On to Three Years...

When I think about it, it doesn't seem like it could possibly be three years ago. It doesn't seem like a long amount of time, three years. But when I think about all of the things I have done and accomplished in the last three years it blows my mind.

Where I was emotionally, physically, mentally has changed so much. I was such a child, young, more naive (not denying that I am still naive), terrified of what the future would bring, wondering what life was going to be from that point on.

I wouldn't say that I still get terrified of what is to come or could happen. But I feel that I approach things differently. I am learning to be proud of my accomplishments and attempt to take my failures gracefully.

But yes, as of September 5, 2015 I have had MS for 3 years.

I am sure lots of things have changed in your life in the last 3 years, but let me give you some of my highlights from this last year at least. Cause reading is sometimes boring. And today I don't want to bore you!

HIGHLIGHTS

If you know me you know how much I LOVE playing in the mud! I also love sucking my friends into this mess! 

Spent a beautiful evening at a rotating restaurant in Vancouver with my dad last fall 2014. On one of my trips to Vancouver for treatment

I LOVE fall. I also LOVE my rubber boots. 

Enjoyed showing Lil' Annie my dads new skateboard. Its called a OneWheel. 

 

I HATE mice. I hate it even more when when they are running through my house and in my bed. That was not great experience. 

Our families little girl passed away tis year. She was a great little cuddlier. Lucy.

Last Reading Break I found the most amazing waterfall outside of Mission. Cascade Falls. 

We won bearded toques! Best way to end our Reading Break. 

Spent a lot of time studying this year. Writing papers. And spending way too much money at Starbucks.

Love exploring with Anna! 

Spent a lot of time swimming this year. Invested in a waterproof Mp3 player. Game changer!

Joined an intermural soccer team. We had a ton of fun. Don't think we won any games and I really coudn't acutally see for most of the games. But it was fun! 

Camping trip to Jasper and the Kootneys as a "Finally Done Nursing" Trip. With my one and only Christie Pudlas!

I LOVE staying out late, taking pictures of stars and spending time with friends. 

GRADUATION!! I can't actually quite believe that I made it through nursing. 

 

I see where I get this face from. 

Got a gig volunteering at a dog sled kennel. She is one of my favourites. 

And she grew so fast! 

An old friend from PG was up here and stopped by the kennels. 

 

MUD MUD MUD!! I found an AWESOME spot up here! LOVE it. 

Jimbo caught a nice Pickerel. Couldn't hang on to it and it slipped out of his hands after this pic. 

He loved coming out to the kennels with me!

Puppies. Puppies. Puppies. 

So cool to be able to work along side a world champion dog sledder! 

Taking the dogs for a run all harnessed up. They run in front of hte ATV until it snows. 

I kinda really like it at the kennels. 

Did a beautiful hike to a place called Flower Springs. 

North of Fort Nelson. Summit Lake. 4200 feet. There is snow there right now  :(

North Tetsa River

Most amazing Northern Lights I have seen at this point in my life! I cannot wait for more. 

Andy Bailey Lake. Camping trip with some friends. 

Liard Hot Springs with a bunch of goons!

Liard Hot Springs. A must do!

Can't wait to check them out during the winter!

Lovely friends who came to visit me and my roommate in Fort Nelson!

Liard Hot Springs.

Fort Nelson: "I don't like it..."

I love it. I so far have loved my time up in Fort Nelson so far. 

Some of you may be wondering why. Even people here have wondered why I came up here in the first place and that I am ok with staying! 

But I have made friends, explored, gone fishing, made lots of four legged friends, worked, picked up shifts, hung out by the river, in the river, more fishing. Today has been the first day in last month since i've been here where I have thought to myself, "Hmm, what should I do today?" It was raining, which made it harder to think of things to do. So I crashed at my friends house and showed them their newborn pictures I took the other day. Stole some of their internet because my house doesn't have any yet. Watched the Calgary Stampede, played with their dog. Went for a run, made dinner for me and my roommate. 

SO what have I been doing? Well, work has taken up at least a few days a week. It can be a crazy busy hospital which can be a little tiring. Always with the interesting cases that come through the ER, loss of fingers, arterial bleeds, "infected" bug bites (oh goodness), motorbike crashes, and so much more. 

Before I moved up here, since I was little I have always wanted two things in life if and when I moved to a northern community: learn how to dog sled and own a pair of moccasins, real ones. So I decided to do something about it, since I have officially moved to a northern community. First, moccasins will be purchased one day in the future, when I feel like i have money to do so. Second, there is a world class dog sledder in town named Buddy Streeper. If you know dog sledding, you will know this name. He has won multiple world class races and travels all over northern Canada and throughout the states during the winter. 

