I know the blog posts this year have been far and few. Lately I’ve been getting emails and messages asking for updates. Since I stopped blogging altogether, it’s been hard to start up again because I feel like I’m playing catch up. Every time I start writing I get stuck with what to say because there’s so much. A lot has gone on in the past few months and I know I won’t be able to fit it all in one post. That’s something I had to realize while starting this one. However, there is one thing that trumps everything else.
The most exciting news is that I became an aunt! My sister was originally due September 7. However, on August 15 her water broke. She went into the hospital and after waiting all day, she was finally induced. It lasted through the night, but I’m happy to say that she delivered a healthy baby girl. Avery Jean was born August 16, 2013 at 5:56 AM; she weighed in at 6 lbs. 15 oz. and is 20 ½ inches long.
My sister came home from the hospital yesterday. She took 12 weeks off at her work, so she’s been hanging out at home. I’m really enjoying spending time with mom and baby! Being an aunt is a very enjoyable experience. I’m so excited for the months and years to come when I get to spoil her rotten and not feel bad when I hand her back to mom! I posted a couple of pictures below for you to see.
Only 12 hours old… So precious!
First day home from the hospital!
Now that I’m getting a rhythm back, I’ll definitely catch you up with what I’ve been doing and feeling all summer.
Jenni
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein
It’s been a long and tiring past couple months. I was completely engrossed in school at St. Thomas University and have also been fighting multiple infections off and on. Spring semester finally ended this past week and I’m now a free woman! I decided to take the summer off of classes and give myself a well-deserved break. The campus is 30 minutes away from my house (without traffic) and I use a bus service called Metro mobility to take me there and back. The rides are usually long (sometimes longer than the time I spend in school) and it was getting hard on me physically to attend four days a week. I ended up withdrawing from one of my classes in order to focus on my health and body. I was becoming increasingly stressed, which didn’t help my immune system.
For months at a time I battled frequent UTIs and was put on a countless number of antibiotics. This ultimately landed me in the hospital in March (my last blog post explains this). By being on antibiotics I also got other infections in my body because they killed all my good bacteria. Needless to say, I’m finally infection free for the first time since October 2012. Antibiotics and infections drag me down quite a bit which ultimately led to my inability to focus on school or anything else for that matter.
Unfortunately, I decided I’m not going to attend St. Thomas this fall. It’s too far to drive using Metro and they don’t have any online classes (the less I have to be there during the week to better). I’m not sure what I’m going to do in the fall. I am looking to volunteering a lot this summer and see where that leads me. Maybe an opportunity will arise from there. I just want to get out, meet new people, and help others at the same time.
The best part is I’m able to get outside and enjoy the sun (when it’s not raining). I love taking my dog Brody for walks around the neighborhood. (Most of my nurses like the exercise too!) I’m also going to start reading a book for fun. I say it that way because every time I’ve wanted to just read a good book, I felt guilty that I wasn’t reading my books for school instead. Same reason I hadn’t been updating my blog-too many assignments to write on the computer.
Now that I’m searching for things to do for the summer, let me know if you have any suggestions on things I can do to fill my time. I already have plans to update my resume and clean out “junk drawers”. The other day I had time to play a game and yesterday I painted for the first time in months. Needless to say my life is a little more stress-free at the moment.
Well, I'd like to update everyone on how I'm doing. I just got home from a weekend vacation stay at the hospital. Last week I was having some pretty intense migraines and also a rash on my abdomen. It got so bad Friday so I went in to the ER to get it checked out. They couldn't find what was wrong so they admitted me. It turns out I had a really bad infection that was causing everything. After a few days of pain meds and antibiotics, was discharged today. I came home from my vacation 100% better! I'm glad that I decided to go in to get checked out because I was contemplating just sticking it out. I plan on spending the rest of today and tomorrow relaxing and then going back to St. Thomas on Tuesday. It feels good to be home…
Jenni
February has completely gotten away from me.I started classes at the University of St.
