Post by Sar on Nov 15, 2012 21:18:05 GMT -5
PLU encourages students to consider the question raised by the poet, Mary Oliver: "What will you do with your one wild and precious life?" What hopes and plans do you have for your future at PLU and how will you use your unique leadership skills and past experiences to make a positive contribution to campus and your life after college?
I was sixteen years old when I thought that I was going to die. It’s a scary thought and though I am a woman of faith, the thought of not being here, on this earth, frightens me. When you’re in high school, you are given the idea that the world is yours. You are told that you can achieve anything, that your road is endless. However, once you are faced with your mortality and, even better, that it’s approaching you soon, you begin to live in this phantasm of thoughts, such as “What if?” and “Why?”. Yes, I do believe that it was this moment that sent me down the track that I am now on and to these words, being typed down for the very first time.
If I were to start from the beginning, it would be a year ago from this October. On a chilly fall morning, the standard for this time in Western Washington, I awoke with a headache. Nothing horrible, just a small headache so I pushed it off to a sinus cold, something I develop easily. As the month progressed, the headaches got worse. Due to the recent break up with my boyfriend, my mother said it was all emotional and told me to work through it. As I moved forward things got worse but I believed it was only in my mind and that I should just “tough it out”. As I recall that thought, I realize what a bad idea it turned to be.
When February came around, I couldn’t even do basic things without pain. Standing up just brought instant dizziness and my athletic life became impossible. On the night before Valentine’s day, I was at my winter concert for band when, on stage, my vision split and I could no longer see what was in front of me. I made my way off the stage as soon as the concert ended and I was brought to tears from a splitting headache. When my mother saw this, she knew something was wrong, for this was her daughter, the girl who broke four bones simultaneously and not only didn’t cry but finished the game before going to the side lines. But this headache was a sign from my body that something was completely wrong.
We checked into the hospital the next day and that was where my journey to PLU began. I was lucky enough to be taken to Mary Bridge Children’s hospital. My eyes had been covered for three hours to help calm the headache but, when I was taken into my room, I will always remember the first thing I saw. There stood my nurses, a bright well aged redhead and her assistant, a student from Pacific Lutheran University. I only saw my doctor once during that first stay at Mary Bridge, but I saw my nurse and her ever watching assistant every hour. When medication had kicked in and I was able to speak again, I remember asking them questions. Simple ones at first, but then more intricate ones, about exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and how they expected it to work. To each question I was given an answer that satisfied me and an amazingly sweet smile from both of them, being told many times that they couldn’t wait for me to get back in school.
My two stays in the hospital added up to a week, a short week that would change me forever. Still not knowing what was wrong with me, I was kept from school and attending weekly appointments that were a mix of checkups and neurology appointments back at Mary Bridge. Though my nurses changed from the ones I had had in the emergency room and my extended stay, they all still had that amazing attitude that I had been given on that first day.
I ended up out of school for two months after that week stay in the hospital, given a 504 and put on a program that the district called home hospital. Even with the help I was given, transitioning back to school was a difficult process. Not only was I two months behind in my classes, but I was two months behind in some of the most difficult classes that my school offered, such as Chemistry, Advanced Placement Language and Composition, and Japanese 6, in my Junior year. Yet, I had the voices of my care takers in my head, the ones that were so excited to hear me being back in school. That year I worked my hardest to get my grades up. Though my grades from that year were not perfect, I was able to pass every class and even get my Chemistry grade up to a solid ‘B’, a grade higher than many others in the class that had been there the entire time.
It was hard to get out of bed, it was hard to keep doing sports, it was hard to get my grades to passing, it was hard to play music again, but these things were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to my next challenge. What next? What could a girl, who thought she would be dead by this time, do with her life that meant anything? That question was pondered for months. At least, it was, until I remembered my nurses. My Pacific Lutheran University Nurses, who not only thought the world of me, but reminded me, the world is mine. It was those faces of encouragement that helped me decide; what next? I was going to help the world and help give it a new light, even if all I could do was take care of a sick young girl during one of the worst times of her life.
So now, I’m here, in my senior year, fighting on to reach that goal; to light up the world. I’ve gotten involved with my community and school. I am president of the Auburn Mountainview Band and Captain of the Color Guard. I want to get as much experience as I can in life. I want the time that I leave behind to be defined as “Wild and precious”. I want to fulfill my dreams; to be the first in my family graduate high school; to attend PLU, to receive my BSN and higher, to help the world, to make it better. I want PLU to be my starting point for further education, to go in the footsteps of my nurses. I do not know how much time I have left. What I do know is that I have to make the best of it. I want to take this world and make it a brighter place for as many people I can touch, just like those that touched me.
