A hug from heaven.

So, here’s what has been going through my mind since April 28, 2011.  Why that date?  It’s the day I got my acceptance letter into nursing school from OU, which I totally WAS NOT expecting.  At the end of the summer I will be giving up a career.  I’ve been a cop for the past 10 years.  It’s what I know.  It’s what I’m good at.  It’s where I’m comfortable.  I could do it with my eyes closed, well not really because that wouldn’t be very safe, but you get my point.  At the end of the summer I will be unemployed for the first time in my life since I was 16.  At the end of the summer, my family of six will be transitioning from two incomes down to one. 

Holy cow, it makes my heart skip a beat just typing those words. 

My husband is fantastic.  We have been preparing for these upcoming changes as much as humanly possible.  We have been financially getting ready for this transition since I began taking my nursing pre-reqs about 19 months ago.  However, I feel that all these changes are on my shoulders.  Lately I have felt the weight of the world coming down on me and I haven’t even started nursing school yet. 

If I fail, it’s on me.  If I can’t do it, it’s on me.  If I freak out and change my mind a year from now, it’s on me.  My husband would tell you otherwise and that we're in this together.  He has been amazingly supportive during this journey and there’s no way I could have come this far without him.  But when it comes down to it, I will be the one studying.  I will be the one taking exams that determine my fate.  I will be the one to pass or fail and it’s not just me that it will affect, it’s my entire family.  So like I said, IT’S ALL ON ME!

When people ask me if I’m ready for school to start, I say yes, but with a giant knot in my stomach.  Yes, I’m ready to get my feet wet.  I’m ready to get into a routine and figure out how this is all going to play out.  But it still makes me queasy when someone asks me about it. 

Now to my heaven sent hug…

Many of you reading this blog are from the Tulsa area.  If you are, then you probably know who I got my hug from.  The Tulsa Police Department lost one of our best in January, Jennifer Mansell.  Jen was diagnosed with breast cancer about ten years ago.  She fought hard, endured many grueling surgeries and treatments and was eventually in remission for several years. 

Her cancer came back a few years ago.  Once again Jen fought hard and courageously, but ultimately Jen had to leave us.  It was a big blow to our department, even though we all knew it was coming.  Jen was a well known officer.  She was probably the nicest and most genuine person I have ever known.  Everyone liked her.  She was a rock for us, even when we were the ones that needed to be comforted as she was getting sicker.  To fully explain the impact that Jennifer had on myself and many other people would take many, many pages, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it.  Jennifer was awesome!  There may be more blogs about Jennifer in the future, in fact I’m positive there will be.

Two nights ago I had a dream.  I was at some sort of police related function. I have no idea what it was because it was a dream and everything was very random and didn't make sense.  I was upset because I hadn't gotten picked as a role player for the end of the academy situationals with the rookies, who will be graduating this Friday.  Once again, none of this made sense because I haven't thought about our rookies or graduation lately.  But still, I was upset, I mean REALLY upset.  I could feel my chest tightening and I just couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. 

Side note for you non-police people:

Situationals are pretty much the last big hurdle you have to jump through before graduating from the academy.  It is two intense days where the academy class gets all gussied up in their shiny new uniforms and participate in numerous real life situations.  Other members of the department act as role players and it’s basically set up to be real life calls that our graduates might encounter out in the streets in just a few short days.  It’s intense.  It’s stressful.  It’s probably the one thing the rookies look forward to being finished with the most.  However, for the role players, it’s absolutely hilarious.  These poor rookies are under the gun and usually mess up terribly over and over and over.  Okay, back to my dream. 

There was a room full of people and everybody was busy and talking loud and walking around real fast and then everything kind of went into slow motion and I hear someone say, "Aaaash".  I immediately knew the voice.  It was comforting and familiar.  I looked over across the room and Jen was standing there in her Honor Guard uniform and she was holding out her arms. She said, "Come here girl."  I ran as fast as I could over to her and she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight.  She whispered in my ear that everything was going to be okay and just as quickly as she appeared, she was gone. I looked around the room and I knew that no one else had seen her.  In the dream, I just started crying my eyes out and the only person I could talk to in the room was a good friend of mine, Michelle, who was also just all of a sudden there with me.  I was crying hysterically and trying to explain what had happened.  Michelle hugged me and said, "I know, I didn't see her but I felt her hand and I was trying to pull her back and keep her here but she had to go."

This was the most real dream I have ever had. I could feel Jen's warm hug and it was so comforting. When I woke up I didn’t know whether I should cry or laugh.  I was so utterly happy that I got to see Jen again and hear her voice.  That's the one thing I have missed the most about her, that unmistakable voice!  I woke up feeling completely at peace.  For two days now, I haven’t been nervous about school at all.  I haven’t had that knot in my stomach.  I feel good.  I know I can make it through this even though it will probably be one of the hardest things I have ever done.  I don’t know why, but God sent Jennifer to me in my dream.  He knew I needed a visit from her and he knew she would make me feel better.  Thank you God and thank you Jen, it was unforgettable.