Thomas on the fourth.It has been an
enlightening experience so far.I love
my classes and teachers.I’m taking
Public Communications and Mass Communications Research Methods.They are both required within my major, which
is Communications and Journalism.I’m
very excited happy that I chose such a great school. The campus is gorgeous and
I look forward to going there every day.Although the schedule was a challenge at first, I’m getting better at
managing it.I go to class Monday
through Thursday; I’m not used to being out that much.However, it’s definitely getting me prepared
for having a job in the future.
The hardest part so far has been transportation.I take a bus service called Metro
mobility.It’s a rideshare program where
you call and set up your rides, stating what time you’d like to be picked up at
and need to be there by.They determine
based on what other people have scheduled what fits best with each driver.Unfortunately, a computer does all the work
and doesn’t calculate loading and unloading or waiting for passengers.They are on a tight schedule and it makes it
hard to ride with them.The only good
thing is that I can get bus tickets through the state which means I don’t have
to pay for them. They charge four dollars for peak time (6-9 AM and 3-6 PM) and
three dollars for nonpeak.
Since I’m gone at school four days out of the week, it
doesn’t leave much time for other appointments or homework.Hence the reason I haven’t been able to do
any blog posts lately.(I’ve been
working on this one for a while now!) Nursing has gotten a little better.We hired two nurses, one full-time and one
part-time however, there are still some holes in the schedule.Aside from that, a few other people have been
willing to fill in on open shift days.That’s always nice, especially because we get more back up that
way.Although, that also means I’m busy
that day training in the new ones.
This is only the beginning of my blog post… Stay tuned in
the next couple days for the other half.
As a result of my injury I am on a ventilator and have 24/7
nursing to help with all of my needs and assist with my cares. There are some
that work full time (36 hours a week) and some that work part-time.Every nurse works a 12 hour shift; some work days
which is 7 AM to 7 PM and some work nights which is 7 PM to 7 AM.
Over the past couple of months we have been having some
shortage of nursing.First, one of my
day nurses hurt her back while trying to adjust me in my wheelchair.She worked three twelve hour shifts a week.Then, one of my night nurses who worked the
same amount of hours a week had to leave in the middle of the night because of
a family emergency.Directly after she
got really sick and ended up in the hospital. After all of this, my other
full-time day nurse put in her two week notice.
Whenever we don’t have a nurse, my mom or my sister takes
over and steps into that role.Sometimes
it’s nice not to have a nurse around and just have family however it’s a lot to
take on when there are so many holes in the schedule.If we have difficulty finding people to fill
in my mom ends up doing multiple shifts in a row; that includes staying up all
night and then all day.My sister knows
all of my cares and it’s nice when she’s able to help out.I’m very grateful to have both of them there
for me in case a nurse doesn’t show up, is late, or calls in.
One thing that’s difficult for me is when we desperately
need somebody and the agency sends out people to work the shift that I haven’t
met or haven’t trained.I direct all my
own cares and in those instances become the “trainer”.I try my best but sometimes it’s hard to
explain something to someone without being able to show them or have them see
it first.There are times where I get
frustrated because of its difficulty.It’s
not easy to manage a team of nurses, along with figuring out a schedule that
works best with everybody including me.
Although my night nurse is feeling much better and back
at work, we are now searching for a full-time and part-time day nurse, as well
as a part-time night nurse.If you or
someone you know is an LPN or RN in the Twin Cities area looking for hours and
may be interested in working for me, please email me and let me know.I’m also looking for backup PCA’s (no
experience needed).
Imagine being on your computer and all of the sudden an
advertisement pops up on your screen.It
starts out looking like it’s checking your computer for viruses and tells you
that you have 38 infections on your computer (that includes the virus).Then it gives you an option to buy
anti-spyware to get rid of the so-called “viruses” that it found.What do you do?”Do you try to close out of it thinking it’s a
scam?Do you click the buy button, pay
for the program and hope that it gets rid of the viruses?Or do you click the shutdown button on your
computer?
