The Proposal

Here's a paragraph of the proposal from Jade's perspective...

We went up to Yosemite and hiked up Half Dome. If you've been then you'll know that to do this trip in one day is quite a hike... 10-12 hours and 4800 vertical feet. We got up early and headed up the hill. After sweatin' buckets (it was warm despite being at altitude...) we made it up to the infamous "cables" at the base of the final climb. They recommend using gloves for this, we didn't have any. Fortunately, there is a pile of 150 or so that folks have discarded over the summer so we found a right and left and headed up. If you've never seen it it's quite steep and intimidating. Not much keeping ya from about a 3/4 mile drop with lots of time to think about it... anyways, we made it up there and after some lunch and me catching my breath, we took some time to look around. As expected, the view was well worth the trip, truly amazing. While we took it all in Mahea noticed that she was missing one of her recently acquired gloves... The gears in my head started to turn and when I got the chance I wandered away a little to hunt for it. Sure enough I found one lonely left handed glove, slipped the ring on the glove finger and made my way back to her. She said yes!

Crazy few months!

So, it has been a crazy few months, and I have been really bad about keeping up my blog. I finished my first semester of nursing school at the end of July. I was really busy between classes (and studying) and clinicals. To add to everything Jade came home from deployment in early July. It was difficult adjusting to having him home and learning how to balance my time between hanging out with him and getting all my school work done. But, I made it through finals and had the whole month of August to hang out and play. Jade was able to take quite a bit of time off as well and we took a few trips to Colorado and camping in Mammoth and Yosemite. We had an amazing time.

While we were in Yosemite we hiked up to the top of Half Dome! It was amazing, but if I were to do it again, I don't think I would do it as a day hike. It took us just about the whole 10 hours and 4 liters of water (per person) to do the trip... but, it was WELL worth it! Once we had a bit of time to recover from the 5 hour (4800 ft elevation gain) hike to the top, Jade pulled out a beautiful ring and proposed! It was amazing!

I am now back in classes and clinicals and the fun and relaxing times of August are over. But things are going well and I am learning a lot. Today I was in the ER were I got to start 2 IVs and push IV meds. It was awesome! I was so nervous starting the first IV I was shaking. I got into the vein, but when I tried to push the catheter in I blew the vein, so the nurse had to do it again in another spot :(. Before my shift was over I did get another shot and was able to get a usable IV started... YAY! I am so excited to have gotten those first ones over with! Starting to feel like a real nurse (sort of ;-). Another day at the hospital tomorrow... who knows what that will bring!

Clinicals... week 1

Last week was my first week in the hospital as a 'student nurse'! Every week we are at Kaiser on Thursdays and Fridays. Each day we are there from 6:30am-12:30pm (then we do a post clinical from 1-3), which means I have to wake up WAY too early! I have been setting my alarm for 4:30am so I can get out of bed by 5... ugh! My first day I was on the med-surg floor, I was assigned my own patient, but was paired up with a classmate so we could help each other with our patients. It was very intimidating being thrown in, but I have a great clinical instructor who is helping us out a lot. Basically my first day consisted of bed baths and changing sheets... nothing too exciting. Day 2 however, was much more interesting. This was because I got to go down to Interventional Radiology and shadow a nurse down there. Basically I asked a lot of questions about procedures and meds while watching 2 angiograms. It was really interesting to see how the doctors use the wires and catheters to move through the arteries to see where there are blocks. They used the contrast to take pictures of the arteries as the blood moved through to assess what exactly was happening and what the next step would be. Sometimes if they can fix the problem right there they will, but in the two cases I witnessed the patients will have to come back for follow up care.

Stay tuned for this weeks update... Hopefully there will be time to write one! ;-)

Jade's 30th

Jade has his golden brithday a little over a week ago... he turned 30 on the 30th! This would have been the 3rd brithday (of his) that we had been dating, but I had never gotten to celebrate on with him. So, for this birthday, everything lined up just perfectly for me to surprise him! The ship had pulled into Pearl Harbor on the Thursday before his birthday, it just so happened that I didn't have class that Friday... so, Thursday night I decided to fly out to Hawaii for the weekend and surprise him! I had gotten a hold of one of his friends and worked a plan out with him. Although Jade was begining to get a little upset because his friend Jim was ruining the plans Jade had made, he eventually forgave him when I walked up while they were sitting down for lunch. I couldn't have asked for it to work out any more smoothly. Though it was a very short visit, we had a great time and it was so great to see him. We went to the Cheesecake factory for his birthday dinner, then went walking along the beach.

Unfortunately I had to head back to San Diego the next day to resume classes (and take midterms no less), but Jade has been enjoying Hawaii ever since. They should be getting back on the ship in a couple days, and back in San Diego not too long after that!!!

