Am I wrong?

Background: It's Easter Sunday, so I am at church along with other members of my ward. We are prepared to hear great messages of the Savior and his mission. After Elder's Quorum meeting, I found Trisha and she told me the following story: Apparently during Relief Society they sang the hymn "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and some free-spirited person in their congregation decided to start playing a bell as background music (this was not a planned thing). Am I wrong to think that is inappropriate? Well, the story doesn't end there. This sister (who will remain nameless), who frequently wears pants to church and always talks about feelings and spiritual connections and other such mumbo-jumbo, was not done with her antics for the day. We happened to sing the same song as the closing hymn for sacrament meeting and what does she do? Thankfully not ring a bell, but she stands up in the middle of the song and puts her head high in the air and smiles from ear to ear while shouting along to this hymn. I nearly died!! I wish my family would have been there because we all would have been rolling on the floor! Everyone stared at her awkwardly for a few seconds until then the bishopric felt obligated to stand and then the whole audience rose. Except for me, I chose to not stand because I felt this was ridiculous. Am I wrong in thinking that this is completely inappropriate?

35 days

I can't believe that I have reached my last rotation and I only have 35 days left until I am done with school, its crazy! It seems like it can't be possible for me to almost be done with school for the rest of my life. I have so much stuff to do in the next 5 weeks that I'm not sure it will all get done, but by May 18th, I have to be ready to drive away from Princeton and back to Utah. For those that don't know, I have taken a job in Vernal, Utah with an independant pharmacy. I'm really excited for the opportunity but a little bit scared to grow up and have so many changes in my life all at once. Currently I'm trying to figure out the cheapest, easiest way to move mine and Trishas stuff across the country and also trying to figure out where we might be able to live in Vernal? If anyone has any suggestions, I am open to recieve them. I am also trying to collect addresses for wedding invitations, so if you are one of my followers and you want an invitation, leave me a comment with your address (all comments come to me before being published and I will not publish them if you leave your address). Only 85 more days til the big day!!

JUNE 27, 2009

It's finally official: Trisha and I are getting married on June 27, 2009 at 11:00am in the Salt Lake Temple!!

The Mountain: snowboarding=fun

The ring came on our second to last run down the mountain The flowers

For another version of this engagement story, see Trisha's blog. What I'm going to do now is tell you the story from my point of view and fill in some of the blanks...

Back in October I started researching rings. I had some help- I had a private investigator of sorts. Kirsti, Trisha's roommate went ring shopping and relayed all information to me. (Thanks Kirsti). After months of looking at rings and trying to find the right one according to the information that had been relayed to me, I was finally able to pick the perfect ring and buy it. Five weeks ago I bought it. I checked my email every day waiting for the blasted thing to come and apparently it takes a long time to get a custom made ring. It finally came on Tuesday and I have been so excited ever since! I told her that I really wanted to go snowboarding before the resort closed and so we planned a date for saturday night. I called her dad on friday afternoon and asked for his daughters hand in marriage. It was a great conversation, one that I will remember forever. I was really nervous but her dad is such a genuine, loving guy. She comes from a great family and I have so much love and respect for her parents! Her dad gave us his blessing so I ordered flowers that were delivered on friday and things were all set up and in place. I got off work a little bit early on saturday and headed to the craft store to get a ribbon to replace the most ugly ribbon that I have ever seen that they put on my flowers. I got home, put the ring in a small, homemade envelope to protect it from the snow, and headed to the mountain with Trisha. It was such a fun night. We both really love snowboarding and had a good time cuttin down the mountain. I was starting to get a little nervous and kept trying to find a good moment to pop the question. I knew that I wanted it to be one of our last times down, toward the end of the night, but I didn't really want to do it while tons of people were around. I got the perfect opportunity when we found ourselves all alone on the slope and Trisha took a crash to the rear. I went to the side of the slope and sat down beside her and told her how much I loved her. I then tried very hard to throw my snowboard around so that I could be facing her. I helped her up so that she was standing in front of me. I took off my gloves and started to dig through my pocket for my homemade envelope. I got it out as I told her that there was something that I had been dying to ask her. (This is where it gets slightly funny). I couldn't get the ring out of my envelope. I was shaking it and digging for it and it wouldn't come out. I'm sure she thought that I was slightly crazy there on the mountain. Finally as I kneeled before her, I presented her with the ring and asked her to marry me. She said yes! And so the story begins with the woman that I love!

