my pregnancy. Because, I don't think it will hurt less if I'm resigned to something going on, and I do know that if I spend my whole pregnancy anxious about a complication and having everything turn out fine, that that will be 9 months I spent worrying for nothing when I could've been enjoying it.

So, I'm going to ignore the other shoe, keep my head up, and keep moving forward.

Sisters

Sisters. I have two. As the oldest child, I feel particularly protective of them. Maybe its because I have no older siblings to go to bat for me, or maybe its just because we are siblings. I love them both.

Since I am the oldest child and the span between myself and my brother is pretty big, I've had the unique experience of watching them grow up and, for the youngest two, remembering all of it.

Because of the situation surrounding our births, there is a fascinating phenomenon with the personalities of my sisters. I am very clearly the oldest, Justin is very clearly the youngest and the only boy. In the middle, though, it gets blurry. Sylvee is both the middle child and the youngest, Talia is the middle child and the oldest. So they picked up traits from each side.

Sylvee is generally the most easy going. She is like our mom, dreamy, creative, non confrontational. She will make an amazing stay at home mom, though knowing Sylvee she will start a business from home and strike it rich. She is probably the quietest of us all, and is often the one that slips through the cracks. There are times in my life that I wondered if she still lived with us, such is her way of just slipping quietly off and doing her own thing.

Talia is a firecracker wrapped in a cute little girl with freckles. She has attitude cleverly hidden up her sleeve, but always ready to crack out and bite you. I've been eagerly waiting her teenage years since she turned two, because I knew I would be out of the house and in a perfect place to observe my parents attempting to handle the whirling dervish. She is smart, driven, and passionate, like me, but where my gumption is on full display, hers is discretely wrapped in candy coating.

I can't say I ever fought with any of my siblings. I credit the age gap of the younger two and Sylvee's congeniality for that. No, I would say the thing I regret is the fact that, growing up, I ignored them. I didn't fight with them, but I didn't spend time with them either. It has been almost 4 years since I left home (time flies!) and they are all growing up without me.

Now I see my two sisters staring down at some pretty heavy duty obstacles, and my protective instinct rears its fearsome head. The truth of the matter is that I am powerless to help them. And, frankly, they don't really need my help. They have become two strong, beautiful young women and they are armed to the teeth to do battle with their trials. You can thank my parents for that, they have done a wonderful job of raising us to be strong and independent.

There is nothing in the world like a sister. I adore my baby brother, don't get me wrong, but the way I feel about him is completely different than the way I feel about my sisters.

I love them very much.

Hair!

Today, my little sister got married. She was radiant, everything went extremely well, and even though there was some stress involved, all in all it was a beautiful celebration of family, friends, and love.

This was also the first wedding ceremony I have been to since Eric and I got married, and seeing Sylvee and Jack's love made me fall even more in love with my amazing husband!

However, there was something brought to my attention today that I think is very important. It involves being a girl in the midst of puberty and being a teenager, and also hair.

My hair is curly. That is an understatement. My hair is fine, but there is a lot of it. And if you just add some water, it turns into these teeny, tiny ringlets. A billion of them!

I love my hair. I love playing around with it, I love sproinging my curls. This love, however, is a very recent thing. It wasn't until I was about 17 or 18 when I realised that I love my hair. Up until then, I HATED it. LOATHED it.

Today, I found my 12 year old sister in distress about her hair. Her hair is fine like mine, and mostly straight but if you get it wet and add a little water it gets really wavy. Very cute. But, here she is, sitting in the bathroom, crying because she, like the millions of 12 year old girls before her, hates her hair.

Of course, this is about so, so, so much more than hair. This is about young women everywhere struggling to love themselves. This is about body image, self esteem. This is about giving these young girls the gift of confidence. Loving yourself means so much. Without first loving and accepting ourselves, we can't truly share our love for others. Without that good self image, we resort to things that are destructive. I was 12 when my eating disorder began, and unfortunately that is a very common time for that disorder to manifest itself.

Young women, and some young men, are dying because they can't figure out how to love themselves. They are dying because they think they are fat and ugly. And, it isn't much of a stretch to say that sometimes, they are dying because they hate their hair.

I challenge you all to find one thing about your physical appearance that you dislike, and figure out a way to accept it, and perhaps even admire it. No changing it, just accepting whatever it is exactly the way it is. And, if you are a parent of a young woman, I would encourage you to talk about body image with her. And, whenever possible, tell yourself, your daughter, or even a stranger, how much you love their hair.