This is exactly how Jen looked in my dream.  Man I miss her.

Scholarship Essay

Well, I'm going to totally cop out on this one and copy and paste an essay I just completed for a scholarship I am applying for.  Just a little more insight into my crazy nutshell.  Oh, and an entertaining picture of the pure drive and comittment I speak of in the essay.

Scholarship Essay

My journey into the field of nursing began many years ago, probably when I was beginning my first few years of college.  I always had nursing in the back of my mind, but back then I wasn’t shall we say, as academically motivated as I am today.  Average grades suited me just fine.  I knew deep down that I had the potential to apply myself and excel in academics, but it definitely was not my priority. 

I graduated in 2000 with a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice.  I began my career as a Tulsa Police officer in 2001.  I worked patrol for four years and spent six years in TPD’s Special Investigation Division (SID).  While in SID I investigated everything from prostitution, street level narcotics all the way up to trafficking narcotics.  

In October of 2009, my second son was born.  He was diagnosed with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.  His first surgery was about four hours after he was born.  In the first six months of his life, he had five surgeries.  It was during our first few weeks in the NICU that my long ago buried dreams of becoming a nurse started to resurface.  For years my husband and I had joked about me going back to school.  He would laugh and say, “Sure, just as soon as you have 10 years on the department and you can make straight A’s.”  Well, here we are, at a place where those jokes have become a reality (which we still laugh about). 

We started seriously talking about it again while we passed the hours sitting in the NICU with our baby.  I told my husband that I wanted to be a nurse.  I told him that I could feel it in my bones.  I told him that I felt like this was my “now or never” opportunity.  He was very supportive and even pushed me when that thought became reality and I enrolled in my first college course since graduating nearly 10 years ago and when our new baby was just two months old.  It was intimidating and I was terrified.  Here I had a toddler at home and a brand new baby who may need special daily medical care and I was contemplating going back to school while working full time.  Was this crazy?  According to most of my friends and co-workers, yes!  However, my husband convinced me to walk out the door that first day of my Biology class and I have never looked back. 

I have discovered amazing things about myself in the past 18 months.  I discovered that I actually am smart!  I learned that I actually can make straight A’s with a lot of hard work and commitment.  Since taking that first class in the spring of 2010, it has been full steam ahead toward nursing school.  I have completed 34 credit hours in the past 18 months with a 4.0 grade point average.  I am extremely proud of this accomplishment and I cannot express the shock and excitement I felt when I received my acceptance letter from the OU nursing department.  My family will be experiencing many changes in the next several months.  We will be going from a two income to one income family, which is terrifying!  I will be retiring as a police officer in August to start the BSN program at OU/Tulsa.  I am still a little scared, but very eager to start this new chapter in my life!

I am very happy to report that our now 20 month old son is doing fantastic.  He requires a little extra daily medical care, but he is just as rotten as his big brother and is a very happy boy!  When we have cuddle time before I put him to bed, I tell him that this is all his fault.  He just smiles and stares at me with his big blue eyes and I think to myself…I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

The hard work and comittment I speak of...

The baby whose fault this is...

Photograph courtesy of:

 http://www.sarahspradlinphotography.com/

One Defining Picture

As most parents do, we took hundreds of pictures while we were in the hospital having our second baby.  Our pictures this time weren’t all happy and beaming faces as they were when our first baby was born.  Oh, we have plenty of those, but many of our pictures this time included wires, tubes, monitors, bandages and scars. 

This one picture is worth a thousand emotions for me.  It’s not the clearest picture.  It’s a little grainy and a little hazy, but I think it’s beautiful and perfect.  It was a split second that was captured by my husband during our two week stay in the EOPC (NICU).  It was a split second that completely defines the following 18 months for me.  When I look at this picture, I once again feel the roller coaster of emotions that encompassed those two weeks and the following months.

When I look at this picture, every fiber of my being wants to reach into that picture and hug her.  I want to tell her that her baby, whose side she rarely left during that time, will be fine.  I want to tell her that he will thrive, that he will laugh and be rotten, that he will crawl, that he will stand and that yes, he will eventually walk.  But I’m glad I can’t reach through that picture and tell her those things.  I’m glad because she has no idea how much she will change in the next 18 months because of him.  She has no idea how much she will grow and how she will attempt and accomplish goals and dreams she thought were long gone.  She has no clue of the people she will meet along the way, people who have experienced similar journeys but some whose stories ended differently.  Stories that ended with unimaginable grief and loss.  She has no idea how much she will learn from these wonderful people, although she’s only known them a short time. 

So this is my picture I want to share.  A picture that means the world to me. 

Details may or may not come later of this continuing journey.  If I feel froggy, you may get more details than you can handle.  If my schedule continues the way it has for the past year, this may be the only thing you ever see from me.  But whichever way it plays out, this is me, in my crazy nutshell.