thoughtful thursday.

[get-thinspiration.tumblr.com]

i dislike running.  mostly because i am not good at it.  i used to run, but  s l o w l y  i tapered off.  school, work, life, etc.  i was fine walking with olive.  she sniffed around and kept a look out for the squirrels, i people-watched.  everyone was happy.  it wasn't until recently that i ran into a problem: almost all of my friends run.  i want to be like hang out/run with them.  i decided that once the deathly-hot summer passed, i would start up and get moving.

why i wouldn't be a good mental health nurse.

i'm too trusting.  i will believe just about anything that i am told. 

i listened to multiple different stories yesterday during clinical and i became empathetic, then in shock, then i wanted to laugh, and then i was concerned.  when i approached my instructor about it, she laughed and told me that they were testing me.  

thoughtful thursday.

it's been a very long time since i have done a "thoughtful thursday" post.  mainly due to the fact that the past several thursdays i have been awake and out the door by 5:30 to get to clinical at the hospital!

back the pack!

nathan, michael, cullen, and ryan 

after winning the silver medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay on sunday! 

misunderstood.

"necesita un intérprete?" i asked the woman coming toward me. she gave me a puzzled look, and with broken english, she told me that she didn't understand that much english.

right, i thought, which is precisely why...my thoughts trailed off as a lady i was working with overheard our conversation and quickly ushered the spanish interpreter in our direction. we sat down, and i looked at her chart, listening attentively as she did her best to articulate her words.  the interpreter smiled at me as she sat quietly beside the sweet lady.  after finishing her health history and admission requirements, i thanked her and asked her to go back to the waiting room.

there, in plain sight, i read: Ethnicity: Asian. awesome.

in my defense, her last name rhymed with corazón (heart in spanish), and she looked to be more of Pacific Islander descent. anyone else would be understandably confused.  i pointed to the chart, smiling at the interpreter.  "whoops," i said.  "i know," she smiled,"i noticed that right after sitting down." 

this made me think of my interactions with others.  i get so excited to share my faith with nonbelievers, only to sometimes feel somewhat defeated. why?  because i am not speaking their language. i tell them why Jesus is so amazing, and i'm sure it sounds pretty, but sometimes someone just isn't ready to receive it.  i'm sure that sweet lady in the clinic wanted to understand everything i was saying.  but she was only capable of picking up on a few words because she wasn't equipped with the adequate resources to  fully comprehend.  i didn't have the right interpreter present.

Isaiah 55:11 says, "so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." 

do i stop?  no. i have so much hope for the unreached people.  i remember listening when i was younger, but i wasn't able to grasp the magnitude of the message.  eventually, it will click.  God always wins!

how rudeee.

whyyy must target send me an email to let me know that they have

an orange kitchenaid mixer on sale,

when it doesn't exactly fit in my nursing school budget?

yes, my white one is fine.

but it's fine. not orange. 

i think stephanie tanner said it best, "how rude!"

i miss good tv & pretending to live in the tanner household.

fact: when i was little, i asked my mom if i could change my name to stephanie.

fact: i changed my middle name to "jackson" on my graduation announcements.  

why? because my parents had boy names picked out when i was in utero.

and they were cool, strong names: 

william kyle & kyle jackson, 

after my mom's dad, who had since passed.

but then i popped out, and they were unprepared. whoops!

since they gave me a family middle name that sort of rhymes with "walrus,"

and that spawned lots of lovely nick names,

i decided to take matters into my own hands and change those silly announcements.

i told her i was going to march right down to the social security office

to take care of business.

long story short,

i never changed my name.

mom decided to go to kinko's and print off little cards with my real name,

making sure that i knew what a pain in the butt i was along the way.

thankfully, she learned patience and how to love me in another way.

hooray!

i don't know where i'd be without that woman.

she prayed and prayed and prayed for me and my stubbornness and 

lack of obedience, and risk-taking abilities.

and tada - God answered!

i was pretty great at being bold and pushing the limits.

and now God is using all of that boldness for His glory.

how amazing, and how perfect are His plans.

without that beautiful, sweet mom of mine showing me  

love and discipline,   

just like God does for us,

I wouldn't be here today.

job 5:17 - 18 says, "Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.  For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal."

thank goodness for that!

