songs....

I just blogged and then I realized most of my recent blog post have been deep, so here is one just for fun...Ya know that question if you could have 1 song playing over and over on a deserted island what would it be? These are my 3 songs...

just thinking....

So I know I only blog once in a blue moon and usually it's when something exciting happen or when something happens at work that I can't stop thinking about. Well tonight its the second one. The other day I was at work and I was doing a progress note on one of my patients and he just seemed a little off. He wouldn't really elaborate his answers to my questions. I couldn't get a read on if PT was helping or what was going on and I must say I was getting frustrated with him. I am also sad to admit I was even beginning to lose my patience and get a little short with him. Well it wasn't until later in the day when my co-worker was telling me how sad she was for him because it was the anniversary of his wife's death. Apparently they had been married for a long time and long story short he had called all of his kids and they all said they were too busy to take him to put flowers on her grave. Well needless to say I felt horrible. All I could think about was a quote by Sister Hinckley something like "be kind to everyone, for everyone is fighting a battle." Life is all about progression and thankfully I am in a job where I get a lot of chances to help people. Later in the day another patient came in. This time it was a younger woman that had been in a car accident. The accident was so horrible her young child ended up dying as a result of the crash and my patient has a lot of long days ahead of her. She has poor balance and coordination along with severe back pain. Decrease endurance and is leaking cerebral spinal fluid which is as bad as it sounds. Anyway we had worked really hard that day and I could tell she was frustrated with her limitations and feeling very sad, so I decided to try a different technique and have her sit on a stool for a soft tissue massage on her back. She hadn't been able to have her back muscles massaged because she can't lay flat. As I looked at this young woman tears rolling down her cheeks my heart ached for her. I could tell that she just needed to feel a little extra attention and love. We were able to do the massage without any problems and she wanted out feeling a lot better with a small smile on her face. Ever since this day I have just had an overwhelming feeling that this is the whole purpose of life is. We need to reach out to those we can, and learn from our mistakes.I am learning so much about life and people and the things that are most important in life. I am so grateful for my chance at life and my opportunity to grow and progress and learn new things everyday. I feel so lucky to meet so many people and all the things I learn from them.

Child of God.. or in this case an Adult of God

We often talk a lot about being a child of god and what this statement really means. along with being children of god we talk about just how great a worth of soul is to our heavenly father and today i think i saw a tiny look into just how precious we really are.
Once in a blue moon i will come home and tell Blair, "ya just can't love your job everyday" but most of the days i come home and rave about how much i love doing physical therapy and today one of those extra specials days when i truly feel blessed to do what i do. Every once in awhile a patient will come along that i know has touched my heart forever and this most recent example came in the form of a man in his 60's who used to work at subway and has recently suffered 2 strokes. His body is battered and in some ways broken but his spirit i don't think has ever been so strong.
Fernando and I have been working together 3 times a week for about 6 weeks now trying to get the right side of his body to move, relax, function and do the small things that we all take for granted. His right arm is a mixture of flaccid and rigid if that can even be possible. he basically can't get it to move or squeeze his hand, but when i move it its stiff and has to be done very slowly. we aren't making a lot of gains with his arm, but what we are lacking with his arm we are making giant strides with his right leg. now one of the trickiest parts about our sessions is the fact that because his stroke occurred on the left side of his brain his speech has been severely altered. Basically he can no longer form words although he knows EXACTLY what he is trying to say. His words basically come out "gammma gamma" Wamma wamm" with a few spanish wards only on a few rare occasions, but he understand exactly what i am trying to tell him and i have mastered the art, with i think of the help of the big guy upstairs, of what he is trying to tell me or ask me.
every session we work on bending and strengthening the right leg, we practice going from sitting to standing, we work on strengthening his hip muscles, his butt muscles, trying to pull his toes up and down, we work on kicking the leg out and marching in his wheelchair. basically i try and do anything i can to facilitate a walking motion. All this is done in sitting. Then we stand up and he uses a special cane in is left hand while i hold his right hand and his armpit and off to the races we go (well kind of) needless to say it is very stressful for me and A LOT of hard work for him trying to put weight on his right foot and then advancing it when he should. usually i have to help slide the right foot along but over the past few weeks he has been understanding the different techniques i have been trying to show him.
TODAY WAS OUR BEST DAY YET! he was able to put his weight on his left foot and i could feel him bending his right now and trying with all his might to swing that right foot forward. It was truly a miracle. basically when a person has a stroke and they are learning these basic things they have to create a new neural pathway in the brain. Needless to say it is NOT an easy task. We had gone about 25 yards when my friend Fernando just started crying. He was so happy he couldn't hold back the tears. We took a few more steps shedding tears and then sat down. The next few minutes i will never forget. I got down to his eye level and held his hand told him how proud i was of him. I looked at him and said you have probably never worked so hard in your entire life, at which he responded with more years and a smile.
Now Fernando and I have a lot of work to do before he will be an independent walker, but today we literally took our first steps in that direction. This man has the most courage, love and motivation i have ever seen. While i was sitting there holding his hand and letting him cry i got a small glimpse of just how much god loves us and how we are SOO special to him. We are his greatest creation, and even after the body wears out our souls are still there shining and full of love. It really is a day of "work" i will never forget.

Not a back weekend for southern california

I had been looking forward to this weekend for a few months, but it really turned out better then I could have ever expected. It all started Friday night when Blair and I drove down south to the border to a little town I like to call chule vista aka "little Mexico" to watch a lady antebellum Tim McGraw concert. We had lawn seats and were just excited to see Tim in his tight jeans and great cowboy hat. Little did we know the real fun would be watching all the southern californians try and dress country and even more fun would be watching all the drunk girls try and stay upright while dancing to the music. We even watched one 300 plus pound drunk girl fall on an innocent by stander and smash a plastic cup into pieces. It really was a classic moment.