The answer is the latter.Immediately shut your computer down.The message that popped up is actually a virus itself.As soon as you start clicking on the pop-up
itself, the farther it digs itself deeper into your computer and the more time
it has to do so.I know all of this
firsthand because last week this happened to me.The first thing I did was try to close out of
it.Then I tried to remove it from my
computer start up menu, but couldn’t find it.Luckily I knew someone who knows computers and asked him about it right
away.He told me that it was a virus and
to shut my computer down. The next day he came by and picked my computer up for
me.He took it and had to clean it out
to get rid of the virus.He told me that
it was embedded in my computer really deep and it took a while to clear it out.Because it required so much time, he had my
computer for a couple days.This was
extremely hard for me because it’s the device that gives me the most
independence.
I use speech recognition software called Dragon
NaturallySpeaking to run my computer.I
can’t use other people’s computers because I only have it installed on mine.Whenever my computer has to be fixed, it’s
very difficult for me because of how much independence I get from using
it.I’m able to accomplish a lot by
voice commands.My computer allows me to
have independence and the ability to do things on my own, without the help of
others.
Independence is really important and vital for someone in
my situation.Not being able to move
prevents me from doing any sort of physical activities so I rely on my mind to
keep me busy.I don’t like wasting the
day away by watching TV; it makes me feel very lazy.It feels good when I accomplish things like
writing a blog or working on my resume.This is also why I like to get out of the house as much is possible,
even if I don’t necessarily have to go anywhere for anything.
Needless to say, I got my computer back and it works great now. To sum it all up, it’s very frustrating when anything
happens to my computer because it is a source of independence for me.It provides me with the stimulation I need to
prevent me from getting depressed or in an unhealthy routine.This is also why getting out of my house is
so important.
One thing that I really enjoy doing is playing
games.I like all types including card,
board and strategy games.Some of my
favorites are Scrabble, Sequence, and Cribbage.I also like to play a few online like Words with Friends on
Facebook.I don’t really like individual
games like solitaire; I prefer to play against somebody else. I’m really
competitive when it comes to playing against others.I usually play against my nurses, family or
boyfriend Blake.
For Christmas I received a couple of new games that I had
never played before.One is called
Quiddler and the other is called Qwirkle.I like both of them a lot but lately I’ve been addicted to playing Qwirkle.It is a strategy game where you get points by
making lines of either colors or shapes using wood blocks.Okay I just read that description back and I
made it sound like a kid’s game but it’s definitely not-it’s quite challenging.
When I play games with cards in them I use a cardholder
that my dad made.That way I can have my
hand spread out in front of me and not have to have anyone hold them.Usually I’ll tell someone which card to play
(or other game pieces) and they’ll help me.As far as shuffling, dealing, cutting the deck and picking out game
pieces I’m totally fine with others helping me out and a lot of times I’ll
direct people how I want things done when it’s my turn to do so.
Now that I have my dog Brody, I’m realizing how much fun
it is to watch him play games.Sometimes
I’ll direct my nurses to throw his toys for him to fetch.He also loves to chase after a laser light.Even when someone puts their hand inside the
basket where the light is he instantly looks to the floor.It’s hilarious to watch especially because he
knows where it’s coming from so if they stop he will look directly at the
person with the light.
I’m also finding myself going outside when it’s 10°F to
take Brody for his walks.Even if it’s
just down the street and back at least he gets a little exercise.I feel good when I know that he’s getting out;
also, it’s good for me as well!Although
Minnesota winters can be very chilly, I don’t mind a little fresh air.I’m really glad I got Brody.He’s been great for helping me with
independence and getting out of the house more.
If you have any suggestions on games you think I would
like let me know. Jenni
I was trying to figure out the reason why it was so difficult for me to write a blog post these last couple of months. I kept saying to myself that I’ve been really busy with school and homework. However, I can’t really say that anymore since I am done with classes at Normandale and moving on to St. Thomas in a month. I was in this cycle of starting new blog posts about things that were going on but never finished them.
I get hundreds of page views a day on my blog from people all over the world. Some people have found a link to my blog on another webpage. Some know my blog address by heart and just type it in to the address bar. Some have the address in their favorites menu. Many type something they’re looking for into a search page and then randomly click on a link to my blog, realize it’s not what they want, and instantly click the back button. However, there are those few that do the latter and instead of clicking the back button may end up getting sucked in to my story and thoughts and spend hours reading all of my past blog posts. Some people get inspired or have a similar story in which they comment or contact me.
