Remember the last time you witnessed a health event and write about it from two points of view. One of these will be yours, but the other will have to well-informed conjecture. For example, if you are recalling a time you took your brother in to get his broken arm looked at, try to imagine what he felt like, what the doctors felt like, or what someone else close (physically or emotionally) to the situation felt like. Record your event in your own comment, and then read (and comment on) other people's posts before class.
This assignment shadows the techniques used in "The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down." In class we will discuss the effects of writing from many different points of view (Anna Fadiman writes from her point of view, the doctors' points of view, and Lia's family's point of view). First, ponder the various effects this had on you/might have had on a reader, then try out the technique by completing the following prompt:
Remember the last time you witnessed a health event and write about it from two points of view. One of these will be yours, but the other will have to well-informed conjecture. For example, if you are recalling a time you took your brother in to get his broken arm looked at, try to imagine what he felt like, what the doctors felt like, or what someone else close (physically or emotionally) to the situation felt like. Record your event in your own comment, and then read (and comment on) other people's posts before class.
88 Comments
Aaron McQuerter
9/6/2013 06:47:58 am
Last summer I was at the University Place Skate Park and I witnessed my friend break his ankle. He rides a scooter and he went up a ramp to do a tail whip back into another vertical ramp. His foot slipped off as he landed and he tweaked it as he fell. He screamed out in pain and I could hear him from the other side of the park. I rushed over and saw him on the ground tossing in pain. It looked really painful.
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Conrad Nilsen
9/14/2013 04:30:47 am
That must have been very frightening to see your friend in that situation! The accident must have been quite serious, because everyone else present was reluctant to take excessive risks. I hope your friend recovered well!
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Leah Talkov
9/6/2013 11:57:31 am
This summer when I was at the dock with my friends, one of them dislocated his shoulder. One of the other guys tried to throw him in for fun and ended up dropping him straight onto the dock. Instantly he cried out in pain and the disturbing view of the bone dislocation came into view. We stared at him, frightened and useless, as we shared the same thoughts, "What do we do? What do we do?" I took a few steps toward him hoping that I could do something, anything, but he yelled at me to stop and not touch him.
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Aaron McQuerter
9/11/2013 07:24:26 am
That sounds so painful! My friends and I loved to go dock jumping in the summer, I couldn't imagine how much of a joy kill that was to have a friend get injured when everyone is having a good time. Good story.
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Julia Golovchanova
9/6/2013 12:38:22 pm
Last summer I went to Russia for about 2 months, and stayed a little over three weeks in Sochi which I like to call "The Miami of Russia". Once day I was at the beach tanning and talking with my cousins, when I suddenly start hearing frantic yelling coming from afar. I look over towards the shore, and notice a group of 4-6 lifeguards sprinting to the other side of the beach where waves were hitting a man that was lying lifeless on the sand.
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Eden Laase
9/8/2013 11:03:46 am
Really great details! That must have been a horrible event to witness.
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Conrad Nilsen
9/14/2013 04:48:41 am
That is such a traumatic experience! Because you were a lifeguard, I would expect that you were able to imagine yourself in that situation. I bet you thought about what you would do if you had to preform CPR on an elderly man.
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Connor O'Flaherty
9/7/2013 03:25:44 am
I bruised my leg in a football game, or at least that is what I was told by the trainers who examined my leg at the time. The trainer looked at me and figured I was over exaggerating my injury due to the extensive pain I seemed to be showing. In the following weeks he massaged, stretched, and treated my leg as a bruise for 6 more weeks.
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Bailey Nurmia
9/8/2013 02:07:47 am
Wow! I can not imagine how painful those 6 weeks would have been! I cannot believe he didn't realize it was broken. Great writing too, I like the ending.
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Nathan Long
9/7/2013 07:06:46 am
It was the summer of 2003. My family had just recently got back from a family vacation at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. We were all home and my mom was boiling chicken on the stove. After the chicken was fully cooked, my mom removed it from the stove. I was right behind her eating some fruit; however, she did not know that. She turned around and stopped suddenly, but by then it was too late. Boiling water was poured all over my back.
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Cole Garcia
9/8/2013 10:37:06 am
Boiling water on your back?! wow that must have been incredibly painful! But hey at least you were kind of used to the heat being from Arizona. Are you still able to eat boiled chicken or did that experience ruin it for you forever? Great work Nate!
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Conrad Nilsen
9/14/2013 04:45:04 am
I can not even imagine how painful that must have been! I have only had minor burns from boiling water, and I though those were pretty painful. I hope that everything turned out okay for you, and I am glad that the nurse at the hospital made your situation a lot easier!
