A Place to Call Home in Northern NY

We finally moved into our house about two weeks ago. We are so relieved that we are no longer transients and can enjoy our familiar comforts. I've began to cook again and my children are thriving in our new place. We've been fishing, cooking, working, trying to put everything away so that we can have more guests over. Not that having unpacked boxes of toys will stop me from having guests over. Hopefully in due time we can travel to Canada and other states before the new year approaches.

May is the Month of Hope

This month has brought so much joy into my life both in the past, present, and near future.  My handsome son was born in May.  We finally received the phone call for our house.  We will be moving into our house sometime next week.  It feels like after waiting for so long, everything is falling into place.  I am so thankful that the Lord has continued to bless us.  I know that although I feel like it is taking forever to get something, I still have to have a small bit of faith that everything will work out.

This is also my month of craziness.  I am taking more classes for school.  My short term goal for this year is to get my associate's in HIT and my long term for next year is getting my bachelor's in Technical Management in Health Information Management.  I am slowly coming to terms of letting go of my past dreams and moving forward with building on my new dream. 

Before, I had so much anxiety.  I had put on so much pressure on myself to succeed to get into the nursing programs that I lost myself in the process.  I forgot about how much I enjoyed working with patients.  All I could think about was the stress and anguish I felt when I worked in Hawaii.  Of course my experience in that one practice overshadowed the best time of my medical career at my first practice.  I needed to find a way to motivate myself.  To find something I am good at and that will continue to help my family in the future.  The more I continued to compare the old with the new, I saw that me becoming a nurse would help but then it would also be a curse.

How could I take care of my family if I'm not around yet I'm too busy helping other people?  My parents are getting older and having more health issues now.  In my culture, it is usually the eldest or the daughter of the family that is thrusted into taking care of their elders.  For me, I love taking care of my family.  It is my way of giving back to them.  My only way of repaying them for all the hard work they had to do in order to provide for me and my brother. 

As I continue on my journey to becoming a better daughter, mother, wife, student, and human being, I must always stay optimistic even though things may seem cloudy at the moment. 

Stubborn Folks

I have awesome parents.  Although they may not agree with everything I have done in my life, they still supported me no matter what. It took me many years to realize that they do in fact love me and that the way they show their love is just different from the way I wanted them to.  American television gives us a sense of false reality.  Where you think this is how my parents should be but in fact they are truly opposite.  My parents moved from the Philippines to Hawaii many years ago.  They both worked hard to bring both sides of our family to the states so that they would be able to see and enjoy the new world as well.

During childhood, I rarely got to see my parents because of the jobs they worked at.  My maternal grandmother was the one who was with me and my brother for the majority of our childhood.  She too worked but later on quit to help out with raising us.  I have many cousins and being the oldest, I too got to enjoy the perks of baby-sitting.

As my teenage years passed by slowly and painfully, so began the times of fighting and arguing.  They weren't around to ask me what was really wrong or how my day was. It was always about getting decent grades, staying out of trouble, and following their rules.  If you know me, I tend to walk on the dark side quite often.

I did things to get their attention without me realizing what I was doing.  As I continue to look back on what I've done, I can't take them back .  I can only try to make things right and to keep moving forward.  It has been a roller coaster of a ride when it came to my mom.  I have always been a daddy's girl and we never fought.  Although I would push his buttons and he is the kind of guy you do not want to see mad.

I was depressed because of things that happened to me that I couldn't discuss with them.  I wanted to run far away so that there wouldn't be anymore fighting.  I wanted to see the world through my own eyes not how my parents envisioned for me.  When I joined the Army, it was the best thing I ever did for myself.
Not to mention I met my best friend and partner for life then too.

Life was falling into the place.  I became a mom a couple years after joining the military.  I got out to enjoy my son and to enjoy the married life as well.  I learned to be truly independent since my hubby was deployed.  I wasn't really talking to my parents then because at the time my mom was upset that I was pregnant at 19.  Unlike the idiots on MTV, I was already married and had a job when we found out I was pregnant with Adam.

I continued to pursue my education while raising my son on my own for pretty much the first year of his life.  All this was occurring and yet no one came to visit us.  The only family I did have was my neighbors next door and my in-laws that came to check on me once a month.  After we found out we were pregnant with Mikayla, I had hoped my parents would come to visit us that time around.  But, I guess going to Vegas was more important.  It sucked but I understood that they had different priorities than I did.