I’ve met a lot of people through my blog, many that I can call friends and talk to on a regular basis. I’ve also helped people in different ways through the things I write about and what I share. Many people look forward to reading what I have to say and even check it every day to see if I’ve made a post. Knowing all of this, knowing how much I inspire others, knowing that people are out there waiting for me to make a post so they can relate to it or learn from it or be inspired by it or share it with their friends and family, was making me wonder why it has been so difficult for me to write a blog post.
To be honest sometimes I would feel obligated to write a post, even though I love writing all together. Whether it is about me or others it should never feel like a "chore" to do. Then sometimes I would get bothered by my feelings (which I shouldn’t be). I know I should just let my emotions free, but it’s hard to do being that it makes me so much more vulnerable than I already am.
I’ve developed my writing tremendously over the past few years. I used to dread writing classes in high school. Probably because we had to write research papers and book reports involving pages and pages of never-ending quotes from different sources. Now things are different because I can write about whatever I want; nonfiction is my favorite. I’ve thought about writing for magazines or having a column in the newspaper. That’s the reason I chose the University of St. Thomas to go to because I’ll be majoring in communications and journalism. The job spectrum for this degree is very widespread.
To some it all up, I’m not going to let it bother me whether or not I’m able to write a blog post. I’m just going to keep producing as they come. I may have moments of increased posts and I may have times where I seem to be off the grid. Whichever it may be, always remember that although one of the reasons I blog is to help myself be able to vent my emotions I always have my readers in mind.
Jenni
"View your emotions in a non-ordinary way: as vehicles for transformation rather than simply as feelings that make you happy or miserable. Expect them to test your heart; that’s the point. What you go through-what we all go through-has a greater purpose. Always, the imperative of emotional freedom is for the love in us to evolve."
-Judith Orloff
My first blog post of 2012 ended with me saying “so here’s
to the new year-2012.May it bring more joy
and fulfillment to my life.I hope to
accomplish many more things and continue growing.”
Well, it brought all of the things I hoped it would and
more.The biggest thing I accomplished was
graduating Normandale community college with my Associates in communications.I also got accepted to the University of St.
Thomas and will be attending this spring.I’m excited to be moving on and starting new adventures Avenue campus.
On August 29 Blake and I celebrated one year
together.This is the joy and
fulfillment I was looking for in my life.Love is amazing and I’m happy that I found it.I couldn’t ask for a better person to spend
my life with.Sometimes I find myself
drifting in and out of dreams about the future.
On another note, this year was also the 10 year
anniversary of my accident, November 1, 2012.I also celebrated on this day but it was my life.I’m glad to have lived through everything I’ve
been through.I believe that all of the
things that have happened to me have been for a reason.I’m grateful to be alive and able to inspire
and help others.
I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but my plan
for this year is to keep on keeping on.The way things are going now couldn’t be better, so I look forward to
continuing with life as is.I do have
goals that I’ve set for myself that have to do with therapy and movement.One is to become stronger and be able to do
more at once.It’s hard to push the
limits with which my body is comfortable, but I’ve done it before and I know I
can do it again.
So here’s to another year-2013.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! I know it's been a couple of months since I posted anything, but I want you to know that I'm still here. I'm not really sure where to begin because so many days have gone by and I have a lot of things to say. I can't possibly fit it all in one blog post because it would be way too long to read. So I'm just going to give it to as I'm able to.
Yesterday I went to my boyfriend, Blake's parents house Christmas Eve day. It was a lot of fun seeing his family and meeting members that I hadn't met before. We ate lunch, opened presents, and then played the dice game (if you don't know how to play you can Google it!) After that we came back to my house where my family was hosting Christmas Eve.
Today after I got up we opened presents as a family. I've had a little downtime and then more family are coming over in a little bit to celebrate Christmas again. After the holidays I tend to get worn out from talking and all the people. I even lose my voice sometimes.
I will back very soon for more blog posts. I'm on break now from school so I have a little more free time.