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Conrad Nilsen
9/7/2013 07:13:56 am
In March, my grandmother had a serious heart complication while out at dinner with my grandfather. She was quickly taken to the hospital where she underwent serious open heart surgery. My family quickly gathered in the hospital. We waited for hours to hear any news of her condition. I remember pacing up and down the hallway because I was almost positive that she would not make it through the operation. I felt so anxious and kept thinking about how I might not see her again. Finally, the operating doctor came in to tell my family that she had less than a fifteen percent chance of survival, and at that point things were looking very good for her.
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Carlee Quiles
9/8/2013 01:13:25 pm
Conrad, I really enjoyed the way you were able to think back and relate exactly to how the doctor may have felt. While being on call things can be very startling you depicted that well. So glad that everything ended up okay.
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Nate Porter
9/7/2013 08:07:41 am
Once When i was in elementary school my friend and I were playing kickball with just us two and the only way to get each other out was by throwing the ball at one another. The gravel that we were playing on was covered in sharp rocks so it wasn't the best idea. One time he threw the ball, it got trapped inbetween my legs and i tripped and landed on some really sharp rocks
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Maddie Muscha
9/7/2013 08:17:45 am
During the summer before my junior year, I got stitches for the first time. I was playing basketball and, as I dove for the ball on the ground, another girl rammed into my head and caused me to bite down very hard on my bottom lip. The wound started bleeding uncontrollably and my mom and I rushed to the hospital. We walked into the hospital and told the woman at the front desk that I thought I needed stitches to close the wound. They had us wait for a couple minutes, and luckily had a spot available for me. I got stitched up, cleaned up, and was ready to go. I remember dreading the next day because I was planning on attending a reunion with my friends from my old school at Great America, an amusement park, and now they were going to witness my lovely blue stitches intertwined in my lip.
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Taylor Wintler
9/7/2013 08:35:01 am
About five years ago my Grandpa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was little enough to not fully understand what the cancer was and how it would affect him. From my point of view he was a healthy 72 year old man that had hiked in and out of the Grand Canyon two weeks prior. For seven months I had to watch my Grandpa deteriorate. He underwent Chemo, radiation and eventually was put on hospice. From my prospective I learned a lot about medicine from going to the hospital frequently. I also learned how strong someone who knows their fate can be.
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Michaela Smith
9/7/2013 08:36:28 am
On a beautiful summer day when I was about seven years old, my sisters and I were heading down this great big hill in our neighborhood to my aunt's house. My sister Christa, who was about 9 years old at the time, had just been given a brand new scooter for her birthday and she desperately wanted to try it out. Despite my oldest sister Laura's warning to at least wear a helmet, Christa impatiently disagreed and rode away on her scooter.
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Carlee Quiles
9/7/2013 08:48:41 am
Last month on my brothers eighteenth birthday we got a call that no one wants to hear late at night. This call was from my brother’s best friend “We have been in an accident, Garrett was ejected from the car and we cannot find him.” Being startled from sleep it took me about thirty seconds to fully comprehend what I was being told. We live only a mile from where the accident occurred, the next two minutes driving there felt as if it were a life time. There was so much unknown I did not even know what to think. I was in shock more than anything else; arriving to the scene seeing my brother bloody and unconscious was a rush of emotions came upon me. In the pure chaos of fire truck, ambulances’, fallen power lines and cop cars I couldn't hear anything around me. All I could hear was my brother’s laughter from dinner five hours earlier. Suddenly my vision was burst as the paramedics began to explain to us what hospital my brother would be transported to.
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Mariah Minder
9/8/2013 06:29:51 pm
Wow, I can not imagine how terrible that must have been. It must be hard to right about such a traumatic experience. I think this was really well done, I liked how you changed narrators to give a different perspective and provide more information while still leaving a cliff hanger.
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Rebecca Alberts
9/7/2013 08:57:32 am
My senior year of high school I was in a technical theater class, which mainly focused on building sets. One day I was helping another classmate; he was trying to count the sheets of plywood that were leaned against a wall in the classroom. I was holding the last sheet so they didn’t all fall over. There were about 20 plus sheets of inch thick plywood, which ends up being very heavy. At one point my classmate drops the part that he was holding and all 20 sheets of plywood fall on me, I jump back and feel that my leg is in pain, I see all black, I hear chairs behind me as I fell into them, and then I am laying on the floor.
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Mika Andrew
9/8/2013 04:05:08 pm
Even in your own memory, you have to make up the event from other people's point of view. This points to the ways that in every event, there will always be multiple points of view and many different ways that the event might be interpreted. In addition it points out, because we are social creatures, the manner in which our perceptions are all tangled together.
