Breathing Hope!

This year the holiday season has been a bit more special to me. Since I have been away at school the holidays give me time to be with my family, friends, and time to relax (something we all know I don't do to well heheh). My last post was at the beginning of finals week, well I survived my first finals week of my college career. While at times it was stressful and seemed impossible to study any more flash cards or read anymore pages in text books it was a learning experience, one that taught me to shut down my computer and go back to old fashion pen and paper. For me having a computer in front of me means, facebook, twitter, pintrest, and multiple other social Media sites are just a click away and I tend to be easily distracted by these sites and the "excuse" they give me not to study. So maybe technology isn't always good, although I find more good uses for it then bad!! Well back to Christmas, as I sit here and write on the sofa in the family room my dog is snuggle...

This week is finals week at LVC, therefor meaning most of us are sleep deprived, hungry, and overall in just about the worst moods we have all be in all semester. I must say this being my first experience of college "hell week" actually hasn't been to incredibly bad. I lucked out with my finals schedule and only have 2 finals and a paper to write before concluding my first semester, which I am concluding a few days before most. I must say although the tests aren't causing the normal unbearable stress that requires super powers to get through I am ready for the semester to be over. Its time, I am ready to enjoy home and family for 5 weeks and not have to worry about writing a paper, lesson plan, or studying for a test. Looking back at my first semester here at LVC I must say its been great!! I now have a second "home", with loving a friends and a comfortable community atmosphere. When I first set foot on campus on August 19th I came in with no friends, un...

My thanksgiving was an eventful one as always, surrounded by the people that are most important to me.  I started the day off with some of my best friends at the Pennridge/Quakertown football game which is a traditional thanksgiving day football game between 2 rival high schools that has been played for the last 80 some years. Being a Pennridge alum of course I was sitting on the green and whites side cheering the team on with the marching band that I was a part of during high school. It was great to see some of my friends that are still in high school and part of the marching band as well as a Pennridge win! After the game I went to my families traditional thanksgiving dinner at my grandmothers. It was fantastic as always with food coming out of every corner of my grandmothers house. After we were finished eating and catching up with family it was time to attend the other side of the families thanksgiving where we also caught up with family and shared in some ...

  I can't believe yet another week has pasted, the weeks seem to moving so quickly! Once again my week has been filled with a little bit of everything! Wednesday was crazy as always, but it's my favorite day of the week! This Wednesday was even more hectic then normal. I had my classes, gave a tour of campus to prospective students parents and then left to go to my preschool classroom for my field experience. This week the kids were especially energetic! They seemed to be jumping off the walls all day long, but as always they were warm and loving. The preschoolers I work with are so adorable, rather intelligent, and are full of life. They help me to stay grounded and love the simple things in my life. Their innocents and warm love for everyone puts a smile on my face. This week we were learning about thanksgiving and talking about what we are thankful for in our lives. Some of the answers that came out of 4 year olds mouths were incredible! They are who the rest of us sho...

  Once again, I have failed to write for almost a week, I keep promising to get better, I'm not going to promise that today but I am going to challenge myself to write alittle more often. This week has been a crazy week let me tell you!! But we are coming up on Thanksgiving which is always a welcome break and a time to reflect. Well more on that later time to get to a few facts about Alpha-1, I believe I owe you 6 for my 6 day absence of writing! So here it goes... Post for November 8,2012 Below is a video that the Alpha-1 Association posted on their facebook page. I found it rather interesting to watch, its somewhat humorous as well. I find peoples responses to the awareness of alpha-1 to be similar to the ones I receive every time I bring it up to some one knew. Just finishhing up my first semester of College I have faced this odd moment when you mention that your family is affected by Alpha-1 and you get the "you have 5 heads" look for the next 30 seconds until...

Since I haven't written for 5 days I have 5 things I need to share about Alpha-1 so here it goes.... Here are some quick facts... 1.) Alpha-1 is a genetically passed disease from parent to child that is passed through generations. 2.) Alpha-1 Affects males and females equally as well as race. 3.) Alpha-1 Affects 1 out of every 2,500 people in the U.S. which adds to approximately 100,000 people. 4.) Approximately 20 million people carry the genes that can cause Alpha-1, normally they do not show side effects but can easily pass it on to their children 5.) 10-15% of Liver Transplants are because of Alpha related genetic abnormalities. These facts always interest me, many people don't know what alpha-1 is and many are misdiagnosed, these numbers do not count those misdiagnosed and they are already large, imagine if they did. It is our job as advocates for this just under 50 year old disease, to become known, to everyone, so the suffering can stop and a cure can be foun...

Can you tell someone has Alpha by just looking at them??? The answer is no! For a few years before my dad went on supplemental oxygen no one could tell that he was affected by Alpha-1. Many of the people around us could not understand why my family was so concerned and what was really going on. Most thought it was a simple fix little did they know it is not as simple as it sounds. I remember when my father first began using supplemental oxygen, the first time my friends saw it was at my 16th birthday party. I remember some of them coming up to me and saying, "what happened to your dad is he OK?" It was like everything I had been talking about for the last two years and how concerned I was finally hit them, no things were not okay, my life was more complicated then it once had been but it was time to make another adjustment and find a new 'normal'. People on the outside of the situation had no idea what was going on until there were visible signs, its amazing how u...