Missy Stays For Another Week!

Yup you read it right! We were suppose to return my Doggie Missy to her original owner today but since the multicab we rented got busted so our plans is delayed. I'm quite happy that I'll be seeing Missy a little longer. I'm going to play with her tomorrow and spend some good quality time with her since we won't be seeing each other anymore. How I wish that we could bring her with us but it's not possible.

But I'm not sad anymore because I know that she'll love it when she's reunited with her mom and brother. Now she will have other doggies to play with.

The Boy Who Said "Dili"

Gosh I feel really old! I mean I feel that I'm already facing a midlife crisis and to think I'm only 19 years old! Midlife crisis is by the way defined by Wikipedia is "Midlife crisis is a term used to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is typically felt in the "middle years" of life, as people sense the passing of youth and the imminence of old age."

Ok I also do think about my future but what really keeps me occupied is reminiscing about the past? Talk about being old. And the thing that I remembered was the little boy who I met during one of my duties at a pediatric gastro-ward. It was my first time to handle a whole ward too! That’s right! I have only tried handling one or two patients but now, I’m the master of the whole Gastro Ward! As you might have guessed the Gastro Ward has patients (normally pediatric patients) who suffer from acute gastroenteritis and other GI problems.

Working in the gastro ward was quite ok. It was air-conditioned (it was a private hospital, thank God) and there was a TV (but I didn’t watch it because I was busy regulating IV flow rates). The patients were just adorable and the patient’s family were very nice and accommodating to my questions.

There was this 1 year old boy who was so cute and hyper-energetic. I really liked this patient a lot and I loved playing with him during my free time. I just have a difficult time in checking his IV flow rate because he always asks for attention and he regulates his own flow rate! That’s right he knows how to regulate it but unfortunately not at the right drop rate. One thing that I’ve noticed with this boy is that his love for the world “Dili” or “No” in English. I heard his mom say this word so many times to him because he was so hyperactive, jumping on his crib and throwing his ball away. Although he says “Dili” with a playful smile I just think that saying no to your child could be bad for him.

According to Erik Erikson’s Developmental Theory, a child in his early childhood (18 months to 3 years) could feel so ashamed and would lack in self-esteem if his parents keeps on telling him “NO!” Because instead of the child being able to explore his surrounding and learning (Autonomy vs Shame) the parents are trying to suppress his will to learn.

So parents out there, allow your children to explore, get dirty, and even break some things because in this way they can learn.

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Anyway the adorable boy in the photo is not my patient or is related to my post hehehe. Photo credits goes to subterfugemalaises.

10 Stress Busting Tips

Stress is a normal reaction to our environment (our stressors). If we don't experience stress then we would be emotionless or we simply are not human or we're already dead. The point is you can never totally remove stress from your life, because stress is needed for normal functioning. All you can do is control it. We get easily stressed from our jobs, our relationships, and even other simple things like waiting forever in a line. This is normal. Everyone gets stressed out from their problems. What is abnormal is if you would turn to drugs or other promiscuous activities to get you through a bad hair day.

fighting stress is really simple and you don't have to destroy your life to get through your problems. Here are some simple steps that you could follow to help control your stress:

1. Be yourself and do not play roles. Trying to be the “liberated women” or the “cool businessman,” for example, will only create stress because you are not being yourself.

2. Seek people who are pleasant to be around with when choosing your friends. Where possible, avoid contact with those who criticize you or like to constantly talk about the negative situations around them.

3. Be confident enough to admit your fears. Find out what scares you and try to determine why. Discuss these things with a close friend or family member if necessary.

4. Work on a confident, yet realistic, self-image. Recognize that you have both strong and weak points. Build on the strong points and excel in these areas. Work at improving the weak areas, but realize that you can't do everything well.

5. Be willing to compromise with other people, as well as with yourself. This is a sign of strength, not weakness. To be rigid, to refuse to give in, or to insist on winning will create tension and stress.

6. Make time to get away, even if only in your mind. A few minutes of privacy each day, when you can relax and think, is important even for children. Find a way to do this even if it means getting up early or going for a brief walk.

