Merry-belated-Christmas!

Greetings fellow stalkers!

Just wanted to take a quick moment and wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and happy, healthy start to 2014. 

It has been somewhat of a massive challenge to really feel like I accomplished much these past few months. I feel like its been a mega marathon since getting back from Europe. I've been working, adjusting, and accomodating a lot the past few months-so i appreciate a lot of the slack that has been cut towards me. Thus being said, I had a slight spare moment to write some life thoughts with me, Lauren Slattery.

First off lets start by talking about the weather, because that is a great start to any opener conversation... We have gotten so much stinkin snow it makes my face hurt from smiling so much :D  I can't remember a winter in the last 3 years that has had this much, which makes for fabulous snow walks with the puppy, cross country skiing, and overall marveling at the snowflake dancing beauty. Its been great working 2nd shift too, because I've been able to soak up the sunshine of the morning. No seasonal affective disorder for this chic!

Thanksgiving this past year was wonderful. I had a full 4 days off and was able to spend all of it with the family in Chicago for Slatteryfest 2013. We had optimal location right off Michigan ave, by a Gino's East. It was 45 degrees and little wind in the windy city... how bizarre. It was our 7th year dining at Joe's Stone Crab. We were talking to our waitress about our tradition and apparently "7"is the lucky number around that place because we got every dessert on the menu for free. My mom and I took our annual walk down to the Caribou coffee for our "sip and city stroll,: only to find out that Caribou was going out of business in this location and will only be found in Minnesota in the next year. Very bittersweet.  Joey and I proposed to Brian and Melissa to be in our wedding party via the piano player at "Howl at the Moon." He played my request of "Blurred Lines" and announced our message. Missy was all grins, it was cute. Apparently my mother was confused and thought that she won a giant fish bowl of booze... good guess Patty. It was a really rejuvenating little weekend get-away. Also, our report from Jordy's dog sitter was that he only humped another dog when she wasn't looking. So proud of my little mutt.

Christmas was as good as it could be. I worked both the 24th and 25th. I got home at 1AM on Christmas Eve and came home to an entirely spotless apt with tea lights lit, foliage hanging, and mistletoe hanging, and two happy boys awake with hot chocolate ready. Perfection :) Especially after a night at work and giving enemas. This moment of being home quickly brought me back to the reality of   the Christmas presence. Praise the lord. We got up and went to church and then made brunch. Totally rocked out the bacon wrapped turkey filets, cheesy potato casserole, fresh biscuits, homemade cranberry sauce, and peanut butter brownies (sorry Greg!). It was as good as it could get working the holiday. We put our tree up late this year and decided we're not taking it down until after my family's Christmas in late January. Its either keep the tree up longer to enjoy or throw it in the backyard and let the mice invade. Meh, we'll skip that. 

Speaking of rodents, I am very proud of Jordy. Last week I was in the back porch of our flat to let him outside to pee when he started to scurry all over the place. I was down a flight of stairs and couldn't see what he was into, but I ran up to see what was going on to find a giant dead rat. Jordy's a stud. I was pretty grossed out having to take it outside after that, but at least I didnt have to finish it... I texted the landlord who had the exterminator come out the next day to check thing out. It was a single "Norway Rat."  All was clear, just said sometimes in these old houses this time of year, you can find those suckers. So now everytime we go out the back door, the dog gets all squirrely and begins to hunt. Good boy.

I am really looking forward to 2014. I will be going broke on the 9 weddings we were invited to, but I guess its feast or famine. Maybe we can just regift the toaster on our registry list. ha. I still have to actually write my goals for the year, but for now will just say I am excited to start anew. That being said, hope everyone continues to have a safe and happy Christmas season. Remember to stop and remember what keeps you going and say thanks for that.

yeup, no exaggeration. Your welcome :)

I am still of earthly existence!

Let me begin this blog by saying, "HI!" because I know its been forever and a day that i've actually taken a moment to sit down and yack through my fingertips.

Its October :) Really I feel like that is all I need to say. There is no time of year that defeats October in the Wisconsin: bonfires, the colors of upper michigan, football, pumpkin spice lattes, leaves that sound like potato chips under your toes, jeans&sweatshirts, corn mazes, AH! What's not to love?! It kind of blows my mind that we are already at this time of year. However, if i recall that last 6 weeks or so, it sort of fits together...
     