Extra Credit

Okay, so my Biochemistry class is composed of a bunch of whiners! My friend Erica (also a Grad student) and I are always amazed at how little responsibility our classmates take for their studies and how much blame they put on the teacher. The sad part is I've noticed it in other classes as well... Anyway, so many of my classmates complained that they were getting bad grades and that our teacher wasn't curving, wasn't giving homework or extra credit, blah blah blah... mind you this is a one credit class that meets once a week for 1 hour 25 minutes... not much time for assignments and grading and such. Maybe it's because I am doing well in the class, but I feel bad for our teacher, who got thrown into the class 3 weeks into the semester. But, out of all this complaining, we did get an extra credit assignment that I thought was pretty fun, so I thought I would share it will you all...

It is a word search puzzle, you are looking for books of the Bible...

There are 30 books of the Bible in this paragraph. Can you find them? This is a most remarkable puzzle. It was found by a gentleman in an airplane seat pocket, on a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu, keeping him occupied for hours. He enjoyed it so much, he passed it on to some friends... One friend from Illinois worked on this while fishing from his john boat. Another friend studies it while playing his banjo; Elaine Taylor, a columnist friend, was so intrigued by it she mentioned it in her weekly newspaper column. Another friend judges the job of solving this puzzle so involving; she brews a cup of tea to help her nerves. There will be some names that are really easy to spot. That's a fact. Some people, however, will soon find themselves in a jam, especially since the books names are not necessarily capitalized. Truthfully, from answers we get, we are forced to admit it usually takes a minister or a scholar to see some of them at the worst. Research has shown that something in our genes is responsible for the difficulty we have in seeing the books in the paragraph. During a recent fund raising event, which featured this puzzle, the Alpha Delta Phi lemonade booth set a new record. The local paper, The Chronicle, surveyed over 200 patrons who reported that this puzzle was one of the most difficult they had ever seen. As Daniel Humana humbly puts it, "The books are all right here in plain view hidden from sight." Those able to find all of them will hear great lamentations from those who have to be shown. One revelation that may help is that books like Timothy and Samuel may occur without their numbers. Also, keep in mind, that punctuation and spaces in the middle are normal. A chipper attitude will help you compete really well against those who claim to know the answers. Remember, there is no need for a mad exodus, there really are 30 books of the Bible lurking somewhere in this paragraph waiting to be found. God Bless!

In case you are like me and don't know all the books of the Bible...

Old Testament:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ester, Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micha, Nahum, Habakkukm Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

New Testament:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation

(It may be easier to do if you print it out... hopefully I didn't make any spelling errors that will effect the outcome!) Enjoy!

HAC

So, I am getting really bad at this posting thing... Things have been really busy and so much has been going on that I can not find a way to express everything in words. However, I do have some great news from overseas... Jade made HAC this weekend. I believe it stands for Helicopter Aircraft Commander (he may laugh at me, cause I could be totally wrong), but basically the comes a point in their carrier that they have to become a HAC to keep flying. Jade was coming to that point. As I understand it, he basically has to go up against a room full of his superiors who are throwing difficult questions and scenarios at him which he has to quickly respond to in the 'correct' way. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun if you ask me. He has been preparing for this since he left for cruise in Jan, so it's a pretty big deal. He had a few murder boards (practice boards with peers) and felt like he did pretty well, so he was hoping to make HAC before pulling into Thailand, having a big weight lifted from his shoulders ready to party. However, the first board didn't go quite as well as he had hoped for... seems like a very stressful, high pressure situation, and he didn't pass. He is in the majority with this one as far as I can tell, it seems like it takes a couple tries for most of them to pass. But he had his second board this weekend, passed, has his check ride, passed that and was having his first flight as HAC today (I think, the days are all messed up)!

At our last FRG (family readiness group) meeting we began planning for homecoming! We are half way through cruise and we are all getting extremely excited for their return. We have been warned not to expect or plan too much for the first few days they get home, as the unloading process takes a long time and they will be very tired... and hopefully wanting to spend some quality time with us! 3 months down... 3 months to go!

Physiology Fun!

I didn't expect much from Physiology lab. Most labs I have taken in my life are pretty much the same. You have some fun exercises, but mostly people try to get in and get out as quickly as possible... and many of my classmates still do, but I have enjoyed the time I have in lab. Maybe it's because I am older (about 8 years older... ugh) or maybe I just enjoy what we are doing. Today for example, I had to pee in a cup 5 times in 2 hours! Who can argue with that kind of fun!

Ok, maybe that wasn't so much fun, but it is pretty cool to see the various things you can learn about the way your body is functioning by something that up till now seemed so simple. As one girl in my class put is, "I just pee, I don't need to know how it happens." Using test strips like these... you can test kidney function by looking at pH levels, concentrations of certain ions in urine and glucose in the urine (a major flag for diabetes).

Last week we took samples of our own blood (with a simple pin prick, and yes mom it was a new needle) and got to test blood types. I am finding that many of the other students are a bit squeamish about things like needles or urine (even their own), and I am not sure how they are going to handle being around other people's bodily fluids. I on the other hand think it's fascinating and can't wait to start seeing these things in real patients!