relief.

The nursing program has a test called the Comprehension Predictor aka comp predictor. It's basically a mini NCLEX for us nursing students and we have to take the test twice during our 4th semester and you have to get above a certain percentage or else you have to do remediation along with the fact that if failed an incomplete replaces the grade until outside remediation is completed even after graduation. anyways through all that blah blah blah my purpose is to say that Wednesday was the first comp predictor of the semester and I passed. Joy to the world!!! It was such a relief especially after a long ACLS class all day Monday, and drama on Tuesday that had to deal with a friend of mine being in a roll over accident and spent the day in the ER waiting room(without getting clinical credit dangit!!) I wasn't planning on doing very well and was banking on the idea that I have a second chance to pass. But I passed, and I'm so relieved!! Wanna know the best part?? the predictor has to deal with the school seeing how you fall percentage wise on passing the NCLEX first try, and I'm at a 95% chance percentile. Now I've gotta still study my behind off to be able to improve and increase my percentage for next time....

behold the weekends...

nursing school is really tough, obviously-cause I complain about it all the time, so lately I've turned to living for the weekends for my sanity therefore I feel I should mention some awesome weekends I've had in the past monthish.... here are some festivities I've participated in the past couple weekends.... weekend #1. Jeni came for a visit over Presidents day weekend and it was really good to catch up and visit as well as have some adventures of course : ) we got manicures, played with Stacie and the girls, ate out a lot, and the adventure came in from venturing to Zion's in the winter weather! Thanks for coming Jeni!! weekend #2: Candice came to visit the following weekend and as always what a party!! As we went to the last 2 final basketball games, ate at pizza factory and crammed as many of us in my car as we could it felt just like the good ol days of 2 years ago : ) Other highlights of this weekend included a step show (if you don't know what that is you're missing out!!) dance party, as well as of course Toadz! along with working out hardcore followed by checkin out men at Brad's and shopping! Love you CandyA thanks for the fantastic weekend!

The last time watching the T-birds play as a student : ( Weekend #3: Our friend Kort has a friend named Kyle who wanted to come down for a weekend visit. Well the boys being boys scheduled things for Friday night out of town so we ended up making our own plans such as J.Wride concert, a house party, late night treats etc... Saturday we went running, ate brad's, shopped, and got ready for the annual polynesian concert. Mind and I have gone every year and they've changed it a lil every year so this year it was more of a formal performance but it was amazing and I love the polynesian culture so much! The boys finally decided to show up so we hung around the house watching Kyle's magic tricks, then hit up the APEX dance before a hilarious Denny's run. Sunday after church we ventured up behind the golf course to the traditional bonfire location and found the boys making our dutch oven desert. We weren't the most patient people so we excused ourselves for a hike while it finished. Dutch oven desert was followed by pizza, movie and more magic tricks at the house. Boys you're practically brotha's (haha!), thanks for the entertainment. Hilarious and random weekend : )

HAHA!! this picture is slightly sexual predatorish but I think it's hilarious shot of his mexi stash before he shaved it to go party. So the boys failed to mention for us to bring utensils so when the peach cobbler was done we all rummaged through our wallets to find appropriate cards to scrape up the food with. I ate mine with a frequent subway card, suz had a hollywood video card, who knows what Kyle and brook ate theirs with while Kort used his Casino card. Nasty! cheers to being spontaneous!

see what I mean about living for the weekend. I love weekends!

Life as we know it

I've had some really interesting experiences lately concerning well life in general, in such different examples...

1. My grandma died, as previously mentioned, at an older age and of poor health and as a family we had a pretty general consensus that even though it's hard and different to not have her around anymore it was her time and she's much happier now. Well about 2 weeks ago my uncle Paul died at age 63. He'd had a heart attack in his 40's but experienced another one in Lake Havasui that very weekend. My uncle Paul was a very energetic, fun, "hip" guy who was still considered really young and many people would have thought that he went before his time nevertheless it happened and he too is now in a much better place.

2. I attended my stake conference in Cedar that same Sunday that my uncle Paul died(not yet knowing he had passed away), where I was surprised to find out that my stake presidency was being released. This particular stake presidency had been with me for the past 3 years that I've been in Cedar and to be quite honest I have loved them! well about a year ago President Johnson was MIA at stake conference morning session when the family announced that he was in the hospital for a heart attack event (I believe) or some sort of medical problem that landed him in the hospital where they were able to discover that he had cancer. He's been undergoing treatments all this time and honestly haven't heard much as to where he's in remission or where his current status is but it was interesting to me as we were sitting in stake conference and the visiting general authority said: "No righteous man is called before his time. I feel strongly that I need to tell you all that president Johnson is going to be okay, that now is not his time and that he has other jobs and duties he has yet to do on this Earth, I don't know what they are but he is going to be okay."

