Going Strong

Just a quick update to say that I am still doing well. My last A&P exam is tomorrow, (last one before the final that is,) and I am beyond grateful. I am so not prepared...even though I studied more than 3 hours today... it's just too much information and I am BURNED OUT on school! But I'm still shooting for good educated guesses and for the things I DO know, to be on there... 
Anyway, one day last week I was awake for FORTY hours: FORTY. STRAIGHT. My RN manager let me know she had scheduled me wrong, and that I needed at least 8 hours to make up for it on the schedule.... SO, she gave me the options of coming back to work right after class on Wednesday (after working 7pm-7am Tuesday) and working noon to eight, or sleeping a few hours and coming in from 7pm-3am that night... I'm learning quickly that I am the type of person who would rather kill themselves to reap the benefits later, rather than doing things an easier or more laid back way. So, I went to work Tuesday night, 12 hours, went to class at 8am right after work, got done with class at noon, and booked it back to the hospital for an 8 hour shift. Everyone was freaking out that I had actually came-the charge nurse said, "I want you to sit and do nothing. Walk around if you need to, but really...just sit." I of course cannot just sit... so I just helped the nurses whenever they needed it, and sat with a sweet 7 month old baby who has what's called, "cat crying syndrome." I came home with SUCH a smile on my face, praising God for being beyond real and beyond gracious with the amount of strength and energy he provided me!
I'm learning so often, that He really is ALL of my strength and all of my patience! I am rarely tired ON the job... and I usually come home with more energy than I would prefer to after working 12 hours through the night, so Melatonin is becoming a good friend of mine. [Do you know where Melatonin is released from? I do. I learned it for this exam tomorrow: the pineal gland which is in the middle of the two brain hemispheres in the epithalamus. It is a natural hormone that is released at night to help us recognize we need sleep!] Ha. And I bet $5 it won't be on the exam tomorrow. Oh well. 

Anyway: my sweet husband is alseep on the couch while I do THIS (when I NEED to be studying) because I told him I didn't want to be away from him, even if he was asleep! I am so in love with him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has been so supportive and kind and generous to me as we BOTH adjust to this new insane schedule of mine! 

I will say this... just so I can have proof to myself that I've said it: if I NEVER had to go back to school again.... I would be beyond happy. If I could just simply have a great job that I loved that preferably had something to do with bioethics and medical ethics... I would be so ecstatic. So I am very grateful I will have this entire summer off... and I have a couple months to decide! I am 80% sure though that I WILL be pursuing nursing--> 4 classes @ JCC next year and I will be applying to Bellarmine in September.. but we will yet again see where God leads me. He is DEFINITELY trying to lead me somewhere, as He gives me this insane amount of strength and energy to do this PCA job while trying to graduate. Which is in 27 days I believe. WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 

Okay. Back to the books. Maybe.

OH and PS: my sister in law Sarah is having a BOY: Ryvers Calloway West. He is due August 12 and this is what she looks like at 21 weeks pregnant<3 GORGEOUS!!!!!! <3

And THIS is me and my sweet MAN out celebrating my birthday: 22 this year :) So crazy for my Asa Frank!

He is Risen

 

 

Our 2nd Easter as a married couple. If my Mama hadn't sent us an "Easter Basket Box" in the mail, it would hardly feel like Easter to me!!!! I woke up early this morning and baked some sweet orange rolls for Asa and I before church--something my dad ALWAYS did on Sunday's, especially Easter. It was a great day and we had a good fellowship at church (even though we are still "church shopping" we wanted to go worship with the family.) Holiday's of course always make me feel homesick...I miss waking up knowing Sean was wide awake, already on the hunt for our baskets while our parents slept. Or sometimes he would come wake me up and say, "Ash, I found your basket!! Come look!!!" We had so much fun together. Mom and Dad would play the "hot and cold" game until we found them and squealed with delight over the (too many) goodies in our baskets! Nathan was always fun to watch hunt his basket. He would giggle and always enjoys opening things! So I miss home...but I'm glad I am married to my sweetheart to help me celebrate these special holidays (especially today, Christ rising from the grave!!!) 

