An Attitude of Gratitude

On the first day of surgery my surgeon said to me.... something in French that I didn't understand and I realized I should just relax and let the medication take effect.  Little did I know, this surgery would be the first of many.  It all started when I was about 6 years old. I was on a mini soccer team and my ankles had started to roll. Like a lot. My shoulders also were loosey goosey and would pop in and out of socket, especially when I swam. So, my doctor put me into physical therapy and said I was just "double jointed" and "extra flexible".  I remember being at physical therapy and the therapist knew more than she let on. She said, "you will have to do physical therapy for the rest of your life". That shook my world as a mere 6-year-old.  And she was right. Jump to when I was 16 and playing volleyball in high school. One day after practice I noticed my ankles hurting and they were really swollen. Like, "you have heart failure and have eaten to...

I am not a stranger to the dark.  To the feelings of drowning, plummeting down, down, down into the deepest depths.  I have Bipolar Depressive Disorder, Type II. This means I have severe changes in mood that lasts days to weeks. Some think it is an "on/off" button that changes your mood throughout the day. That's more like BPD. I have hypomanic episodes and depressive episodes. Just like everyone's fingerprints are different, my bipolar disorder is unique to me. When not on medications, I have long periods of depressive episodes that can last up from weeks to months. Hypomanic episodes happen every week to once a month. You know that amazing movie "A Beautiful Mind" starring Russell Crowe? Although not entirely true to the nature of mental illnesses, it touched me. I related to the feelings of losing my mind without medications, but also losing my mind  with them. During my hypomanic episodes I felt free. Not only did I not feel sad anymore, I had energy and...

  Hellooooo and welcome to my first official blog post! As you have seen, the title of this blog is never, never, never give up. Not one, not two, but THREE nevers. Why? Because it's on a decoration I got at Hobby Lobby that hangs in my office, featured below. BUT ALSO, because sometimes we want to give up on our dreams after the first, and sometimes second failure. Don't give up; be a damn legend.  I started nursing school with a 2 year-old and a 1 year-old in Blanding, Utah via a satellite program through Utah State University. It was HARD. I missed my baby's first words and first steps because I chose to be in school. Does it make me sad? Yes. Do I regret it? Not one bit. It was early on in nursing school that I knew there was something more to nursing than being a bedside nurse. I wanted to reach the top of the nursing ladder. I barged into Cooper's office at the time and told him just that. So, we researched and learned about a nurse anesthesiologist. I got chills....

I'm baaaaaack!! (Said in a sing-song mom voice) It has been YEARS since I last wrote a blog post. I wrote one eight-ish years ago about staying in a hotel with a nine month-old in the middle of nowhere Texas for 20 days.  Now I have two degrees, a bipolar diagnosis, an 8 year-old and a 7 year-old, reached my 10 year wedding anniversary, own a home in Meridian, Idaho and work full time as a nurse. So much has happened!  I decided to write again after one of my many depressive episodes and wanted to be seen as the real, raw me, in hopes that it would help at least one person (even if that person was me). I'll have topics ranging from mental illness/chronic illnesses, to being a wife and a mom, a nurse, and a woman in general.  I hope someday I'll be brave enough to reach out to others with what they would like me to write about... but not yet. 😉 Welcome to my blog, An Attitude of Gratitude. Happy reading! Sam **Disclaimer- I am NOT a writer. I am a nurse. I do not have an ...