Ok so I'm brand new to blogging but there are so many things happening in my life I need an outlet and hey maybe someone will relate!
First of all I am not a professional writer and I'm sure there will be room for criticism but I just want to do this for myself and hopefully I will get better and better!
I have been on a quest to change my life since August 2010. To start at the beginning, my father passed away last August in his 50's due to a lifetime of drinking and smoking. It was a very traumatic death, without fully disclosing there was an accident with smoking while hooked up to his oxygen tank, a truly tragic way to die. I loved my dad because he was my dad but as anyone who has dealt with a alcoholic and drug addict knows there was a strain on the relationship. Regardless, after the accident I went to Dallas and my sister and myself stayed with him day and night for a week in hospice until he died. It was possibly the saddest, most life changing experience of my 31 years on the planet. The range of emotions ran from sadness, anger, blaming, relief, and the most of all numbness. During my week stay in hospice with my dad I began to feel an old calling whispering my name.
Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a nurse. After interacting with the hospice nurses I started feeling a pulling within, the only way I know to describe it, that I needed to go back to school for nursing. When I was 18, I started nursing school but soon after became pregnant with my daughter and could not continue with clinical's while pregnant. After the birth of my daughter I was overwhelmed with financial responsibility and eventually began working as a secretary to support us. Fast forward 13 years and I was still working as a secretary and making a decent salary but was horribly unhappy professionally. I gained 80lbs and started having horrible hormone imbalance issues and sever female problems, my life was not what I now consider living...I was just maintaining consciousness. Then my father's death helped put me on a new track, possibly the greatest gift he ever gave me. When I returned home from Dallas I started looking for nursing programs and within a week I applied to Our Lady of the Lake College, was accepted and was quitting my full time job to begin taking 15 hours of prerequisites for the next two semesters to be eligible to apply to the nursing program.
Going back to college at 31 was scary for several reasons, but I hit the ground running and made the Dean's List both semesters and was 1 of 120 out of 500+ applicants who were accepted to the Nursing Program! Once I was accepted I realized my dreams were coming true and maybe I had the courage to take control of my body and eating habits. I didn't and still don't want to be over weight and unhealthy and working in the health care profession. I don't mean to offend any of my overweight sisters by saying this ( I am still on the road to my weight loss goals and am still about 50lbs overweight) because I know how easy it is to gain the weight, not to mention it's pretty fun eating whatever you want. I just want to explain my mindset at the time I decided to begin taking control of my diet and exercise. I like many others contemplated many fast ways to lose weight but ultimately decided to take the slow and steady approach. I started out by writing everything down and cutting out all fast food. Slowly I started losing a few pounds and became encouraged to make more changes.
I want to do a separate blog about my weight loss journey so stay tuned for that!
I am starting nursing school on 8/22/11 and really can't wait! I want to use this blog to document my experiences with school, exercise and healthy food choices that I hope others will want to read about and share their thoughts with me.
That's my brief synapse of the past year...more to come!
Thanks for reading
Bonnie, future RN