We worked hard to fix the relationships and it is now to the point where I feel I am the therapist and nurse of the family. My maternal and paternal sides of my family has numerous health issues that I must stay vigilant about constantly.  Adult-onset diabetes and high blood pressure are issues I know I can prevent as long as I maintain a balanced diet and stay in shape as well.

BUT, the one thing I have to say about my parents is that they both very stubborn.  While my mom pretty much almost tears her arm off because she was cleaning, my dad is trying to make me bonkers by not taking his blood pressure medication.  I wish at times that we did not move away so that I could be in Hawaii to take care of my ailing family but at the same time... They need to take care of themselves too.

I think this is one of the sub-conscious reasons I am not willing to pursue my nursing career yet.  I'm already trying to do so much but I do need time for myself and my own family as well.  The duty to take care of others is so strong in me but at the same time, I tend to lose myself and quickly burn out when doing so.  They want me to become a nurse to make lots of money and to help care for them when they are older.  As the oldest and the daughter, I would always have a place for my parents to come and stay with me when that time comes.  But, if I became a nurse, I wouldn't be able to have time to care for them while having a crazy hectic schedule.  I would probably want to work in the ER department in a hospital or something like that.  Only because crazy people like being around people just like them.

I just want everyone in my family to be okay health-wise.  I want them to be around to enjoy birthdays and other milestones in my children's lives.  Only then would I be able to say to myself, it is going to be alright.  That I can pursue my dream and not have to stop because of family issues.  I guess I know where my stubborn genes come from.

-----

Why is it that parents are so hard to talk to sometimes?  They agree with what you are telling them, but yet you all know they are not going to listen to you.  As I said earlier, my parents like to ignore the medical advice given to them and just do whatever is okay with them at the moment.  I would like to tear my hair out each time they tell me something that is going wrong.  However, I am unable to do so because I do not like inflicting such pain on myself.  Also because I have very thin hair which would literally make me bald if I ever attempted to do so.  I hope that my parents will quit being hard-headed and take their health seriously.  Sometimes, I think I'm their parent.  Jeez louise.. I just hope my kids don't kill me slowly like how their grandparents are to me right now.

Fears of Pursuing My Dream

I first began working with patients right out of high school.  I worked for an ophthalmologist but I wasn't properly trained to do any of the work.  After that horrid experience, I stayed away from the medical field for a very long time.  It was during my first pregnancy that I decided to suck it up and become a medical assistant to help pay bills.  This second exposure to patients was amazing.  I met a lifetime friend, Kat, and worked almost non-stop because I loved my job at the clinic.  After my second pregnancy, I took time off to raise my baby and go back to school to finish my AA in Liberal Arts.  It was my intention to get my pre-requisites for the nursing program out of the way so that I will be able to focus on the nursing courses I need to complete the bachelor's program at a school nearby.

It is so difficult to become a nurse especially when you are married to a soldier.  The military is so unpredictable that I have become so resistant to completing this dream that I have.  Thus, I had decided to change my major to health information technology and management because I can complete my Bachelor's degree online.  But, as I try to walk away from nursing, my heart wishes that I kept my focus on my dream.  It's so difficult to prevent internal torment.

I have spent the last six years of my life in climbing the nursing ladder yet knowing how much my kids need me during this crazy transition is more important.  I made a promise to my children that I will always be there for their extracurricular activities and that I will never be too busy to spend time with them. During my last year of medical assisting in Hawaii, I felt so burnt out.  I felt that I was doing a job that I just had no passion for because of the work environment.

I have a fear that if I became a nurse, what if I blank out when I really need to be an asset to the medical team?  What if I can't remember this or that?  I can't bear to think that I am letting others down that need help the most.  I guess all I needed to do was vent out how I felt about this entire situation.

With that said, I'm looking forward to my next set of HIM classes in two weeks.

We Have A Winner!

Monday was our last chance at having a house on post.  For me, I have the worst luck when I call the housing office.  But, when my husband calls five hours later, we are assigned a house!! Finally!! It is completely ridiculous how long people who come to Fort Drum have to wait for housing.  Now, we have to wait till early May to move in.  As long as we have a house to look forward to living in soon, I feel less stressed out.

Today, I finally have my son enrolled in school.  He starts tomorrow at a local public school.  We took a tour and he is so excited to go back to school as well.  He also gets to take a school picture tomorrow as well.  But, this mama has to drive almost half an hour tomorrow morning and afternoon for the rest of the week.  I am a bit reluctant to allow him to ride the school bus only because of the bullying situations that I've heard and seen on television.

