cozy comfortable

Happy Friday everyone!
What are you up to this weekend?

Getting back into the swing of things for blogtember, today's topic is:  

React to this term: comfort. 

Comfort.
I find comfort in receiving warm hugs, especially from my nana.
in laying down in my bed after sitting for more than 10 hours a day.
in sipping on chocolate chip fraps.
in listening to songs that flow through my soul.
in reading a good book that keeps my attention.
in writing a letter to a dear friend or family member.
in eating turkey bacon and scrambled eggs/omelets for breakfast.
in having my toes cut short and polished.
in holding a baby or small child in my arms & comforting them.
in going for strolls around the neighborhood when the temperature is in the 70-80's.
in seeing a hummingbird or bird pop by my bedroom window.
in making tamales as a family in an assembly line. (haven't done this in 5 years!)
in laughing at life's absurdities.
in praying.

And although I find comfort in all of these things, to be able to know comfort, you have to know being uncomfortable. Some things that make me uncomfortable are physical pain, getting weird vibes from people, sirens, yelling and fighting.

In another way, it's good for me to step outside my comfort zone and push myself to do things that I might be scared or unmotivated to do: like go up in front of everyone at church (not knowing that many people) and bear my testimony. Haha, yep, I sure did that a few weeks ago.  I also am needing to get back into exercising, the best i can, with the movement & ability i have, now. Someone ask me next monday if I done that yet, so you can help me stay accountable. please. :)

Going outside your comfort zone gives you permission to grow as a person. Sometimes, you might even bless someone else by doing so. Sometimes, you find out a part of you never even existed before.


What brings you comfort? What makes you uncomfortable? What have you done recently to step outside your comfort zone?

February 2006: I signed my life for the better

Tuesday, September 10: Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn.

The exact date was February 16, 2006. This was the day I asked my mom to drive me downtown to the hospital where I had no idea that I'd be staying there for 7.5 weeks. I had no idea how much my life was going to change. Three days later, I had a tracheostomy and became ventilator dependent. 24/7. I signed the consent forms for that. My now pulmonologist said if i didn't do this procedure i would maybe live 2 more months and at that point I was already really struggling to live. My CO2 levels were extremely high. All the doctors and nurses couldn't believe how coherent I was. I wasn't ready to die. I was 23. I saw the look of fear on my mom's face. Shoot, I was scared myself. I signed my name with faith that God was going to take care of me and trusting that going to be on the vent would be for the better.

So here we are seven years later and I am ALIVE! Praise be to God. I view my life as BV (before vent)/ AV (after vent). BV, I was {very} independent. I went everywhere by myself, scooting along in my wheelchair. I was a college student. I was young, more vain, trying to "find" out who I was and fit it with the social crowd. My days were filled with homework, typing papers in the computer lab, volunteering, shopping for the next cutest shirt, and guys, guys, guys were on my mind. On the outside, it seemed I had everything together, but no, that was not reality.

19 or 20 yrs old

From 2003 to 2006, my health was surely declining. After being hospitalized with pneumonia in the Fall's of 2003 and 2004, I kept struggling to breathe and sleep. After two different sleep studies, I learned I had sleep apnea, where you stop breathing when you sleep. No wonder I was waking up so groggy and with a massive, pounding headache every.single.morning. In 2005, I started needing to use oxygen through my nose and carry a couple extra oxygen tanks in my pink backpack whenever I went out, usually to school. Gah, I felt like an elderly person.

Back to February 2006, that first week of being on the vent was horrifying. I was in ICU that first week and then got moved to the rehab floor which proved to be horrifying as well; 10 patients for one nurse most likely. A few code blues, infection in my blood, waiting 45 minutes to go pee, a mean respiratory therapist, ya know, just another day in the rehab! I had to learn how to talk with the ventilator which was scary the first few times I tried. It seemed as though a mad rush of cold air was running past my vocal chords through my mouth and nose, I couldn't control it. My vocal and throat muscles had to re-gain strength. I worked with a sweetheart of a speech therapist to get stronger and be able to eat and drink normally again, but not before I had a feeding tube (g-tube) placed in my stomach after 2 attempts!

