Welcome To My Life

Happy Thanksgiving! 🍗 I am thankful for my health, my family, my friends and the abundant blessings I have in my life. I am especially thankful to have my health as well as a healthy family. I am in my pediatric rotation and I see all these children that are terminally ill, and I honestly don't know how these families handle this but they do, with such grace and strength.  As I mentioned last week, this is the season that I love to volunteer my time and give to the less fortunate. It is so humbling yet heartbreaking to see these families that merely have the clothes on their back, if that.  I am so blessed to have such a great life full of love and laughter, and friends and family. 

With the holidays approaching, I always like to find a way to give back somehow. I'm so blessed to have the simple things in life like the ability to see and hear, and just overall good health. I'm even more fortunate to have a loving family, a truck, a roof over my head and food on the table. Every year, I buy food and give it to my friend to prepare to make thanksgiving meals for the less fortunate. (I can't cook 😔)  We then hand out food at Kakaako and some parks and beaches around Hawaii Kai. We also give them clothes and blankets that we no longer use. There are a lot of homeless families so I save my son's clothes and toys and give them away. This past week, I got to volunteer at HUGS. HUGS is a nonprofit organization that holds respite once a month in Kaimuki or Kapolei, and allows parents to drop off their ill children and their siblings, so they get a chance to just be kids. Not only do the parents get a break, but the siblings of ill children get a chance...

In my senior year of high school, I felt a lump in my stomach. I weighed roughly about 105 lbs give or take, so I was pretty skinny. When I would lie down, I could feel this hard, round lump in my stomach and it was uncomfortable. I proceeded to tell my mom, who then told me, "It's just your abs", because like I said, I was pretty tiny. Fast forward to 6 months later, the lump got bigger and I told my mom so she felt it and her first reaction was, "OH MY GOD! You're pregnant!".  😒Umm no. This was the lump I was telling her about. She took me to get an ultrasound and turns out I had a cyst on one of my ovaries. I was freaking out and thought I had cancer! They biopsied it in the following weeks and thankfully it was benign and non cancerous. 🙌 I ended up getting surgery to remove the 8lb cyst. It was almost like having a baby!  I was in the hospital for over a week, and stayed home from school for almost a month to recover. It was one of the scariest ...

I'm not sure if any of you have heard of the game, "Fortnite", but it has taken the world by storm. All the kids are OBSESSED with this game, especially my son, and even his dad. They wake up early, play all day to night. They won't even get off to eat! My son was invited to "Fortnite" birthday parties where the kids were asked to bring a laptop or ipad so they could play Fortnite together. I thought that was insane! My issue is that my son, is so addicted to it and he only wants to play Fortnite. He watches videos when he can't play and his attitude is horrible. He doesn't listen, he talks back and he can't focus. I've heard many other parents are having the same issue. I'm so close to taking a hammer to the XBOX! But, I'm hoping I can use it to my advantage to get my son to listen and do things. Therefore, I have taken away XBOX privileges and depending on how my son acts while on grounding will determine if he gets his privil...

Christmas is my favorite time of the year! I love the holiday spirit, the decorations, the music, and the weather! One of my favorite things to do is wrap presents and participate in holiday traditions like decorating gingerbread houses and baking cookies for Santa! Every year, we plan a family trip! In the past couple of years we've gone to California, Utah, and Vegas. I would like to go to Japan this year, but the rest of my family wants to go back to Salt Lake City. This is the house we stayed in last year! It had 9 bedrooms, a movie theater, pool table, air hockey, ping pong table, and a jacuzzi right out back! It was huge! We had so much fun! Probably why my family wants to go back there this year! It was so special to have us all under one roof. Most of the kids slept in the movie theater every night. We have been to Utah twice now, and I would like to go somewhere else this year. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I'm a little older than most of my peers in college, especially in this COM 201 class. If I could, I would go back and do things a little differently. I would have applied to college, and took college classes during high school, like my mother encouraged me to do. Somewhere along the road, I fell off and went down the wrong path. I was partying all night, sleeping all day, and ended up getting pregnant at 18. This pushed my college career further down the path then it already was. I gave birth at 19, and stayed home for 4 years to watch my son.  Looking back, I wish I would have got my college applications in, went away for college. I wish I would have gotten my life together sooner. I am now a struggling mother and student, and life is hard.  I couldn't wait to grow up, and now I'd give anything to turn back time. Sometimes I feel like giving up because I am so overwhelmed, but I know the harder I work, the greater the reward. I just gotta keep reminding myself of that ...