I was sixteen years old when I thought that I was going to die. It’s a scary thought and though I am a woman of faith, the thought of not being here, on this earth, frightens me. When you’re in high school, you are given the idea that the world is yours. You are told that you can achieve anything, that your road is endless. However, once you are faced with your mortality and, even better, that it’s approaching you soon, you begin to live in this phantasm of thoughts, such as “What if?” and “Why?”. Yes, I do believe that it was this moment that sent me down the track that I am now on and to these words, being typed down for the very first time.
If I were to start from the beginning, it would be a year ago from this October. On a chilly fall morning, the standard for this time in Western Washington, I awoke with a headache. Nothing horrible, just a small headache so I pushed it off to a sinus cold, something I develop easily. As the month progressed, the headaches got worse. Due to the recent break up with my boyfriend, my mother said it was all emotional and told me to work through it. As I moved forward things got worse but I believed it was only in my mind and that I should just “tough it out”. As I recall that thought, I realize what a bad idea it turned to be.
When February came around, I couldn’t even do basic things without pain. Standing up just brought instant dizziness and my athletic life became impossible. On the night before Valentine’s day, I was at my winter concert for band when, on stage, my vision split and I could no longer see what was in front of me. I made my way off the stage as soon as the concert ended and I was brought to tears from a splitting headache. When my mother saw this, she knew something was wrong, for this was her daughter, the girl who broke four bones simultaneously and not only didn’t cry but finished the game before going to the side lines. But this headache was a sign from my body that something was completely wrong.
We checked into the hospital the next day and that was where my journey to PLU began. I was lucky enough to be taken to Mary Bridge Children’s hospital. My eyes had been covered for three hours to help calm the headache but, when I was taken into my room, I will always remember the first thing I saw. There stood my nurses, a bright well aged redhead and her assistant, a student from Pacific Lutheran University. I only saw my doctor once during that first stay at Mary Bridge, but I saw my nurse and her ever watching assistant every hour. When medication had kicked in and I was able to speak again, I remember asking them questions. Simple ones at first, but then more intricate ones, about exactly what they were doing, why they were doing it, and how they expected it to work. To each question I was given an answer that satisfied me and an amazingly sweet smile from both of them, being told many times that they couldn’t wait for me to get back in school.
My two stays in the hospital added up to a week, a short week that would change me forever. Still not knowing what was wrong with me, I was kept from school and attending weekly appointments that were a mix of checkups and neurology appointments back at Mary Bridge. Though my nurses changed from the ones I had had in the emergency room and my extended stay, they all still had that amazing attitude that I had been given on that first day.
I ended up out of school for two months after that week stay in the hospital, given a 504 and put on a program that the district called home hospital. Even with the help I was given, transitioning back to school was a difficult process. Not only was I two months behind in my classes, but I was two months behind in some of the most difficult classes that my school offered, such as Chemistry, Advanced Placement Language and Composition, and Japanese 6, in my Junior year. Yet, I had the voices of my care takers in my head, the ones that were so excited to hear me being back in school. That year I worked my hardest to get my grades up. Though my grades from that year were not perfect, I was able to pass every class and even get my Chemistry grade up to a solid ‘B’, a grade higher than many others in the class that had been there the entire time.
It was hard to get out of bed, it was hard to keep doing sports, it was hard to get my grades to passing, it was hard to play music again, but these things were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to my next challenge. What next? What could a girl, who thought she would be dead by this time, do with her life that meant anything? That question was pondered for months. At least, it was, until I remembered my nurses. My Pacific Lutheran University Nurses, who not only thought the world of me, but reminded me, the world is mine. It was those faces of encouragement that helped me decide; what next? I was going to help the world and help give it a new light, even if all I could do was take care of a sick young girl during one of the worst times of her life.
So now, I’m here, in my senior year, fighting on to reach that goal; to light up the world. I’ve gotten involved with my community and school. I am president of the Auburn Mountainview Band and Captain of the Color Guard. I want to get as much experience as I can in life. I want the time that I leave behind to be defined as “Wild and precious”. I want to fulfill my dreams; to be the first in my family graduate high school; to attend PLU, to receive my BSN and higher, to help the world, to make it better. I want PLU to be my starting point for further education, to go in the footsteps of my nurses. I do not know how much time I have left. What I do know is that I have to make the best of it. I want to take this world and make it a brighter place for as many people I can touch, just like those that touched me.