7. Do not let worrisome situations drift. If there is unhappiness or concern in your life, try to do something about the problems. Procrastination and indecision only delay your stress and the problems tend to only get worse in time.

8. When you cannot decide what to do, always choose to do what is right. Cheating, deception, and unethical behavior can all produce guilt feelings which directly lead to tension and stress.

9. Slow down - literally. Practice moving more slowly. Low your speech when you talk and your pace when you walk. Eat with slower movements, putting down your fork in between bites. When you move slower you feel less pressured.

10. Avoid excuses. Blaming other people or circumstances does not help much. Take responsibility for yourself and your own actions.

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Image Credit goes to: ~CLEMZ
List Credit goes to: Chicken Soup for Your Soul

A Few Minutes with Cheryl Brooks!

I was really surprised and excited when the lead publicist of Ms. Cheryl Brooks e-mailed me and told me that Ms. Brooks invited me for an interview with her. And what did I reply? Of course I'd say yes to such an awesome opportunity!

Ms. Brooks is a new paranormal romance author who by the way is also a night Critical Care Nurse. So she's a romance author by Day and then she's a Critical Care Nurse by night! How on earth could she balance her time, not to mention her energy?! She's really amazing. She has already written many unpublished novels but her debut novel that is very notable is SLAVE: The Cat Star Chronicles published by Sourcebooks Casablanca. And guess what she has five more upcoming novels in this series so we will definitely be seeing more of Ms. Cheryl Brooks.

I haven't read her novel yet (her publicist said she'll mail me a sample copy - yipee!) but I bet that it will really be interesting. They said that one should never judge a book by it's cover but I'm looking at the cover now and I think the cover speaks for itself how "Hot, Dangerous, and Sexy" this novel is.

Talk about being a superwoman. I really wonder how she could survive such a hectic schedule? Why not read this special interview I had with her to learn more of her:

*A Few Minutes with Cheryl Brooks*

~ Romance author by day, Critical Care Nurse by Night ~
www.cherylbrooksonline.com

Critical Care Nursing and Romance Writing seem like polar opposites. Was romance writing always a passion of yours?
I'm not sure that romance writing was always my passion, but I'm always fantasizing, and have been ever since I was a kid. Whenever I had to do something mundane or boring I'd come up with a storyline in my head and play it back just to have something better to think about. Eventually, I began writing them down.

Back in nursing school, what were some of your favorite romance novels to read? Did any of them inspire you to start writing your own?
I have always enjoyed the romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart, as well as her Merlin trilogy. Her style has influenced me probably more than anyone's, but I'm also a big Georgette Heyer fan. I loved her humor most of all, but her heroes were very different from those I found in other books. Heyer's men were usually wealthy, but were also very human and sometimes a bit bumbling in their ways. They seemed so much more real to me than the stoic “Marlboro Man” type that I encountered in what a friend of mine used to call “Lust in the Dust” books. So often those men were too rough or arrogant for me—and had no sense of humor whatsoever! I like to laugh, and though I like a tough, sexy man as much as the next reader, many “heroes” I've read about are men I wouldn't even want to meet, let alone fall in love with, and my reaction to that was to make up my own heroes!

Do you think your writing has served as a way to “escape” the often hectic life of a nurse?
Any book can take you away from your current setting, but when you read, while you can use your own imagination up to a point, you are still at the mercy of the writer and you have to go where that person takes you. But writing a book can allow you to travel to any exotic locale you wish, do anything you've ever wanted to do, let you meet anyone you like, and fall in love with the most fabulous men you can dream up. Oh, of course! Reading.

Nurses can be put in extremely high stress situations and as a result, form close bonds and life-long friendships. Have any of your real-life relationships inspired those in your books?
The problem with branching out into a writing career has been that my best friends are all hospital workers, and though I'd love to be able to devote myself to writing full-time, leaving my nursing job would take me away from the best support network in the world! I work in a relatively small hospital, and I've met so many loving, caring people there! We're more like a family, and we know most of what is going on in each other's lives—and those who know that I write will often tell me things just so they might show up in a book someday! I've used many of my friends as characters in my novels, as well as their experiences, and they love it! Unfortunately, when it comes to their experiences with men, I've mostly used their bad ones! For example, a long-time friend and co-worker was lamenting one night that she'd give her right arm for a decent, honest, moral man, and I used that as a basis for the predicament that my heroine in the fourth book in The Cat Star Chronicles series finds herself in. Of course, the best part of being in a hospital setting is that, just when you think you've seen or heard it all, someone will prove you wrong!