 So about two weeks ago I decided to send him an email telling him that I was new to town, an RN and have always wanted to learn how to dog sled. So I asked if I could volunteer in exchange to learn how to dog sled. He replied quickly and said he was very interested. So I decided to drop by his kennels and introduce myself. So I showed up and he toured me around the grounds and showed me hte male and female kennels, the puppy kennels and told me that most of the jobs have been taken care of there. However the one job that wasn't really taken care of was someone to play with the puppies. Puppies need lots of socializing when they are little to human contact. So he said that I could come by anytime for as long as I wanted to play and socialize with the puppies. It is seriously as awesome as it sounds. There are probably at least 25-30 puppies that need love and attention. 

So between work, hanging out at home, going on adventures either alone or with my friends and their dogs and playing with puppies I am doing alright. So far I have really enjoyed being up here! 

When you're sure its the END of the WORLD!

You know when you have those days that nothing seems to be going right? 

I had one of those the other day and then for about 5 days afterwards. 

"You are greater than the problems you face."

So since graduation from university I have been studying for this very big exam, packing, moving all of my earthly belongings to Abbotsford, re packing it all to move to Fort Nelson, getting steroids at UBC, writing my exam, travelling to Vancouver to the airport.Packing up my car to take all the way to Fort Nelson. Over a course of 2 days. 

In short things don't sound so bad... so let me fill in the missing pieces. 

As a side note, I'm not usually one to pity myself (or at least do it seriously). But honestly sometimes life sucks. It's not all daisies and rainbows. It's storm clouds, rough seas and falling overboard. And it's not fun. And no amount of me cracking jokes about it is going to help. So... (If you keep reading and stay tuned for my next post, it gets better) 

1. NCLEX: (the very big exam).

 I failed. I did not the email saying "Congratulations, you were successful on your RN exam. Hooray!... blah.blah.blah." 

Nope. 

I got the "We are sorry to inform you you were unsuccessful... blah.blah.blah" email.

I'm going to be completely honest with you here... getting news like that (at 9:15am) makes you feel like it is the end of the world! Like in that very moment you could not get any worse news. EVER! I tried to hold myself together as I called my friend and told him how I did and that he should check to see how he did. As soon as I hung up the phone. I took a shower. Curled up into a ball and sobbed. I hadn't cried that hard or that much since December 2012. I felt like it was the END OF THE WORLD! I was so mad. So frustrated. So ticked off at me, at my MS, at my university for the lack of preparedness. I was (fill in all of the negative emotions you can think of here) << that. So I cried. I sobbed. I wished it was just a bad dream. I cried some more. I cried so hard that I started choking and couldn't breathe. (Which paints a funny picture now. But wasn't so funny at the time) I had a great, huge pity part for myself. And then told myself that at 10:00 I was going to stop this crying, stop feeling sorry for myself, wise up and go on with your day. So at 10:00 I **insert snapping fingers here** out of it and went on with my day. It also helped at that point my buddy called me back to inform me that they failed as well. Which made my day instantly 100% better. Which kinda sounds terrible. But it was kinda nice to know I wasn't the only one sailing this disaster of a boat alone.

      

"You are greater than the problems you face.“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

2. Getting Steroids

Really not fun as a whole. Make me feel pretty gross for about a week afterward. 

3. Travelling to the airport in Vancouver

Super excited to pick up my friend from Northern Ireland, however getting lost after that was not so fun and slightly annoying. But hey, I had sweet company. 

4. Packing up my car at 5:30am

When someone tell you that you need to figure out at better system because what you have outside of your car isn't going to fit inside. Is really annoying. Regardless of them being right. It is just not an enjoyable moment to instantly unpack what you have packed and remove all of your winter gear that you can pick up another time when I am down south. Great. And not fun. 

5. Over the course of those previous 2 events. 

 I started to get a strange pain in the back of my mouth along my gum line. At first hoping that its just a bad canker sore. and not my wisdom teeth coming in. Because I, do not have time to get wisdom teeth pulled. SO I booked an appointment with my dentist the morning of me wanting to leave to Fort Nelson in PG. 

I did go to the dentist. And they told me I had an infection. 

It could be fixed with antibiotics. And for the excruciating amount of pain that I was experiencing they would give me T3's. 