my friend colleen and I, 2006. I was at about 70 lbs

Since learning to live & accept living with a ventilator, my independence has been slashed by 90%. I can't go anywhere alone. This fact really depresses me sometimes if I let it. I would say losing that freedom is the most life changing affect of being ventilator dependent. You would think that have a hole in your throat, breathing through a plastic trache and having tubes attached to you is worse, maybe at first, yes, but I got pretty used to it and you deal with it. Honestly, I viewed those tubes as chains that locked me down in a prison and really, it did lock me down in a mental prison of depression. I had/have a choice to be grateful for the ventilator and for plastic as they both have helped save my life. I may not be able to go out alone, but I am still able to live my life and do things I enjoy doing. I am still able to celebrate life's simple, funny, cherished moments and get to spend them with my amazing family and friends. I still get to praise God for the miracles He has worked in my life. My faith and the vent have enabled me to keep living seven years and hopefully more, later.

cause you got personality...i am an ESFJ

day 6 of blogtember challenge. Take this personality quiz. Talk about my thoughts on my personality findings.

that's right! i do got personality and i like it. I am an ESFJ which stands for Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging . I took this quiz many years ago in high school and college and was an ENFJ. I guess I've changed a bit. I think most of the findings are pretty accurate, especially that I am a "guardian" of holidays and birthdays and am a generous in giving as well as "willingly provide service". check and I absolutely LOVE celebrating EVERYONE's birthday, not just my own.

Here are a few results from the website of my scoring letters:
They by nature "wear their hearts on their sleeves," often exuding warmth and bonhomie, but not infrequently boiling over with the vexation of their souls."

true that. I do wear my heart on my sleeve. can get me into trouble sometimes lol. oh my wounded heart.

Their sense of right and wrong wrestles with an overwhelming rescuing, 'mothering' drive.
true. i am very nurturing. i'd my best to protect you or help you.

According this type, I would be good in the medical field or as an elementary teacher, which sounds cool to me because i have thought about being a teacher.

Miss Piggy gets me. we transform "Thinking in the service of Feeling" to wit. Two of my aunts have commented on my wit before. Not to brag or anything.

 "You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat
with knitting needles."
-- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food

Some famous ESFJ's:
Desi Arnaz ("Ricky Ricardo") What a funny guy!
Sally Struthers (All in the Family) She's pretty cool.
Mary Tyler Moore again, funny lady!
Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon movies, Predator 2) He's pretty cool!
Rachel McAdams! Hello! She's one of my faves.

Hmm, i am sensing a funny theme here! Maybe I am a comedian too?
again, enjoy this little tune :) IF you took the quiz, how did you score? Are we twinsies?

waiting to inhale

While I realize that this blog every day for a month challenge has already started, I want to jump in today because I really have no idea what to blog about. No snazzy outfit photos, no delicious recipes or make up to review.

I've been a fan of Jenni's blog for a long while, even though I don't read it everyday, I always come back. I've seen many a bloggy friend participate in #blogtember and I love to write, so here we go.

Today's prompt is:A story about a time you were very afraid.

Easy. Anytime that I've been unable to breathe. I mean like, literally, not being able to breathe. No air flowin through the airway. There are perks to being ventilator dependent such as having a filter on the vent to weed out the yuckies in the air. Or the fact that I can sleep with a pillow on top of my face (maybe it comforts me like that of when I was in my mom's womb?! haha) and I won't suffocate! love that.

However, a scary thing about being on the vent is that,
1. it's a machine. they can fail.
2. the circuit aka plastic tubing has many parts and sometimes they come apart or fail too.
3. it's literally like breathing through a Mcdonald's straw. That's about how big the trache is in my throat. Now, when my airways get really dry, that thickens the mucus which means the inner cannula, inside the trache gets clogged (super gross btw, i know) and my airway is completely cut off!

It's super scary to try to gasp for breathe when that's blocked, while I am waiting for a caregiver to change my inner cannula or squirt saline water down my trache to break up that dry phlegm. Those seconds feel like minutes and my clock is ticking. I can only breathe on my own, provided I am calm and not full from eating, for maybe 20 seconds.

With experiencing times like these, I feel So So so grateful to God for when i can breathe well again. I get stuck in a rut of thinking that the ventilator is keeping me alive, true, but in reality, God is the one who gives us every breathe of life and he's the one that keeps me going. This epiphany was made clearer to me through my friend HL.

and because i might have a slightly warped sense of humor, i leave you with this: