Shoulding all over the place

I just got done watching Room and had a similar reaction to it that I did when I saw Eclipsed this last spring. I walk away from such productions feeling so fortunate and lucky that I have never been forced to do anything with my body that I didn't want to do. Never have I given my body (whether for money or by force) to protect myself or my children. Furthermore, i feel privileged to have food, an education, water that doesn't cause life threatening diarrhea. I have the opportunity to have an existence that has space for laughter, fun, relaxation, smiles, love, dance, hugs, art, life.

It makes me so angry that these facts induce feelings of being lucky....fortunate...privileged. These things: protection, joy, opportunity should be a right for all humans. Nobody should be hurt to the point of being unable to love, neglected (by individuals and society) to the point of not having what they need to live life to its fullest, stripped of their childhood and the opportunity of joy and laughter.

Sometimes I think God should protect us more, He should show His face, He should be the protective wing we hide under, like is written about in Psalms. I love Him so dearly and wish the world was as He intended.

I wish we didn't live in a world of shoulds towards ourselves, others or God...but in a world of haves and cans and freedom. Let us, please, work together to create a world with more loves and cans a fewer injuries and shoulds.

We can be kind to others. We can heal. We can overcome. We can.

AT: Follow the blazes

It was nice that on the first day out I ended up finding the trail (after driving around on a dirt road for quite a while and then getting out of the car without knowing if I would find it). Once finding the trail I headed into the woods and started what I call "the slow ascent".

After 4ish miles I was starting to get pretty tired, but was happy that I was over halfway to the tent site for the night. I was focusing on my steps and on my breath. Strangely,  the trail seemed to change quite a bit. Now there were really muddy ATV treads and the trail was quite a bit wider than it had been the rest of the day.

This didn't feel right. I looked in the mud and saw that there were boot prints, going both ways, lots of them. "This must be the right way, calm down Liane. You're not going to get lost on the AT, that's ridiculous and pretty much impossible."

I continued down the hill for a few more minutes. This time I kept my eyes on the trees, looking for white blazes*. After walking for quite a few more minutes I was starting to get worried because I still hadn't seen a blaze. Earlier in the day I would see blazes frequently. It's really uncommon to go any longer than a couple minutes without seeing a white mark on a tree while hiking on the trail. I checked the mud again. There were still boot prints.

Uuuuugh! How do you decide what to do in this instance? Yes, you're out there to walk around in the woods...but that doesn't mean you signed up to get lost.

I continued down the hill once again. After one or two more minutes I stopped seeing so many boot prints in the mud. Standing in the middle of the path I looked up and down the hill. Back and forth, back and forth. "Alright, that's IT! I'm going back up this hill until I see a blaze or a person."

This situation reminded me of other experiences I've had in life. so many times in this life we tend to get off of the path we're meant to be on. We look around and think, "well, this MUST be the right path for me, look at all the other people who have done this same thing, come down this same path."

I'm going to try to remember to follow the blazes in life and if the trail doesn't feel right to not be afraid to turn around. Other people's boot prints might not mean so much. Just because others have gone down a certain path doesn't mean they meant to. Maybe they took a wrong turn just like I did, or maybe they were going to a different place.

It was really frustrating to have to climb back up a hill I had just climbed down. Ultimately I'm glad I did. It turns out I wasn't on the path anymore. That would have turned out to be a pretty rotten first day on the trail if I hadn't turned around. My first day was meant to be a little over 7 miles but turn into 9 with the extra walking before the trail and the whole....getting lost thing. I'm just glad I made it :).

*Blazes are the marks that indicate you are on a trail. On the Appalachian Trail these blazes are white, located on trees, rocks and posts throughout the trail. They are the same for the whole trail from Georgia to Maine.

AT: New adventures

On July 27 I was dropped off just North of the Massachusetts/Vermont border to start hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT). My  first day I was on the trail I was nervous but excited. I knew it was going to be difficult and challenging, but also rewarding and fun. 

My roommate, Steph, drove me 3 hours from home to get on the trail. I had thought it would be easy to find the trail head because the map said there was parking available at the location. That can be put down as assumption number one that was incorrect. 