Back in 2010, Joey had shown we Jeju Island, South Korea and I promised him I would show him what i know of Europe. We spent 3 weeks scampering around a few different countries, seeing new things, and visiting old friends. I can honestly say it was by far the exactly what I needed. I missed the amazing bread, meetings of fellow international travelers, that true sense of feeling tiny as you stand amongst the Austrian Alps, complete independence, waking up every morning knowing that adventure was just a few steps away- talk about rekindling the human spirit :)

Oh, I suppose I should probably mention that I am now ENGAGED too!...  I couldn't have pictured a more perfect place for it to happen as well.  We were in the heart of the Swiss Alps overlooking the city below us and next to this gorgeous green-blue lake. I was taking pictures over the edge and I turned to Joey and he was one knee... all I could do was smile and hug him. The coolest part was hearing the Swiss cow bells echo against the mountain walls from the valley below us :) Friday the 13th, on the side of Mount Titlis (pronounced as it appears ;), how romantic ) Recalling it still kind of blows my mind.

I would never have enough time or finger strength to type all the details of our European adventure, but I can recap a little bit. Oktoberfest is by far the most FUN party I have ever been to. Brooke and I traveled down a wooden slide in the world's oldest salt mine at 30.7kilometers per hour in Hallstatt. You never realize how small the world is until you get out into it, we met 4 fellow Wisconsinites at the Augusteiner Brauhaus in Salzburg. The doner is still by far the best and cheapest street food I have ever eaten. Lattes in Switzerland cost the equivalent to $10. Every time i hear the new Avicci song all I can think of is zipping on the autobahn. The best place to meet fellow world travelers is the hostel bar. We were so stinkin fortunate to have such great hosts every place we stayed!

Its almost a teaser to come back to the real world after such an adventure. I thought working swing shift for the first year and a half of my nursing career would've kind of prepared me... ha, no. It took all of our strength to stay up to 8pm after 29hrs of travel and 3 hrs of sleep the night we left Munich. We slept a solid 9ish hrs the first night and were awake by 0430 the following morning. We ended up walking to the beach to watch the sunrise and await the grocery store's opening to get food for breakfast... ha :) how ridiculous does that sound!?

If it wasn't enough to backpack Europe, get engaged, be challenged by jetlag, and catch up with everyone back home- Joey and I both accepted new jobs to begin once we got back as well. Holy life explosion, batman! Its a healthy type of explosion, which sounds somewhat oxymoronish. My first day as a new staff RN at the Milwaukee VA was on October 7th, my 25th birthday. I am oh so thankful for the gift of employment (and couldn't have picked a better time to join the federal system with the government being shut down and all-ha!). Its been going pretty stellar so far. It is so cool to see the approach everyone within the system takes in truly thanking the veterans. It is usually the 2nd thing EVERY employee will say, "Welcome to the VA. Are you a vetran? Yes? Thank you for your service." So freakin honoring!

Life has been pretty dang good to me at my quarter of a century mark. I love waking up in the morning and accepting the challenge of trying to figure out where the road wants to take me. What I think and what actually happens is so far beyond what I am capable of guessing. It usually ends up being a major laugh-fest because life's irony kicks in. But all in all, it keeps things trucking along.

I must be skedaddling along, my bed has been summoning me for a little while now. Hope everyone's week starts off just rockin and the coffee's nice and strong :)
 Here's a song I've had in my head for about 4 weeks now, to help you get started.

90s type-o-afternoon

Last Friday Evening i was out with a bunch of my fave nursing babes. We were having drinks at the wicked hop catching up and talking. The dj started to play a major flashback from the 90s included with music videos and all. Jaclyn, baur, and I immediately diverted our attention to this highly entertaining ambiance we were engulfed. I suddenly was brought back to moments when I was in grade school listening to eifel 65 while roller skating at the RolaRena. I feel as though I was slightly too young to truly appreciate the 90s music at that tender age, so I brought it back like 20+ yrs post era. Dang is there some quality stuff!

Needless to say, I got out of bed around 1:30 this afternoon. I worked close to 14hrs yesterday and was pretty wiped. Highlight of my day yesterday, Joey drove to the south side to have breakfast for dinner with me at Omega at 9:30pm after be both hadn't eaten for 8hrs. Totes slept like a queen.

I couldn't find any energy to peel myself out of my amazingly cozy bed so I spooned the dog and watched movies until close to later afternoon. I got up to find myself completely tickled pink and grinning like a fool because I was able to attack the massive pile of laundry in the comfort of my old creepy basement for the first time since August. The old tenants that moved out brought their machines with them, leaving us to hang at the laundromat at least 3xs a month, which gets old and expensive rather quickly. We bought ourselves a gently used washer and dryer for Christmas... Talk about getting old. Long story short: I was completely content spending the the entire late afternoon cleaning, playing kitchen diva, doing laundry, sipping coffee, talking with Cassius (roommate), and jamming out to the new 90s playlist. It is these ridiculous and productive afternoons that are so relaxing to me.