6. Went to fill my prescription

Every pharmacy in PG was having troubles accessing their pharmanet system. So I had to leave PG with not pain meds or antibiotics. 

Arrived in Fort St. John. It was still down. So I had to wait until the next morning. 

Lets just say at this point. When I rolled into Fort Nelson it had been a really LONG 4 days. 

Most of which I was in pain.

Stay tuned for Part 2..
It gets better I promise--

and I will tell you more about Fort Nelson!

“Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.” –Veronica Roth

1000 Days and Counting

One thousand days sounds like a really long time. It sounds much longer than 2 and a half years. But it's true. I was officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis on September 5, 2012. 

So much in life has changed since that day, I have learned so much about myself, my friends, my family. There is part of me that wishes I could say I haven't changed since that year. When I lived carefree. Didn't have to think about how one evenings decision could affect my life 3 days from now. I wish I didn't struggle to stay awake past 7pm on a regular basis. I wish I didn't feel like the flakier friend on the planet when it comes to making plans with me that don't coincide with my energy levels. 

I wish I could say that my life hasn't changed much since then, but it has. Inside and out. I've become so much more aware of my decisions in life, who I choose to spend time with, what I do for fun, work or relaxation. 

This week I've been at UBC hospital for the past 3 days getting an unroutine dose of steroids. They are not as glamorous as they seem. But they tend to do the trick when it comes to giving me back some energy. I would say major days I function at about 60%. But with them I come up to about 90% normal energy level. 

I also have a HUGE test next week that I am mildly freaking out about. This is one of the most important tests I will ever write. So I would love your help, and prayer. I have failed my fair share of tests in the past. And not that failing this one would be the end of the world. But I would really not like to cross that bridge. So... I write my exam June 10.

1. Energy

2. Focus to study the last bit of material for my exam 

3 CONFIDENCE 

4. Good sleep before the test 

5. I would be able to read and understand the questions to the best of my ability 

Thank you for taking the time to read and pray for me as I come closer to writing this exam! 

Kate 

Hoping I don't have this moment! :) 

Adventure is Out There!

Adventures to be had, moments to remember and life to be lived.

It is official. I walked across the stage this weekend, twice actually. Once for convocation and second for a special nursing graduation. Yes. Graduated. Finished and moving on. Moving! 

Heres a recap of my year based on the most common questions I have been asked in the past few weeks. 

Question 1. How has your year been? 

Answer 1: My year started out good, I was very excited to be doing my focus in a small town called Fort St. James. It turned out to be much more of a challenge, personally and nursing w
To be honest, looking back on this year, and whole program actually... I am still shocked that I walked across that stage, they called my name and I was handed my diploma. The thought, (maybe because its early in the morning) almost brings tears to my eyes. There were a few, but clear moments in the past few years turning to some of my friends or family stating that if I didn't pass "this" course that I wouldn't carry on. I would find something else to do as a career. But those moments never came to pass. I somehow seemed to pass those courses by a little bit, I kept moving on and made it to today.  But that story is for another time! The year, overall was fairly stressful, with a longer than normal reading break to having two weeks of classes cancelled due to strikes at my university. However all in all, it is nice to be done.

Question 2: How is your health? 
Answer 2: No offence, but this question does make laugh a little every time someone asks. Mostly because it starts with the person looking directly at me, turning their head around to see who else may be close, and then looking back at me again and almost in a whispered tone.. "Kate, how has your  health been these days?"

--Pause--
I do realize that it is a difficult question to ask, but I also don't mind the "Kate, your MS, hows it been lately?" or even just mentioning MS. I don't mind talking about it... Sorry, I've digressed.
--UnPause--

My health, my MS, my issues with my nerves. It has been ok, fatigue is a constant, daily battle and it something I so dearly wish would not be an issue in my life! However, that is not going to change, so I take it day by day, actually lately its been more like hour by hour. But I am thankful for the hours that I don't want to crawl into a ball and be gone to the world. :)

Most popular question of the last few weeks:

Question 3: What are you doing now that you've graduated? 
Answer 3: This one puts a smile on my face. I am moving. It has been a crazy process in deciding where I am going or what I am doing. However it has been decided and I start work on June 15.

I am moving to Fort Nelson. Yes, its north, yes approx. 9.5hours north, of Prince George. And yes I have been there, once. But I only really remember the school gym.

I am excited and ready for an adventure and to work with a great staff at the hospital and learn crazy new things for nursing. So here we go...

"Adventure is out there!"

...and let's go find it!