We drove up a dirt road to where the map indicated, but the road got so rough that we assumed it wasn't the right course. Would the map show that there was parking on such a road? After hemming and hawing about it for a few minutes we turned around and headed back down the hill. 

About 2 miles back there was a nice looking woman in a yard. We decided to stop for directions. She didn't know where the trail head was, but was sure her husband would. He was inside the house, and so began our yelling conversation across the yard about the trail head. It went something like this:

"Do you know where the AT trail head is?"

"Ooooooh yeeees, it's 3 or 4 miles up the road"

"Okay, so about 3 and a half miles up the road?"

"ooooooh, I wouldn't say 3 and a half!"

"Okay, so about 4? 4 miles up the road?"

"Oooooh, nope, nope, I wouldn't say 4 miles!"

There was some mention of a steep road to the left and then a wooden bridge to the right and then the trail head. I asked, "So it sounds like it's pretty easy to find? I couldn't miss it?" His response, "Oooooh no, I wouldn't say that! You could certainly miss it!"

I didn't have a ton of confidence in the directions I was given, but was pretty sure the trail head was up the road...not 3.5 but not 4 miles away. 

Steph had to drop me off 1/2 mile from the trail head because the dirt road was too rough for her sweet little Toyota Corolla to drive down. 

So, we stopped the car and I got out. I felt completely unsure about heading down the dirt road and out of site. There's nothing like not even being able to find the trail head to boost your confidence before heading off into the wilderness. I was so nervous for my upcoming adventure that I could have puked and cried at the same time. I did neither. I just stood there looking like a deer caught in headlights.   

Thankfully the trail was pretty easy to find. I just had to walk a little over 1/2 mile down the dirt road to find it. And so the adventure began. 

Clinically speaking

NP level clinical has been very interesting so far. I’m already learning so much about primary care and about myself as a practitioner. Like all other areas of my life, I see that I will be a detail oriented and picky practitioner. This will likely be a good trait, once used correctly, but might get in my way at the beginning. Sometimes my perfectionism is a curse but I always figure out how to make it into a strength eventually.

Last week I was hesitant to jump in to assess and educate the patients. After the clinical was finished I got the impression that my clinical instructor didn’t see me as a person who was ready to be in the NP portion of the program because I wasn’t taking initiative (she didn’t say that, I just sensed it). Today I really took my learning and clinical into my own hands and it went SO WELL! Once my instructor saw that I was acting with confidence she gave me much more responsibility. There were quite a few times that I used my background in nutrition and current learning to speak up and educate patients. My clinical instructor voiced that she agreed with what I was saying and even that she learned a little from me. This made me feel great and gave me even more confidence.

The bummer of the day was when I was about to give my very first flu vaccine. I had to tell my instructor in front of the patient that I didn’t think it was a good idea because I began feeling light-headed. I have lost consciousness two times before in my life and I knew I was in the early stages. I had forgotten to eat breakfast this morning and had hypoglycemia.

Don’t worry, I’m not over analyzing it or beating myself up about it. I do think, however, that it stole some of the respect I gained today. Next week I will just have to come well nourished and succeed in administering an IM injection. Challenge accepted!!

As if

As if it were me, I take the blame

I caused, I bought in, I crushed

As if it were me, I take the glory

I thought, I implemented, I reaped

As if it were you, I blamed

You chose, you rose, you left

As if it were you, I praised

I saw, I gaped, I laughed

As if it were us, we controlled

We pushed, we pulled

We shaped

As if it were us

Road Trip - South Dakota

We passed into South Dakota on a little road near the Enchanted Highway. My first impressions were: lots of bugs hitting the windshield and funny street names; Little Nasty Creek, Tickle Hill, Dead Broke Road and Renegade Pass. We saw weird salt patches in the fields and hay or sun flower fields as far as the eye could see. The hay was gathered into large round bales and then left in random places throughout the fields. It was absolutely beautiful.

We were miles from being out of gas and luckily happened upon a ‘town’ named Reva…which is apparently the home of the turtle races. This town, which was included on the map, only had 4 buildings, and only one of them looked like it was open. We stopped at the two pump gas station to fill up the tank. When I went inside to pay there was a gentleman on the phone (one of those old off-white phones that are mounted on the wall with a cord and everything.) When I showed the lady behind the desk my card she said, “Bill…we have a credit card”.  The gentleman said to the person on the line, “I’ll call you back in a few minute, we need the line”. I had forgotten about how this used to be the norm, I almost laughed out loud.