Prasugrel vs. clopidogrel

It has been a long time in the works and now it is finally done! I have been working on my poster presentation (the capstone of my program) for the past 6 months. It has been a long, tough road to get to this project done. Yesterday, I had to take it to the school and present it to faculty members who graded me on my research, presentation and ability to answer questions. It was crazy intense and I'm so glad that it's over. (I am most proud of the second slide from the left on the top row cause I created it myself!) Just one more milestone to pass leading up to graduation in only 84 days!! My days at the state psychiatric hospital are over and I'm moving onto another community rotation. Bring it on!

WICKED

Back in New York City and I love it everytime I go! Trisha bought me tickets to see the musical, Wicked, for Christmas and today was the day. We drove down this morning, watched the show, walked around a little bit, ate some food and we were on our way back up to MA again. It was such a fun day trip! Wicked is incredible, it lived up to every expectation I had for it. It made me want to make a trip to New York for a week or so and see a different show every night. Summer is preferable cause it was slightly chilly today but we braved the weather and had a great day. Thanks Trish!!!!

Thoughts on my mind

It is a very unique and thought-provoking opportunity that I have to be on rotation at a state mental hospital. It is has caused me to reflect a lot on the worth of souls. As I research and present patient cases as part of my assignments, I get to know these patients and all of the most personal things there are to know about a person and where they came from. It is eye opening, to say the least. You hope that they are not capable of such things and yet the reality is that they are for many different reasons. There are patients who have been dealing with mental illness for decades, who have been in this and other hospitals for decades. There are even some who will never leave of their own free will because their life is better there than it would be anywhere else. There is an eery stigma that is associated with state mental hospitals and a fascination for what unusual things have occured on their grounds over the years. There is an uneasy feeling as you pass through the halls, locking every door behind you. HOWEVER, what I have come to realize is that each of these patients is a person with inherent good in them. Do they sometimes behave in a way that is less than appropriate and at times even out of control? Yes. Do they have reason to? Maybe. Do they deserve a life locked up with limited freedom? I don't know. Do they deserve to feel like their life is better in a state mental hospital than in the community? No. Along with evaluating each of them and their drug regimens, we also go onto the floors and meet some of them and we attend some medication group sessions to help educate them on their medications. This all in an effort to help them help themselves improve and overcome according to their ability. Are these people dumb? Absolutely not! In fact, one lady was the valedictorian of her high school class and if you ask her what is the side effect of her medication, clozapine, she will respond that it can decrease white blood cells. Another young lady spoke with eloquance and used a larger vocabulary than myself as she talked about some issues with her medications. A gentlemen talked about his success with smoking cessation and looked to the future with hope and gratitude for his progress. Finally the event that has given me the most thought occured a few days ago as I was leaving the building to get in my car and drive home. A middle-aged woman who we had seen, and met for the first time, a week previous in our group session was outside of the building smoking. As I walked by she said, "Hey, are you from the pharmacy?" I replied that yes I was from the pharmacy. She then said to me, "It's Michael, right?" Shocked and somewhat freaked out I confirmed that that was my name. She reminded me of her name as I clearly did not know it. Ever since that event, my view on this experience has completely changed. I have since seen her on multiple occasions and every one she goes out of her way to look at me and greet me by using my name. She has a heart and she has a soul that is worth a lot! Despite her disability and her set-backs she still deserves love, respect, freedom and concern. She is just as important as me and just as important as everyone else no matter the situation. It is so hard for me to sit in a professional setting and give a presentation on how to help these patients when it is okay to make a mockery of their life and the cards that they have been dealt. It is disrespectful and really quite sad that people find the need to joke about abuse, molestation, violence, attempts at suicide, delusions, paranoia, hallucinations and other unfortunate behaviors. What could possibly be funny about these events? Are they funny in your life? NO! So why is it funny when it is someone else's life? Whatever you call them: crazies, psychos, mentally ill, freaks; it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you classify them or how they are placed according to society. They are still human beings. I feel that there is definately a goodness in each of them. If one of them can touch my life by remembering my name a week after first meeting me then her life is worth a lot to me.

First Day

Welcome to Westborough State Mental Hospital! I had my first day of my rotation at an inpatient psych hospital and here is what I'm going to be dealing with:
My first case involves a woman who has been found incompetant to stand trial for the attempted murder of her 82 year old mother.
It's gonna be a very interesting 6 weeks and I'm so excited!!