3. A few days prior to this stake conference Candice was in town visiting and with it being the last week of basketball at the school we attended the game Thursday night. A bunch of us hung out after getting food and laughing like normal, catching up and hanging out with Candice when we all ended back at my house. Time had flown by and before we knew it, it was about 11:30pm and with classes the next morning people started to leave. Suzie, Brook, and Kort all needing to get home with Suz being the only driver. She was insistent that she was not taking Kort home but would take brookie home. So long story short Candice, Mindy, Kort, and myself ended up in Mindy's car to take Kort home. I was driving since Mind already had her glasses on and for some reason found myself taking a random route to take him home, we were just about to his turn when up ahead we see a 4 Runner off to the side of the road, as we approached you could see someone lying on the ground and a man who started to flag us over as we passed. Not quite sure what could be going on I was a little nervous so I sent the man of the vehicle over to check it out, and when Kort didn't come back I flipped around and we got out. We ran over to see a guy who had passed out on the side of the road, was lying in shorts (it was freezing outside), not quite sure how long he had been there. We got car blankets going and covered him up as Candice and I kicked into nurse mode. Ben, the one who had flagged us down already had 911 on the phone and the kid on the ground, Lance was responsive enough to tell us he had a medical bracelet. Candice called the mom and we tried to get him warm and comfort him while he in and out of sentences told us he has a rare heart condition and they aren't quite sure what's wrong with him other than his heart can and will stop at any given moment. Crazy! This poor kid was 21 years old and had his most recent episode before this one less than a week before. He was such a sweetheart about the whole thing though and kept saying thank you over and over again. The police and ambulance showed up and before we knew it he was hooked up to an EKG, on the stretcher, and on his way to the hospital. It was such an amazing experience and Candice and I were on an adrenaline rush. We took Kort home and went home ourselves and went to bed. The following night Candice, who had called his mom, got a text that she forwarded to us saying: Thanks again for helping Lance last night. Tell whoever it was that found him thank you too. You literally saved his life!

4. I went to dinner with some friend the other night and as we were sitting at Costa Vida and as the subject of graduation got brought up my friend Matt made a great point: when people talking about being so excited to be done with school and graduated(like me and my friends) that they just can't wait to get out there what's really THAT bad about college besides the homework?? I thought it was such a great question because I am one of those people whose been extremely looking forward to graduation and I was so surprised when Matty said that cause it was just what I needed to hear, soak up these last few months of this comfort zone that I have in a place I call 2nd home with people I love like family before life as I know it becomes real world and have to grow up a little.

5. Lastly, and probably the least detailed experience, due to privacy rules, I had the opportunity to perform CPR on a patient last week at clinicals. Rare opportunity that left me feeling a mixture of emotions mostly because as a student you're lucky to get to see a code take place let alone be the one that one doing chest compressions and watching them up close and personal try to revive someone by shocking their body. WAY COOL!! but can't say much other than that and my patient didn't survive. Although, I didn't really think about it until I called my family that night to tell them my exciting experience when my sister said "what was that like?" "oh man Ash it's such a rush.." " no what did it feel like to walk out of the room knowing you didn't save them?" "Oh.... you mean that feeling."
We was health care workers can't allow ourselves to get caught up in feeling for every person we can't save or that die under our watch because in the end, ya can't beat God. If it's that persons time it's their time and no medicine we give will change that.

Basically, all these experiences have got me thinking about lots of things lately and I've once again been reminded of some very important lessons I seem to have forgotten: that everything in life happens for a reason, there truly are no such things as coincidences! and more importantly sometimes is that people come into our lives for a reason-to teach us, to help us, or to have us help them in order for us to learn something in return. Many time these people don't stay in our lives for long periods of time but could only talk to us in a store, a class, or smile at us on the street saying all the right things we needed to hear. Life is about timing and timing truly is everything just like the song says : ) The right or wrong time can make the biggest difference in someones life, and that when it comes to death it may be hard to get over but realizing that no righteous person is taken before their time can be the most comforting thing to remember. And there is no such thing as life as we know it, because life as we know it can change at any second for the better or worse, but in the end change is a good thing and we have to embrace it or else we're stuck being bitter instead of truly living. So live a little, love a lot, and forgive, and take advantage of opportunities presented because they truly are occurring for a reason : )

Today while the sun shines...

i LOVE the sunshine!! nothing like a sunny day to get ya in a good mood : )
today I am....
-proud of myself for only having 1 diet coke so far

-looking forward to Spring break this weekend!!
1. Vegas trip with this lady then...

2.Home to squeeze these cuties, and see the rest of the fam!!


-blogging instead of studying about things like A-Fib, A-Flutter,Degree blocks, PVC's etc... for my quiz tomorrow

-grateful to be feeling better after a weekend cold scare.

-wishing basketball season wasn't over

-thinking about how I'm gonna miss these days before I know it

-driving with the windows down & sunglasses on

-wanting a pedicure and full body massage.