The first city we came to was Sturgis.  The city was completely asleep. The yearly biker bash had just ended a few days earlier, so it seems everyone was hibernating after their 3 weeks of crazy busy-ness. I’ve heard a rumor that many of the 3 level, hotel sized bars, make enough money during the gathering that they can close the rest of the year.  That’s just crazy.

Next up was Custer, SD where we would be staying for the night.  We had reservation for the Historic Lantern Tour at the Jewel Cave National Monument. The current discovered length of Jewel cave is 162 miles (they count every little inlet as length) and they estimate that they’ve only discovered 3%. It’s currently the 2^nd longest cave in the world!!

I’ve been fascinated with caves since I was 10 years old and we so extremely excited to be able to finally go in one.  The tour started with the park ranger handing out our oil lanterns, which turned out being really nice to have because it warmed your hands in the 40 degree cave. The portion of Jewel cave we toured was full of crystals, some parts were covered with a layer of 1 inch crystal….soooo awesome. There were so many ups, downs, twists and turns.  I’m totally hooked and will be looking for a caving club in Boston (hopefully they have one).

After the cave, we headed to Mount Rushmore and looked at the big heads in the side of the mountain.  It was pretty cool too, but not the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen J

The next morning, after camping, we made our way to Nebraska.  On our way, we stopped in Hot Springs, SD to go see the Mammoth dig site. This was really interesting.  Back during prehistoric times, this area was a sink hole that animals got caught in all the time.  So far, they have found over 120 mammoth skeletons and dozens of other types of prehistoric skeletons.  This was definitely one of the coolest things that I’ve seen in a long time.

South Dakota was extremely interesting and entertaining.  I have no idea I would love it so much there, but could probably spend about 2 weeks there and be completely entertained the whole time.  There were so many things that I wanted to do but didn’t have time!!   What a welcome surprise J

Road trip - North Dakota

 

North Dakota surprised me. I had a weird misconception that the moment we crossed the border from Montana the land would iron out and there wouldn’t be a hill in site.  Not true. The northwest section of ND is quite hilly and green.  It was so beautiful.

Our first stop in North Dakota was a little historic town called Medora.  Teddy Roosevelt spent a couple of years here before his presidency, and that’s still the small town’s main claim to fame.  The town was suuuper cute, and the brochure we picked up boasted that it is the #1 vacation spot in the state. After taking a little time to walk through the reasonably priced shops and adorable ice cream and fudge shop, we were on our way.

Shortly after Medora we pulled off the road to a look-out/rest area where we saw sedimentary hills that were formed into sharp-ish peaks. The landscape was absolutely beautiful. Next up was the town of Dickinson, where my good friend from college, Suzie Kay, grew up.  It’s a really small town, but is currently growing majorly because of new opportunities in oil. The town reminded me a lot of where I went to university in Ellensburg. We stayed with Suzie’s parents, Ray and Mary Pat.

Our hosts took us out to a nice steak dinner at Elk’s and told us all about Dickinson and the growing oil industry. Due to new technologies making it possible for oil companies to drill horizontally, as well as vertically, the Northwest section of North Dakota is now a major oil area. The little town of Dickinson, ND is bustling with new growth and traffic.  Some people are okay with this, because they are making big bucks if their land is on a well and they have the rights to the minerals, but some others are just not happy about their little town changing.

It was really nice to sleep in a bed after two nights of camping, and to have a hot shower. In the morning I got up early to take Soph on a little jog.  We ran around Dickinson State University, which educates about 2,000 students at any given time. After my little run, we sat with Mary Pat in the kitchen while she made us breakfast. After many hugs and saying goodbye, we made our way southeast to check out the Enchanted Highway.

The Enchanted Highway is a 32 mile stretch of highway where there are large metal sculptures along the road. There are Geese in Flight (which we didn’t get a chance to see), running pheasants, frolicking deer and others. Go ND, way to be awesome!!