In Hawaii, we don't ride the school buses to school.  You either take the city bus, catch a ride with friends or family, or you walk to school.  School buses in Hawaii is for field trips.  But, I'm hoping that he makes a lot of friends that way he has a great support system at school so that I myself will feel a bit more comfortable with letting him ride the school bus in the future.

Then, that leaves me with Mikayla all day long.  In September, I will be alone at home with homework.  Both my babies will be in school and hopefully I'll almost be done with the HIT program.  I'm hoping to finish my Bachelor's degree while we are still up here.  So, I guess we will see.  I'm a bit more excited for us to be moving into a house soon.  That way we can enjoy living up here.  Pray that we get to move in a lot sooner than later.  Till then!!

Homework on Easter

Today, we celebrate the day the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead to join Our Father in Heaven.  I'm grateful to have my faith in Jesus because I know He has always been here and there for my family no matter what.  We have just returned from eating dinner at a restaurant called Kingstar.  It is a Chinese & Korean restaurant.  The food reminded us of Hawaii although it didn't taste exactly like it.  The woman was very nice and I have a feeling we will be going there more often.

Other than dinner, we haven't done much today due to our transient status.  Usually, I would have games and egg decorating for my family to do.  I told my children that we will have to celebrate Easter later on when we do have a house.  I'm not normal thus I like to do things a bit backwards from time to time.

I should be doing my ten to fifteen page APA formatted paper for my final project for my ethics class but I'm having obvious trouble concentrating.  I figured let me write a quick journal entry here and maybe I won't be so mentally antsy.  Well wish me luck.  Happy Easter to all and hope you all had a great day.

Womanly Troubles

I believe the title says it all.  Although I am at the ripe age of twenty-six going onto twenty-seven this winter, I have medical issues for the last ten to fifteen years.  I think they seem to have increased after high school and on.  Migraines that makes me cry and hide in the dark like a vampire.  I don't even want to dwell onto what happens when THAT time of the month comes around.  After having two kids, my body has been fighting me.

I try to exercise when I can when I'm not running around after my babies.  I have to stick to a bland diet.  A few years ago for my birthday, I wanted to eat pho (Vietnamese noodle soup with meatballs, thinly sliced beef, and very good broth) and spring rolls.  Unfortunately for me, I took a few bites of my food and was doubled over in pain.  Burning, stabbing, swelling pain.  My stomach had felt like an atomic bomb had gone off and that the awesome broth I love so much was burning the lining of my stomach away.  I wanted to die.  My husband thought I was crazy.  After that, I was prescribed medicine by my doctor to keep the gastrointestinal pain away.

Since then, I have tried to stay away from foods that I know will trigger a reflux attack.  But, having travelled for months and of course enjoying great not-good-for-me foods, it finally came to rear its ugly head last night.  It was rib night at the local pub.  I was really excited because just the sound of eating half a rack of ribs made me even more excited for dinner.

First mistake: eating salad.  Any type of salad has always been the number one source of reflux for me.  I don't know why but it just has been like that since my first child.  The second mistake was putting a little pepper onto the salad and eating the onions in the salad too.  The onions have natural acid and since I did not take any medicine to protect my tummy, I was soon punished when my plate of dry rubbed ribs came out.  The rub was awesome on the ribs along with the peppered mushroom gravy on my mashed potatoes.  But, all it took was a few bites from the ribs and I was immediately in pain.

I felt my stomach had expanded so much that I could feel the bottom of my stomach protruding from beneath my sternum.  Then, the atomic bomb went off in my belly.  I couldn't finish my dinner.  So now as I write to you all today, I finally gave in and took my medicine at least half an hour before getting my breakfast today.  I hate taking medicine but it's something I have to get used to to be healthy and strong for my family.

---------

I don't know why but today I feel so out of energy.  My legs feel like I've been doing the running man, basketball jump drills, and everything else I do in an Insanity workout.  It feels like one of those days where you just don't want to get out of bed.  I've literally been in bed since breakfast.  I feel like I need to get Vitamin B, D, C, and Iron.  I take multivitamins with extra vitamin C everyday and it still doesn't feel  like its enough.  I can't even exercise because the migraine that has been squeezing my brain has been around for the last two days.  I just need to suck it up and drive on... after I rest.

These next week will be crazy for me and my family.  We will be finding out if we will be living on post or off post.  My son finally gets to resume school next week.  I just want to cry and scream like a big baby right now.. Trying not to lose my mind while everything is going at a turtle pace is really taxing. But we shall see. Till next time.