As much as i would love to keep blabbing my face off, I am going to get my butt over to the y and get some cardio and spin this fine Friday evening. Thank you for reading this rather pointless post, i guess its my way of sharing the little things i am thankful for! now,i have a 3day weekend to take advantage of! So for my closing thoughts, I will leave you beautiful people with this mystical song....

Big day!

Well today is the day that I am suppose to be dead. On January 15, 2010 I was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, which was basically a death sentence. I can remember hearing those words so vividly in my mind from a cardiologist that didn't know much about the condition and he basically replied with ,"I'm so sorry. All I can do is refer you to a specialist."

Being a young, naive nursing student I whipped open my med/surg nursing text book and looked up the topic. Big mistake. It said I was going to live at max 2.9more years without treatment. I then closed my book told myself that there has to be more to the picture and sought out the help of a fabulous specialist.

I was brought to st.lukes medical center and under the great care of Diane Zwicke. Just for a second, try and imagine yourself a 21yr old young, thriving college student being having to consider giving up everything you worked so hard for with limited amount of time to even use any of your knowledge and skills. Yeah I choose not to have to consider that either because I understand that life will never give me more than I am capable of handling. Once you can look past the dark details, it only motivated me to become more optimistic. Optimism+Lauren slattery= time to start rockin at life. That is exactly what has been done in the last three years.

I am proud of myself for multiple reasons:

The whole time this was happening, my boyfriend was able to stick it out with me while he was in South Korea for another 8 months. He could've easily broken it off with me, but we both chose to keep it going because honesty and communication are the groundwork of our relationship.

i was kicked out of Carroll's nursing program temporarily because I was an inpatient at the hospital and accidentally missed computer training for clinical. Tell me that's fair. My mom (RN), aunt Karen (professor of journalism with emphasis in ethics), and uncle mark (attorney) all help fight the injustice of the nursing board and bought me right back in to where I was originally. I felt targeted and anxiety stricken the whole rest of the semester because I felt as if I had to perform at an incredibly high level because of my "inconvenience" of rejoining clinical. I passed the semester by a 0.6%. Boy, was I all smiles after that-and talk about a huge confidence boost!

I completed 110 miles of the MS150 bike tour with my mom (due to weather reasons) to celebrate a healthy heart.

I have been able to attend two national PHA (pulmonary hypertension association) conferences in CA and FL and meet other PH fighters of all ages. This doesn't even begin to touch on the support system I have built through. I have meant some incredible individuals that can directly relate.

I was asked by my cardiologist to take a job working with her on the same floor I was a patient on. Good old 10T :) I have been able to connect with so many distressed patients of all ages. Its rather ironic and sort of funny when you are 24yrs old and pep talking a 70yr old about how they are getting the best care and they will make it through. I have found more satisfaction and made more personal connections through working as an RN the last 2yrs than some nurses have in their entire career. I adore my coworkers and am so blessed to have scored such a great job opp right out of college.

I have been able to speak out in awareness on many occasions. My two biggest being in a video for Aurora Healthcare and being interviewed in the quarterly cardiovascular newsletter. I have recently been asked to help try and start up a PH walk for the surrounding milwaukee Area to get the word out there. There is nothing more I love than getting the word out there and telling my story!


There are multiple more reasons as to why I am proud of the development of myself the last few years but these are just to name a few. One of my patients once told me that I am a 24yr old going on 70 because of all the life experience that has exploded in my short time span. I would say its less of the actual experience and more of your reaction to it. There are far too many people in this world that are Debby-downers, I take those individuals as my challenge. I will do my best to not be a pessimist because life sucks when your in a bad mood. It's all perspective. There is always someone out there who is far worse off than yourself... Trust me, I've seen a lot of different situations, or talked with professionals who deal specifically with the broken. Everything really be ok, I promise :)

I always become estatic for the new year as well because I love seeing at the end of it the journey you have gone through, the people you met along the way, and all the things that made you laugh. The sooner one learns to laugh at themselves, the sooner the world begins to uproot its irony and greatness.

You might ask me how I am celebrating and I will say by practicing my civil responsibility of participating in jury duty. Yes, two full 6+hr days at the milwaukee county court house with whatever the law wants to throw my way. It has been a very good experience to me because of the awesome, down to earth people I have met. These past few days have sort of reminded me that even though the world does have crime and injustice, there are still a good number of great hearted citizens out there that believe in doing good things in the world. Not really your typical response when people ask how jury duty was, but then again then there are few people in the world named Lauren Slattery. I guess that's what keeps the world spinning: variety.

Everyone there reading this can celebrate with me too, all you have to do is close your eyes, look upward, inhale deeply, and exhale confidently. Happy rockin at life everyone!!