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Michaela Smith
9/9/2013 12:58:06 am
Rebecca, thank you for sharing this story. It must have been terrifying for both your teacher and and your classmates to see such an accident and not know whether you'll be alright. You did a wonderful job of imagining different points of view throughout the story.
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Jessica Peretti
9/7/2013 09:45:16 am
My sister, cousin and I were all lounging in our bunk beds. My cousin, Philip, sat on the top bunk. He reached down to pick up his iPod from the desk, when he started to fall. It seemed in slow motion as his face fell closer and closer to the desk. A sickening crunch cracked through the air, and my sister started to scream. I threw my computer down, running upstairs to find the adults. I screamed something about Philips head bleeding, which resulted into a herd of people moving quickly downstairs. I meandered out onto the deck with my Dad. I could already feel the nausea setting in from seeing the blood. My world shook, as my cousin was led up the stairs. A bloody towel and ice pack were placed against his head. I shuddered retreating to safety of the house. Soon, he was loaded up into a car, and driven to the E.R.
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Patrick O'Rourke
9/7/2013 03:33:03 pm
Excellent job! Great use of different points of views. I enjoyed reading about the experience you had.
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Shannon Liska
9/7/2013 10:20:53 am
Over the summer, I drove my mom to the doctor so she could get the skin cancer removed off of her face. She has always been a huge proponent of using sunscreen and she constantly reminds me to wear it daily. Now I understand why. It was the third time she had gotten skin cancer removed and this was a more dangerous and fast-spreading type of cancer than she had the previous two times. The doctor had caught it relatively early and was sure that removing it would be fairly easy. It was six in the morning as we left the house. I was not worried for her at all, just confident the doctor would do his job.
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Melissa Nelsen
9/8/2013 09:37:57 am
I can relate to this. My mom had skin cancer removed on her chest. I was so worried when we found out she had it but luckily it was early and easy to remove.
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Brad Mulderink
9/7/2013 10:56:21 am
Back when we were little (early grade school I think) , my brothers and I were playing in the backyard while waiting for dinner. Mom and Dad were inside making dinner and talking with our Aunt and Uncle who were visiting. The new fun thing for my brothers and I was standing at the top of the slide, and then jumping to the ground. Needless to say, it did not end well. My youngest brother Jeff had his tongue between his teeth on one of his landings and ended up biting through part of his tongue. From what I remember I was too young to really understand what was going on outside of Jeff crying and the adults all being in a panic over him.
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Patrick O'Rourke
9/7/2013 03:27:59 pm
Blog Post #1: Witnessing a Health event
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Nathan Disque
9/13/2013 06:09:22 am
Very good description. No one likes getting blood drawn. Its just a good thing he didn't pass out.
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Joshua Hoidn
9/8/2013 05:26:30 am
My sisters are true animal lovers. Primarily for horses and dogs. They have grown up being able to do horseback riding. They have had lessons weekly and always look forward to that time of the week. During one of those lessons this summer one of my sisters was riding and a lot of people were in the ring. She was headed for a girl and steered clear of her but in the process got thrown off of her horse and landed weirdly on her arm. My parents immediately ran to her. She wasn't moving for a significant amount of time. The ambulance was called instantly. It took them quite a while to get there because its a little bit out of the residential area. The ride to the Hospital took longer too since it was out of residential areas. When she got to the ER they examined her arm and established that she broke or fractured her bone right below the shoulder.
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Patrick O'Rourke
9/8/2013 06:53:04 am
Wow! That must have been a very frightening experience for your sister, and parents. Great use of different perspectives. I enjoyed reading this!
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Bailey Essig
9/8/2013 11:20:57 am
That's crazy! I can only imagine how afraid your sister must have been throughout the whole ordeal. I enjoyed how you used multiple perspectives to explain what happened!
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Lizz Dimaano
9/8/2013 06:13:10 am
Two summers ago, my family and I had vacationed to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. It had been one of the best vacations in my life until the day before we were scheduled to fly back home. It wasn’t unusual to get many bug bites because of the tropical forests and the humidity in the area. I remember constantly scratching the itchy bites that covered my body and soon enough they became hives. The hives spread all over my body, from my arms, legs and even my stomach. By the time we arrived back home, my mom took me to the doctor to get the hives checked out because they weren’t going away. The doctor seemed quite worried about the condition, because I was highly allergic to the types of bugs that bit me; so she gave me loads of antibiotics, anti-itch cream, and two shots. After about a week, the hives began to disappear and within two weeks I was completely back to normal.
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Luke Johnson
9/8/2013 10:17:27 am
I can't even imagine how terrible that would be. How did you sleep? Were you able to do normal activities? Did you have a fever?