-grateful to be me, and have the life I have!!

thank you sunshine, stick around for a while would ya?

change is a good thing

I sure hope so cause 6 inches later...



that's right a whole whopping 6 inches gone. here'e to feeling 10 pounds lighter : )

MISSionaries

I've been missing these two missionaries a lot lately, although I must admit it's going pretty fast when I'm not thinking about it. Taylor is almost out of the MTC and Jacqui is already over in Chile. Although I still miss not being able to text or call Jacqui up everyday like I used to and it was especially weird last week when I was home for doctors appointments and Taylor wasn't around to harass and tease me like normal.

Tay mailed me this picture and go figure I cried when I looked at it, I was so excited that they saw each other at the MTC and also that they got a picture of it!!

Missin you Missionaries!!

EP

so for random reasons I am currently home for 3 days, and while I was here my dad found an external hard drive that I had all my "stuff" put on it from when my laptop that crashed last year. Well of course I have an addiction with old pictures and I was immediately hooked for the next couple hours instead of sleeping transferring some really good ol memories off the hard drive to my laptop now as well as backing up files from this one, anywho....

I used to work at a place called Emerald Pointe. worked there for about 2 years and while I was there I met some amazing people and had some incredible memories made, I was there so much working, especially when I was the med supervisor, that I literally felt like family. I knew majority of the residents family by name and face, I knew their doctors, med schedules, and much more. But besides these incredible and quite often hilarious people that I got to care for I worked with the most amazing staff!!! I seriously loved my co-workers so much and last night as I was going through all these old photos off the hard drive I came across some memories of those people that are just worth posting...

First of course is: Bestie Jaymes. I love this kid. Seriously, I had days where I wouldn't have made it through if it weren't for him and his craziness! He always knew how to make me laugh, but most importantly he knew how to work and we worked well together. I'll never forget the time when he changed my voicemail and for months when people heard his voice and "if this is emerald pointe, stop calling", and would repeatedly call back wondering who the heck it was. One day I was pushing a lady in her wheelchair back to her room after having been in the dining room with the two of us and she said, "you and Jaymes have a lot of fun together don't you?" caught off guard I laughed and said "Yeah we really do". her response:"I like it. makes it more fun for us around here and you can tell he just loves you!". haha, I just love him too!! miss you bestie!

Secondly: Debbie D!! our receptionist there that worked her butt off!! she was always on top of things always willing to help anyone out in any way that she could! Plus she did it with style, and she always had a way of making me laugh as well. We'd have pow-wows in her office and vent then we'd both feel better and go on with her day. Debbie was not a morning person though, and because of that my favorite thing to do was when she got to work at 8 and I'd been there since 6 I would go up front and sing the song off of Singing in the Rain "Good morning, Good morning! it's great to stay up late, good morning, good morning to you!!" etc.. She's such an amazing lady and I truly miss her as well.
Thirdly: Carol : ) where would I have been without my partner in crime!! She was full of energy and fun all the time (as pictured here as mop head...don't worry the mop was a fresh new one), she would sing along with, talk in accents, and would be there whenever I needed her no matter if she was in the middle of anything or not. Plus it was always fun for the two of us to gang up on her conservative husband and see who could make him feel awkward first when he'd come in the building. One time she even dyed his hair Easter egg colors. She's awesome, and would always encourage me to follow my dreams referring to me as nurse Brittany : ) love and miss her too.
Fourthly: Candy! This girl is incredible, obviously, and I think it's so amazing that emerald Pointe is what brought us together, cause that's how we met when she trained me on my second day of work back in memory care and we bonded over how we were both dating Brandon's. Crazy how life brings people into your life cause I needed her then and now years later I still need her today. She was an amazing c0-worker to work with then and is now an amazing nurse! We've had some amazing times together, both as work and outside of work and can't wait to make more candya... : )
Fifthly: Rob Shupe. This guy is amazing! I look up to this guy so much, and always thought he had amazing qualities that all guys should have. He was such a hard worker but knew how to have fun as well. Funny memories with rob is taking spoon shots of hot sauce just because, then putting some in a brownie and trying to get a girl to swallow it; hiding his phone then getting a phone call from it saying he was tom the debt collector-not knowing I had his number saved in my phone already; him discovering that my nose moves when I talk and recording it as 4 in the morning once when I was there late on Halloween doing the monthly MAR's; having "heart to hearts" as he would call them in my office when he could tell I needed to talk and would sit in and shrink me on my life and give me great advice that I'll never forget; and many more which usually included laughing, cause that's what he'd make me do, and sometimes cry during our chats : ) haha but he's such a great person and I'm so happy for him now cause he moved on to Arizona to Physician Assistant school, and he's going to be so good at that!
Now I met many more people who I didn't get pictures of so no special shout out to you, sorry! but there are a few more group shots that are still pretty entertaining...


Although I can't say that I'll ever miss those gnarly looking brown polo shirts I do miss everything about EP, thanks for the good times and the memories! We had a lot of fun surprisingly, but when it's as hard of a job as we had, we have to help each other through!!