Proud to be an American

 Well it is currently Sunday morning at 0115 and Im working on the medicine floor tonight. Lucky me. But actually it hasn't been too bad of a night. I have three patients that are surprisingly all pretty chill, so I would say it's a good float. This week has been a little mix of everything - work, fun in St. George, Fourth of July and SCHOOL. My two month break is over :,( so Im back on the grind of school and so far Im crushing it. Last night I finished all my homework for the week and tonight Ive already got one assignment done for next week. Trying to get ahead of the game bc mom and I are headed on a little trip next week woohoo. Anyways - enough boring stuff...

Monday morning I was still in st. george so we partied on the green valley loop. Felt good to get a good grind in on those gnarly hills. 

And worth it for all the fun downhills as usual. 

Jackie was made a missionary the night before and what better way to start a mission than a P day?! He had a few little meetings throughout the day, but he played basketball with his buddies, we went to blaze for lunch and Im pretty sure he took a good nap that afternoon while mom and I shopped. Buffalo pizza is always the move. 

We also hopped on over to crumbl to grab the new benson Boone cookie. Lowkey a good cookie. #moonbeamicecream

Picking up some last minute mission stuff and Jack is officially on the board at the suit shop! I still can't believe he'll be on a plane to South Africa in a few weeks. 

Thursday was my first day back in clinic. It's an interesting little clinic - a lot different than my last rotation. And let's just say if conservatives were as loud-mouthed, narcissistic and stupid as liberals - then this rotation would not go well. BUT since Im a professional, non-confrontational person I will be able to get through the next two months and hopefully maybe learn a thing or two (about medicine not politics or religion). 

The morning of the fourth I got a good four miles in then hung out by the pool with Madi before we got some Costa Vida (as seen in my work elevator selfie). Took a good lil nap then headed into work that night. It's not always the funnest thing having to work on holidays but almost always the days spent at work on holidays are some of the best. And as you can imagine the Fourth of July spent with vets was a good one. Ive been in on a few interviews recently with my boss for future nurses and one of the questions we ask is "why do you want to work veterans?" Ive been thinking about this because when I first got this job I have no clue what I said to this question. I don't think I ever thought of "veterans" as the population I wanted to work with when I graduate. BUT here I am three years later (pretty much to the day, I started at the VA July 5th 2022) and I feel so much gratitude to take care of our nation's veterans. The ones who were willing to actually fight for our freedom. When I walked into work on the fourth we had a whopping two patients. Being a surgical floor we usually aren't busy on holidays because no surgeon wants to work on their day off duh. Well sadly my patient had PTSD especially surrounding artillery and therefore fireworks. So he was happily asleep with his earbuds and pain pills before the fireworks started that night. Luckily the one other patient on the floor (he was a fresh above the leg amputation) requested to be taken outside to watch the fireworks.  

We obviously went all out haha. Tina and I popped the popcorn and we were outside waiting for the rice-eccles stadium to light their fireworks at 9:30pm (that's what the schedule online said) well funny story - we waited and waited and waited. We had eaten all the popcorn and still no fireworks. 

An HOUR later at 10:30pm we had front row seats to a good little firework show. I played a "'Merica" playlist from my phone and Brian, Tina, Mr. Woods and I enjoyed the show. Mr. Woods was very gracious that we took the time to take him outside, but really we all were gonna go outside anyways. Im grateful for my job and Im grateful that 3.5 years ago I was assigned to do my capstone at the VA. I have no clue where I would be if that didn't happen. I love working with the vets - yes they have bad mouths, dirty minds and a lot of them stink, but Ive learned a lot from them and Im grateful for what they've done for our country. 

I love getting my pictures back and this week I got some rad ones. All about Jackie per usual...

A week ago today marked 6 months since Erin passed away. I found this photo this week going through a friends instagram page and I just had to screenshot it. I don't know if Ive ever seen this picture ahah. don't ask what we were doing because I don't know, but I do know we look like babies. I think about Erin everyday. Memories good and bad, things I wish I could talk to her about, plans I wish I could make with her and how excited I am to see her again one day. Its weird how it feels like just yesterday I was with her, but in the same breath I feel like it was all just a dream like none of it was real and it was all so dang long ago. I don't know. I don't cry as much anymore unless I really think about it (like right now) (hopefully no one comes to this corner of the nurses station right now or they'll think I'm a weirdo crying at work at 2am). Anyways - I loved finding some random photos this week of us that I didn't even know existed. I just hate time. Im afraid with time I'll forget all the memories or the photos I have will disappear and there won't be anymore memories or photos to have. What I got is what I got and that's scary and just sad. Maybe this is a 2am ramble or this just describes the weird thoughts and feelings that come with the ongoing process of grief. Im way too sentimental and it really just does me no good haha. Well, that's it. Happy Sunday to everyone - I will be finishing off my shift and going straight to bed. Then coming straight back here to work. living the American dream. goodnight!