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Anthony Harper
9/8/2013 06:24:59 am
Last winter I was snowboarding with a few friends of mine. We had been shredding the mountain pretty hard for a majority of the day while hitting the terrain park every once in awhile. About halfway through the day we had decided to do a few terrain park runs back to back, hitting the big jumps about midway down the run. This time down my friend Jake went first, flying over the two big jumps perfectly. The next to go was my friend Vaughn, he had been doing well throughout the day too, so I was sure he would land the two jumps perfectly. What happened though made me instantly fear for his well being. When Vaughn had went off the jump he ended up spinning and flying through the mid air with his back facing the landing ramp. Knowing that this spelt disaster I instantly jumped up and went over the jump to see that my friend was laying on the side of the mountain in sever pain. He was completely out of it, he couldn't move around without his head hurting and ended up becoming really light headed. Jake and I then proceeded to take Vaughn to the ski patrol building to get checked on. What happened next made both Jake and I worry. Vaughn had went into critical condition with a sever concussion after slamming his head on the snow. He was rapidly declining and we were told that he needed to be evacuated by helicopter to the nearest hospital. The last time we saw him that day was when the helicopter took off.
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Allina Cummins
9/8/2013 06:32:47 am
My point of view: It was my Senior Night volleyball game- the last home game of my high school volleyball career and a win would put my team in first place in our division. It was definitely a memorable night, though not in the way I had imagined. A few hours before the game, while I was officiating the freshman match, my dad ran into the gym. I was confused because he wasn't supposed to be there for hours, but when he breathlessly told me that he and my mom were headed to the hospital with my brother and that they would do their best to be back for the ceremony before the game, my confusion became concern. I stayed with my gameday ritual. I warmed up as I always did, I visualized, and the team mentally prepared. But I was somewhere else. I still hadn't gotten any explanation- only that Garret was hurt. Just before the game, football practice ended. My brother's freshman football coach, his teammates, and many JV and Varsity players all took turns and approached me. Essentially, my brother had taken a lineman's helmet to the shin. Both the tibia and fibula were broken and his leg was bent when he was taken from the football field in an ambulance. The guys told me that players were throwing up and that my brother was going in for emergency surgery. My parents arrived two minutes before my ceremony was supposed to start and were completely shaken up. The game was one of the best that my team had played and my night was not completely ruined. My family and I left the gym to head to the hospital and saw that my mom's car had been hit in the parking lot, but that would have to be dealt with another time. We finally got to my brother, but he was on such a high dose of morphine that I don't even think he knew where he was. As my family and I sat down to eat dinner at 9:30 in the hospital cafeteria, my mom received a call from my uncle. My grandma, who had stayed with my brother while my parents were watching my game, had fallen in her driveway when she got home and they were on the way back to the hospital. My mom stayed at the hospital that night, and my dad and I left at about 1 in the morning. I don't think I had ever been that tired in my life.
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Carlee Quiles
9/8/2013 01:18:13 pm
Allina, I really appreciated that you were able to show another's point of view with little detail. It showed the emotions as a whole with enough detail to understand exactly how your mom felt. Great Job!
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Bailey Nurmia
9/8/2013 06:37:11 am
As the turned around the last buoy I knew something was wrong. Emma, the 13 year old girl I had been coaching all summer was not paddling like her usual self. Her kayak seemed shaky underneath her and she seemed to lack her usual control and power in her stoke. I anxious, she was still in the lead pack, a chance to win, but this was Nationals and she would have to fight tooth and nail for it. As they made their way in, and everyone started picking up Emma looked unable to keep her position, she slid into third while the front too battled it out. Fourth was a long way aways and without much effort Emma got the bronze, but I knew she would be disapointed when she came in. She had hoped to win. I was not prepared though for what came into the dock. A heaped over, crying teenage girl barely able to stay in her boat. She then explained between sobs how her shoulder injury had flared up halfway into the race, and after the paramedics checked her out it was confirms she had actually dislocated it.
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Jennifer Lucian
9/8/2013 02:00:57 pm
The determination of this girl is incredible! I can't believe she finished the race with a dislocated shoulder!
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Alex Cumings
9/8/2013 02:49:35 pm
Bailey, I really enjoyed your blog post! My shoulder dislocated while I was swimming during a race at a swim meet, so I definitely related to the girl in your story.