His blessings for us are plain to Him!

He doesn't know pain, He just knows what we need.

we are the ones that hurt or receive joy from the gifts He gives us.

but whatever that gift looks like, it is only for our good, and His glory.

He wants us to reach out to Him in need and use that gift to grow closer to Him!

not allowing our circumstances to define us.

just like job.  what a life that guy had!

thankful today, and everyday, for one of the greatest gifts and blessings in my life:

mom, i love you!  your joy for this world and your huge heart have 

shown me what true love looks like. 

if i become half the woman that you are,

that would mean a whole lot.

Happy mother’s day!

love is a choice.

"My command is this:

Love each other as I have loved you.  

Greater love has no love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 

You are my friends if you do what I command.  

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.  

Instead, I call you friends, 

for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 

You did not choose me,

but I chose you

and appointed you to go bear fruit -- fruit that will last. 

Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  

This is my command: 

Love each other." 

- John 15:12-17

FACTS:

we are called to love just as he loved us.

what his love looks like:

he laid down his life for us.

what he calls us:

his friends


friend (frend) - n
a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection, and loyalty; 
an intimate

friendship (frend-ship) - n

1. the state of being a friend; association as friends

2. a friendly relation or intimacy

what it all means:

love like him.

love our friends like he loves us.

lay down our lives for our friends

he is our friend.
what do you do with your friends?
do you spend time with them?
do you talk to them?
do you ask them for advice? 
do you laugh with them?
perfect! 
Jesus is exactly what you've been looking for!


we are to spend time with him like the friend he is.
with liking, affection, and loyalty.


this gives devotion a new meaning to me.
my morning devotions are literally that. 
i am devoting my time to uncover more about my friend.
i want to devote myself wholly to him,
 giving him the attention he deserves.
just like any friend i have on earth.
daily
hourly
thinking of him F I R S T before acting.
are my actions going to be detrimental to our friendship?

we are to lay down our lives for him.
because he did it for us,
and because
that's what's friends do when they love you!


putting it all together:

put aside selfish desire and want.

and serve him out of love.

serve him by sitting by someone you don’t want to.

someone that you know doesn’t know him.

serve him by reaching out to someone in need.

serve him by shining,

even when a lost person tries to put your light out.

they want that light.

and eventually their darkness will crack.

love is a choice. 

he chose us. 

and we must choose to love others. 

love must be learned again and again; there is NO end to it!

just like His love for us. 

unending and everlasting.

be blessed & keep shining!

update.

what i'm doing:

i just finished my first round of clinical!

hooray!

i was blessed with a great instructor,

great nurses who loved to teach me,

great patients who allowed me to learn,

and a great group to learn with!

back to school tomorrow to learn more,

and to help me to continue to grow to be a great nurse.

what i'm eating:

yep, it's green.

and it's called a green monster.

this isn't my first rodeo, 

i blogged about it here.

it's probably full of nickel.

and i probably don't care.

at all. because it's good.

and it's good for me.

and because God said in Genesis 1:29,

"I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.  They will be yours for food."

so, thank you very much, God, I will eat it.

and I will rejoice in doing so.

what it's made of:

spinach

frozen bananas

frozen pineapple

strawberries

1 T chia seeds

1 T almond butter

1 t maca powder

1/4 c coconut yogurt

12 oz water

what it tastes like:

amazingness

fact: that's an actual word.

i thought i made it up,

but it seems that someone else out there is just as clever as i.

see here.

what i'm learning:

final product:

i have attempted this twice.

twice at 5:30am before going to the hospital.

before finding a video and attempting to just braid then bun.

but as it turns out, there's an art to it.

and it takes time.  not 5 minutes.

will repost later when i master it.

what i'm living:

striving daily to have an attitude worth catching.

loving like jesus.

he died for me,

being bold for him is the least i can do!

"submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil & he will FLEE 

from you." - james 4:7

keep shining!

how to survive a nickel allergy.

i found a study here that tested the correlation of 
nickel and iron metabolism in rats.
on page 1285 at the bottom left, it says: 


 "high intake of nickel was toxic [100 mcg]...these rats exhibited the lowest hematocrit [percentage of red blood cells - if this is low, your RBC's are low] and hemoglobin [this is the iron-containing protein that delivers oxygen to the RBC's - each heme contains 1 iron atom, so if your hemoglobin is low, your iron is low]...manifestations were not seen when the rats were given 100 mcg iron with the 100 mcg Ni/g diet."


this means that they correspond to one another.
so eating a diet high in iron [or supplementing]
will prevent impairment of iron metabolism.
vitamin C fits in because it enhances iron absorption.

i also found a study by the FDA

[total diet study]

that looked at the different amounts of elements in food from 2006 - 2008.

nickel is documented on pages 106 - 116.

looking at the mean, some of the higher nickel-containing foods are:

pinto beans

lima beans

granola with raisins

whole wheat bread

avocado [awesome, just yesterday i thought it was fine]

oat ring cereal [i don't know what that is, but it sounds weird]

sunflower seeds

...

creamy peanut butter [0.474 mg/kg]

plain milk chocolate candy bar [1.00 mg/kg]

this has milk in it.  which dilutes the chocolate a bit.

so dark is higher.

which is what i eat.

...

ohmygoodness i am going to die.

i am going to detox for a couple of weeks,

then slowly introduce things that i'm used to eating.

this will allow me to see what in particular is causing my reaction.

then i can always eat a handful of vitamin C with a handful of pb m&m's

or my pb chocolate chip cookies 

[or as my friends call them, "crack cookies," because they are so so so amazing].

men and women should consume no more than 1 mg/day of nickel,

found here.
so that means that 1 milk chocolate candy bar is your day's worth
of nickel.

i feel a little better.

and a little less chicken-little-esque.

the sky is not falling.

worrying about what to eat is crazy.

we are told in matthew 6:31 - 34,

"so do not worry, saying 'what shall we eat?' or 'what shall we drink?'

or 'what shall we wear?' for the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. but first seek his kingdom and his

righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about

itself.  each day has enough trouble of its own."

so to all you chicken little's out there,

the sky is not falling.

today is a new day.

nickel-free?

this is going to be a fun post to write...

and long.  so i'm sorry in advance.

ever since i was 12, 

i have been very intuitive about what i put into my body.

i've driven both parents crazy with my "weekly diets,"

as they would call them.

if dad was grilling steak - it was steak or nothing.

so i chose nothing.

mom would make something for me to eat & eat it with me,

just so she knew i was eating.

fast forward 4 years.

sitting in high school i have itchy hives all over me.

the wheals would dissipate as soon as i rushed to the doctor.

three visits later, i finally got those suckers to stick around

only to be told that it was urticaria.

what?

"we don't know why you have it," my PA said,

"too tight of clothes, stress, fragrances in laundry detergent..."

i wasn't really sure how a t-shirt fit into the "too tight of clothes" column,

so i assumed it was the two later.

so all free clear was bought & that was that.

fast forward 10 hive-filled years and i go to the allergist

allergies to cats, grass, dustmites, cockroaches, pumpkin and maybe cinnamon.

fast forward 6 months later,

still have 'em.

and added to that, i have the worst case of "athlete's foot"

i've ever seen.

i even decided to take it with me to africa,

where it spread to my hands.

i went to my dermatologist upon returning last july,

and she ran to get her book.

"did it look like this?" she asked,

after i described the nightmare i'd had three weeks earlier [itchy, painful,

embarrassing, debilitating blisters].