Then on Saturday we went to our favorite farmers market down the street to pick up fresh fruit, veggies, and flowers. This farmers market is the best. It has the best little vendors including the lady who sells fresh tamales and I even tried a fresh fruit pop cycle flavored strawberry-basil. Alittle strange but tastedl ok. Afer the farmers market Blair and I decided to venture down to the outlets located in "little Mexico" again.these outlets are the best and they always have the best deals. We spent way too much money but had a great time.

The best part was after the outlets we decided to go over to a water park with a wave pool, lazy river and of course WATER SLIDES. Blair was even gutsy enough to go on the scariest slide that went in a dark tunnel dropped out and went up this giant wall. It was pretty scary but the wave pool with tubes was the best park. We had a blast and decided we would have to visit the park more often Especially since If you get there late enough you don't have to pay for parking!

The fabulous day finally ended with free ice cream from cold stone thanks to one of my patients who gave me a gift card. I got my token cake batter with Graham cracker and oreoa. It was just as good as I remembered from my frequent visit back in the utah state days. There is nothing better then two fun days to remind me of how blessed I am and how fun life really is. San Diego really is a non-stop adventure.

If I had a journal

So this might be a little weird to blog about but I am in one of those moods where if I wrote in a journal I probably would write my thoughts in it but since I don't the blog is the next best thing. Sometimes I have these days when I reflect on my life and where I am at in it. Sometimes I am excited about life sometimes a little anxious or overwhelmed or pleased with where I am and tonight I think I am all this emotions in one big ball. Today I was sitting in church looking around at everyone and thought I bet all these people never imagined in all their craziest dreams that they would be siting in this congregation single and most of them older then 32 and it made me start to think where in the world did I think I would be at 26 turning 27 in september. I knew I would be doing physical therapy since I have wanted to do this in high school but did I ever imagine I would live in a really great condo in downtown San Diego single? I knew I would never get married really young but did I think I would be married by now and what will it be like if I am still on my own in another 8 or 10 years. Now of course I know these are all question I can't answer tonight but it's just something to think about. Of course i know no matter where life goes i will be happy. It's crazy to think about the different paths we take in life and how we always seem to end up where we need to be. I do think I have tried to live close to the spirit and done what i believed is right or what I felt was the right path for me, but it's strange to think what might lie ahead. I have been blessed to meet a crazy amount of wonderful friends along this journey and most of them I consider family. I have been blessed to travel and live life to it's highest potential and would never change my journey for anything. sometimes I wish I could look into that crystal ball and see just what my life is like an a few short years. But really what would be the point because this would take all the fun out of it all, which is why I will just keep living life and continue to enjoy the ride.

things i am thankful for

short blog post on a monday night
top things i am thankful for today
GG, aka gossip girl. for some reason this tv show makes me still feel like i am 16 although the content is pretty adult :)
Music, recently my roommate and i found a great record store where we love buying old school vinyl records
mom, i am very blessed to have a mom i can call whenever i want and never feel completely alone because of this
friends, i could never survive life without all my friends
mexican food, man i love chips and salsa and since moving to san diego i have had the best mexican food
sonic, its even worth driving 20 min to have a strawberry limeaid
my job, physical therapy is the perfect fit for me and even though i HATE waking up early i really love the people i meet everyday
money, money doesn't buy happiness but there is sure a lot less stress when there is a little in the bank account
living by a park, balboa park is like a mini central park and i love living so close to a giant park
brothers, i never feel sad not having sisters cause i have the best brothers in the world
heavenly father, i am grateful he is aware of me and loves me very much
my apartment, its just perfect and feels like home
my roommate, there is nothing better then coming home every night after work and having dinner ready and having someone to tell all about my day to. she really is the greatest friend ever
being single, i love being single
life is good with so many great blessings!

another hiking story but it's a classic

I know i know another hiking story but when you live is southern california and you can go hiking along the coast in shorts and a tshirt in the middle of january you just have no choice but to blog about it. especially when you are my roommate blair and me. we have done more hiking since we moved here then in our whole lives. One of these days we are going to learn we prefer laying on the beach then climbing steep mountains.

That being said, blair and i had the chance to go on the most beautiful hike along the coast a few weekends ago. it was a beautiful 70 degree saturday and off we went torrey pines state reserve. with the rain that was suppose to come the following week the surf was huge and the surfers were out it was awesome because the hike went right along the coast where they were surfing. after we parked the car we started the hike up this long straight up trail but the weird thing was there was this helicopter flying straight over our heads the whole time and i kept saying to blair man for a town that loves their outdoors this helicopter is sure distracting. once we got to the point where are the trails are there were a few different border patrol cars parked which i thought seemed odd but then again in so cal a border patrol car is not an uncommon thing to see.

So off we go for the next hour and a half hiking around looking at rocks and the ocean. you can see the pictures below. Anyway the best part was after we get down to the bottom we see a news person working on a story so we asked what was going on. turns out around 4 that morning a ship carrying 30 illegal immigrants capsized and the helicopter was looking for people hiding in the bushes along with the coast guard searching for those trying to swim back to shore hahahh thankfully we did not run into any mexicans hiding in the bushes but we did have a good laugh. I swear there is never a dull moment when a person decides to go hiking.. no wonder people enjoy it so much. the other good news is my coworker told me about another hike to some waterfalls so this will not be the last of the hiking blog post :)


i know i look scary in this one but i was sweating and shoot i was hiking :)