Counting My Blessings

I sit here this Saturday morning, watching the sun rise, and feeling a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat. It is all beginning to settle in. I have finished 2 long weeks of a third shift job, 12 hour shifts at that, in a children's hospital, all the while going to school 3 days a week and getting over strep throat/bronchitis/and a sinus infection with high fevers. In this very moment, I can imagine myself crawling into my Asa's lap, tears streaming down my face and just being rocked by him so gently and sweetly...[because he picked up a shift at Sunergos this morning to make up for the hours lost unpaid while he is on spring break from teaching, I cannot do this...]
I love working with patients, especially kids. [There is nothing in me that enjoys working with the babies however...so I am learning quickly that the things I thought I wanted to do, are things I really dislike doing!] Getting a blood pressure on a wailing, ballistic, teeny, tiny infant is one of the hardest things I have ever done! Getting peed on by them while trying to weigh them does not help this matter. I do love making children laugh and I love laughing with them. I love it when a four year old boy tells me his teddy bear "is not real" and that "I don't have to worry because it is just pretend" and "only for sleeping." I love it when a two year old can speak so fluently and in such an adorable tone, that all I can do is giggle and tell her over and over how cute she is, in return getting the response, "Thanks, I know." I love helping special needs children and getting attached to them. I love the kiddos who say, "Nope. No. Nope," but still hold out their arm for me to wrap the blood pressure cuff around it just the same. You see, all of these things I truly do love. Which is why I am so grateful to God that He gave me this job...to keep opening up my eyes, revealing my strengths and great weakness's...to soften my heart towards children but still hold firmly in my heart that I don't want my own for a very long time, if ever. I do not enjoy the gossip or the slander that some of my co-workers do towards each other, or the fact that I cannot yet recognize a single Christian soul who so clearly just loves Christ...but all of that just reminds me that I need to be a light and a crystal clear picture of the grace and mercy of God.
I do not get to see Asa often....and I am really starting to worry about school and finishing strong in my 16 hours of classes with good grades. I am looking forward to April 27th, when I will be done with my undergraduate degree and May 8th, when I will get to walk with my peers at graduation: I just need a lot of strength and determination to do these things. I know there is an end in site...and I know that I have my God and my Savior. Without Him, I could do nothing and I would be nothing. The past two weeks I have been incredibly humbled... more humbled than I have been since I can remember, at the strength and will power Christ has given me. There is no way on earth that I could be doing what I have been doing...without Him. I am so thankful and grateful that He is my father--and I know as long as I can continue to trust and hope in Him, He will bless me.
This morning I am encouraged by the following in Proverbs: 
The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tounge is from the Lord...Commit your works to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble...By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for...The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his step. Proverbs 16:1-9
There is a reason God gave me this PCA job. No matter how hard or tired I get, HE gave it to me and I am so blessed by that. I may have plans, but the Lord gets to decide. I will have steadfast love and I will forever be faithful to my God. 
I better try to go get some sleep... I only slept 2 hours yesterday and it's going on 9am, which means I've been home almost 2 hours and my dogs are NOT going to enjoy sleeping ALL day with their boring old MOM!!!!!!! 

Night Owl

Because I have to study for A&P I can't really write a long drawn out thought. I just wanted to post that I am alive and well after my 2 back to back 12 hour night shifts Monday and last night. 7pm-7am sure is an odd time to be awake! So far I am really enjoying my job, for the most part! The nurses haven't all completely opened up to me yet...and I don't want to feel like "just a PCA" to them, so I'm hoping I feel more welcome soon. But my preceptor and unit secretary have been wonderful and I laugh A LOT while doing rounds! The kids are amazing. It's one of the biggest blessings I've ever received to actually take care of patients, or at least FEEL like I'm "taking care of them." Listening to the infants heartbeats, taking toddlers blood pressure...it's all very fascinating and making me feel more and more like I could love nursing for my career. I am tired! But I am surviving and holding on okay. I went straight from work to school at 8am until noon today... and it was around 11:30 I started to crash. I was able to sleep about 4 hours when I came home, and I am praying I can sleep well with Asa tonight! It will be SO good to be in bed with my husband again! 2 nights apart has been okay but I miss him so much! 

I am praying earnestly that I can finish school WELL, especially in A&P! Longing for a B- in the class and at least a B in Philosophy... 5 more weeks! :) God is so good. I have learned in the past 48 hours that He REALLY and truly is ALL of my strength! What a refreshing and humbling thought!