"YES!" I said

"that's not athlete's foot, that's dyshidrotic eczema," she said.

awesome.  makes sense.  i have eczema in the winter.

i have asthma, i have seasonal allergies.  i should also have that.

no cure, just creams.  avoid wet hands, avoid things that irritate it.

so three ago i welcomed it back [hooray!].

and yesterday it was exacerbated as i was frequently using 

the hand sanitizer at the hospital.

and last night, i did some fun research:

dyshydrotic background, epidemiology, etiology, etc

this site mentioned nickel.

i remember seeing that last year, and thinking "i'm not around a lot of nickel,

that can't be it..."

well, haha joke's on me.

what foods contain nickel?

apparently nickel is basically in everything that i eat.

since i have decided to be quite the health-nut & picky eater,

i consume an abundance of nickel. 

basically because it's in the water, which is in the soil, which nourishes the foods that i eat.

i found this article that interviewed a super cute doctor in ohio:

rash of nickel food diet linked to healthier diet

symptoms: rash on palms of hands [check], elbows [check], fatigue [check], nausea [check], headaches [check], joint pain [idk]

so sistercat, when you say "you're always nauseous and tired", 

turns out that it makes sense for me to be, and i'm allowed to say that.

my mom two weeks ago: "do you think your skin allergies have anything to do with your diet?"

me: "NO mom! of course not!  what could i possibly be eating that would cause this?? i eat so healthy!!"

ok.  i'm glad i asked myself.

while i've found conflicting websites (high amounts on one site, low on another),

here they are:

[from the MELISA MEDICA Foundation - dedicated to the science of metal allergy & its diagnosis when treating so-called "incurable diseases, such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS or ME), Mutiple Sclerosis (MS), or other autoimmune and allergic diseases."]

this list is from Sweden - so what's high there could be low here & vice versa.

again - dependent upon the soil.

athena allergy [the nickel allergy experts]:

from america: huntersville, nc to be exact [my home state!]

other dietary nickel to avoid:

chocolate & cocoa powder [especially dark - the best for you]

all nuts [walnuts, peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts, soy nuts]

all seeds [sunflower seeds, linseed

licorice [nooo problem avoiding this]

baking powder [they have aluminum free...i wonder if i can get nickel free]

gelatin 

marzipan [almond paste, makes sense]

margarine [maybe because it's made w/ soybean oil/plant sterols?]

commercial salad dressings

vitamins containing nickel

canned foods

stainless-steel cooking vessels used for cooking acidic foods 

[ex: cooking oranges/strawberries/apples in stainless steel pot will allow nickel to seep into foods - so either don't do it or use non-stick pots/pans - caphalon, tefal, rachael ray, paula dean, etc.]

the first quart of tap water drawn from any faucet in the morning 

[hopefully water filter will help this, need to look into it more what it's actually filtering out.]

ways to prevent your body from absorbing nickel from each meal:

eat vitamin C supplement with each meal

eat high-iron diet
vitamin C helps iron absorption

the vitamin C apparently binds to nickel,

preventing your body from absorbing it.

do i have a nickel allergy?

i don't know. 

but i'm willing to avoid foods to give it a shot.

what will i eat?

um...good question.

still working that one out.

maybe just avocados, apples, oranges, salmon, coconut milk yogurt, celery, and salmon.

those are the only things i can think of that i currently have in my refrigerator 

that don't show up on the second list.

the good news: i LOVE coconut milk more than almond milk.

i have the creamer, the yogurt, the milk, the kiefer.

the bad news:  no more almond butter, no more beans, no more

soy anything, no more hot buckwheat cereal, no more nuts, no more chocolate, [insert 

anything else yummy that love to eat and that's healthy]

also, i need to avoid alcohol on my hands for work.

so i am investing in some more of this stuff: 

cleanwell all natural hand sanitizer

i've used it before.

it smells "earthy,"

but i guess it's worth smelling like that

than getting blisters all over my hands. 

day 1 of food diary starts now.

more helpful websites:
national skin centre
livestrong