You specifically write fantasy/science fiction romance. Has anything you’ve seen at work influenced some of the aliens, new species and environments you’ve created?
Actually, most of the sci-fi stuff comes out of my head, or from other books and films, but if you look closely, there's something “medical” in all of them. I've also written several novels (as yet unpublished) that aren't in the same genre as Slave, and many of them are about nurses. I have also written one novel for a respiratory therapist friend who loves cowboys. She wanted me to write a book about her, so I made her my heroine and gave her a whole bunk-house full of cowboys to choose from! I think that one is still her favorite.

Are there any similarities between critical care nursing and romance writing that you found surprising?
The stress! I thought I'd lower my stress level by being a writer instead of a nurse, but though the stress of being an author isn't life and death (and I have to remind myself of that on a regular basis!), I still carry it with me. A lot of what I do at the hospital I can leave behind when I clock out, but the writing thing follows me wherever I go, and I've probably lost more sleep because of my writing than I ever have as a nurse! However, when I've got an especially crazy patient driving me up the wall, or when the powers that be come up with some ridiculous new rule, writing for a living starts to look really, really good!

Good Bye Missy-Pooh

This may be one of the saddest posts that I could ever make in this blog. It's the post where I am going to share my good byes to my beloved Missy.

Here is a picture of the first day that we got our beloved angel. Isn't she so cute? She's very small and quite shy. I was a bit afraid that she would be sickly because she looks so weak and vulnerable. She was a bit car sick at this point because my mom took her from the city from a friend of hers (the original owner of Missy and her mom and brother).

But with love and care our cute Missy has blossomed into a full grown lady doggie. She has always been playful and she loves to jump a lot and she runs around the house whenever she's bores. She always dashes outside the gate whenever she finds it open and we always worry that she'll get bitten by stray dogs and hit by a car but we always find relief when she comes back from her adventure outside the house.

These last few days are going to be my last moments with my Missy as we're going to return her to her family because we can't bring her with us when we leave for Canada this June. If only we could bring her with us then I would have no second thoughts and take her.

One neighbor asked us if she could have Missy so that there would be someone could watch their house when they're away but my first reaction was NO! I know that they won't take care of Missy the way we do care for her and love her. To other Filipinos their dogs are just belongings who they could just neglect but for me Missy is part of my family.

That is why we opt to return her to her original family with her mom and brother (even if they live far away) because I know that my mom's friend would take care of Missy and won't hesitate to spend for her needs. You see Missy is quite choosy with food. She won't eat anything unless it's chicken or some food that is tasty. She doesn't like bland food.

Tomorrow I am going to say good bye to someone who has been very special to my heart and will always be special to me. It's quite hard to let go of the one you have hold dear to your heart. I will really miss those big brown eyes of Missy that tells me her personality. She's quite shy and a very kind dog. She does bark at other people but never has she attempted to bite anyone.

I would miss the times that I would prepare her water for her bath (she likes her water warm) and I would miss it whenever she greets me when I come home...

She has been a part of me and it's hard to let her go. These last few days a song came into my mind whenever I play with her or pet her. The best song that could really express how I feel is this:

David Archuleta - Think of Me
Think of me
Think of me fondly when we've said goodbye
Remember me
Once in a while, please promise me you'll try
When you find that once again
you long to take your heart back and be free

If you ever find a moment
Spare a thought for me yeah

Think of all the things we've shared and seen
Don't think about the things which might have been
Think of me
Think of me
Imagine me trying too hard to put you from my mind

Think of the things we never knew
There will never be a day when I won't think of you.

Good bye my Missy... I will miss you... You have been one of the greatest things that happened in my life.