Springtime In the City

Welcome, Spring! I have officially finished my Kosair's Children Hospital (KCH) orientation! Yesterday I decided, "Why not get a flu shot?" [Just to be "safe" right?] The nurse warned me, because I've NEVER had one in my entire life, I may get a little sick and have some flu symptoms, but usually just a low-grade fever and some chills. By 9pm I was complaining that I felt awful. My neck was throbbing and my lower back was aching. I decided to lay down at 10pm and call my mom because I miss her and by 10:30 I couldn't even talk. I pleaded with Asa to go get a theromemeter because Elsa had destroyed ours [not a mercury filled glass one, people!] and when he came and felt my skin, which was on FIRE, he ran out to get one. My temperature when he got back was 101.8 and I was just whimpering and tears were streaming out of my eyes because I was so hot and so sore. I continued to take ibuprofen and aspirin, and nothing seemed to help. By midnight, Asa came in to check on me and take my temp again, and it was 103. . . I felt like my body was literally burning itself. I took a lukewarm bath and took one more tyelnol PM and 2 regular tylenols, and around 1:30 I was able to drift into a DEEP sleep until 8 this morning when I woke for more ibuprofen, but at that time, I was fever free! 
Last night was one of the most painful, horrendous, wimpiest nights of my life. My temperature is typically around 97 degrees, I have a low regular body temp! So 101-103 was MISERABLE. The one thing it did help me see though, was that when I am working with patients come Monday, LITTLE patients, LITTLE kids and even babies, who HAVE these fevers and are so sick and actually hospitilized? I am going to be so much more empathetic. Little sweet things! 
Also, I am one of the biggest babies ever when I get sick myself....so I definitely will not think that these little kids should act brave or strong, when I most certaintly don't myself! 

Today we are going shopping for hospital shoes and BLINDS AND DRAPES for my new 3rd shift job. I start on Monday. I work Mon, Tues, and Thursday [which will be my birthday!] I am so praying for strength. School starts again on Monday and I will have six weeks left...I already don't even want to go BACK after this week of spring break! But I am almost done! I just really and sincerely pray I can do WELL in A&P and finish strong with at least a B- in the class...otherwise I would have to take it ALL OVER AGAIN for nursing school at Bellarmine, if that's where God leads me! Ouch that would stink. 

So, prayers are appreciated as I make my way back into classes and working 40 hours a week at NIGHT! :) God is SO good and beautiful and merciful and KIND. Heis above all things and He IS all things! I miss my family and my brothers, as this spring time approaches. I have so many wonderful memories playing on the trampoline w/ Seany and us creating our own games! Baseball, go-carting, sprinklers, indoor pool... It's funny how we wish our lives away when we're young! I have been trying to soak in ALL the memories as they come, here in my adult life!!! Spring time is ALWAYS my favorite!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Blessed

I just needed to say I feel incredibly blessed tonight. Today was a bittersweet day. I spent all day in Richmond, KY with Asa's family, for his Uncle Buddy's funeral. Uncle Buddy was 59 years old and had spent many of his years institutionalized in a VA hospital for his schitzophrenia. I never met him...but I know he was very special and loved! 
I can't write because I'm in bed w my sleeping husband and our dogs who are hogging me and Manny who is trying to get comfortable on my face. 

But I feel incredibly blessed to be loved by my sweet, handsome, wonderful husband...and I am so humbled by his love. I am praying to wake up early in the morning before church to surprise him with some breakfast in bed!!!!!! :) 

 

Welcome March

Welcome, March! My arms and heart are wide open! The fact that it is March 3 blows my mind! My last day at the vet office will be next Thursday the 11th and Monday the 15th I start my new job orientation. The 22nd is my first 3rd hour shift! And on the 25th I will finally be 22 years old. [I feel like such a baby being married to a 26 year old and having most of my friends be around that age!]

I am doing really well in A&P! I got a B on the 2nd exam and a B+ on the 3rd. The 4th is on Monday the 8th and I am excited to take it, [It's over bones and the integumentary system.] The funny thing is, I am not doing very well in my philosophy class [which is my MAJOR,] and my professor hates me. Isn't it weird how things change and grow and we are given a new perspective? 


One of my best friend's Danielle got married this past Saturday. She looked so beautiful and happy and innocent! They had been dating almost three years (one month short,) and I am so excited to watch her grow as a wife. 

I am going home to MI next weekend Friday-Sunday. It will be the last time I am home until May, after I am GRADUATED, for my best friend and sister's wedding, Peggy O! 

My sister-in-law Sarah has popped by the way. She is absolutely adorable as a pregnant woman. She had an early ultrasound and they were pretty certain she is having a boy...but it was still a little early to tell. I am so excited! I cannot wait to watch her grow in the Lord during this time period and to give birth to a beautiful baby! I don't get to see her often...but I love and adore her so much.  


I am very excited to see God work. Asa and I have been praying about searching for a new church... which is incredibly hard on him as he has been attending our church for 26 years, and while I've been there for three... I do think God may be calling us elsewhere. We visited our friends the Boyds' in Georgetown this past Sunday and it was SUCH a blessing. It is so good to be around FRESH, NEW, REAL individuals who just LOVE the Lord and us. As soon as I hugged Myranda, I felt a huge sense of relief and love wash over me for the first time in a long time! 

Anyway, back to studying. 
Thank you, Lord for your love, your PATIENCE with me as your child...and your mercy. I love you :)