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Sarah Gehman
9/8/2013 07:20:32 am
It was 8 AM and my mom, sister, and I were running around the house in an attempt to actually get to school on time. I remember my mother shouting from the back of the house to remind my sister she was yet to feed our pets and she needed to before we headed out. I stood in the kitchen with my sister making my lunch while my sister began to do as she was told. One second I was talking with my sister and the next she in tears. Confused, I spun around to see a trickle of blood from her eyebrow down her face. My mother rushed in, and it took several tries on my sister's part to explain she had hit near her eyebrow on the corner edge of our cabinet. Lunch, and unfortunately pets, were quickly forgotten as we dashed out of the house to take my sister to medical.
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Ellaine Taniguchi
9/8/2013 02:18:05 pm
Good Job! I could really imagine how the nurse interacted with your sister and I got a sense of the urgency you felt in that situation.
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Trevor Cote
9/8/2013 07:22:01 am
This last fall, I was playing in a football game when I recovered a fumble with one arm, but four more guys dove on top of the ball causing my arm to bend backwards. My whole arm went numb, and when the trainer examined it, he said it was either a stinger or nerve damage in the shoulder. Either one of these was a minor injury, so I was sent back on the field to play. Every time I would make a tackle my arm would go numb and would dangle there for the next five minutes. This continued till the end of the season.
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Cade Miller
9/8/2013 11:36:38 am
I know how it feels to have nerve damage and have trainers think its not as bad as it really is. I'm sorry you had to go through all of that pain for so long when they could have diagnosed it from the start. I hope your shoulder is ok now and your back to playing all your favorite sports.
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Melissa Nelsen
9/8/2013 07:52:07 am
My point of view: This previous summer my best friend visited the doctor to find out what was wrong with her stomach which was in pain constantly anytime she ate anything. I had to watch her eat and then feel awful about 20 minutes after she had finished. During this time of being in pain while eating, she lost about 20 pounds. Being in the unknown scares me to death. I wish I could know if my friend will be alright and will find something she can eat and enjoy all at the same time. Eating had become something that was not enjoyable for us to do together anymore. This one social event that had always been something we had in common had now become a burden. I was unable to just feel comfortable eating around her. Once she went to the doctor and found out what was part of the problem I felt 150% better yet there still is this feeling that eating will never be what it was before.
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Jennifer Lucian
9/8/2013 08:22:22 am
That's really scary! I can relate to this because my best friend's sister is going through something similar. I agree that not knowing is one of the worst feelings, but I am glad they have been able to target at least part of the problem.
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Melissa Nelsen
9/8/2013 09:35:53 am
Yeah. I am really glad they figured out something so at least we can go eat together again even if it is not the same meal haha!
Christina Polito
9/8/2013 09:08:40 am
In July 2012, I was on a vacation with a group of girls from my school. We had spent a week in Spain, and we had just spent our first day in Nice, France. Nice is a very mediterranean location, so we were given free time to spend out on the beach, street shopping, whatever it was we wanted to do. When we reconvened after our day spent in the sunshine, a girl from the group had a red splotches all over her face, but it didn't look like a typical sunburn; she looked miserable. I was so concerned and confused, I had just seen her that morning and she was fine, what happened? I went over and spoke to her, asking her if she was okay. She explained to me how she was feeling, but not what had happened. I was overwhelmed with worry and puzzlement, I could only imagine what she was feeling.
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Lucia L.
9/8/2013 09:17:15 am
My Perspective:
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Sarah Shattuck
9/8/2013 09:31:04 am
Walking down the familiar hospital hallways, in a daze. I just couldn’t rap my mind around the fact that my little cousin, five years younger than I, but my best friend, had just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. We all thought she had beaten it ten short months ago, but cancer has a mind of its own and was once again, taking over her life. I was unable to comprehend the reasoning of why she had to suffer this war inside of her own body. The answer came to me as I walked into her room. Very few people could stare death straight in the eyes with the positivity she held. Even after surgery and a round of chemotherapy, she sat up and smiled at me with all the energy she had. The next few years brought countless chemotherapy sessions, surgeries, radiation treatments, ER visits, hospital stays, and tears. But in the end, she came out stronger than ever, ready to live the life she deserves.
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Molly Stroosma
9/8/2013 09:56:55 am
On a blazing hot August day only a few summers back, I was playing in one of many soccer games scheduled for that weekend. It was my second game for the day and I was extremely tired. I ran around the field with beads of sweat dripping from my face just after a few minutes of being on the field. My team and I really wanted to win this tournament, because it was our last one playing together before we all departed for high school soccer that fall. I was giving it my all, knowing that the game would be over within the next hour and I could safely chug bottles of chilled water until my heart was content. My team had suddenly scored and we were up by one, the other team took the ball back to half line to kick off, and I returned to my position of defense. The game was moving at a rapid pace and everyone was getting tired. Halftime hadn't even been called yet, when my friend Kelsey took off with the ball down the field to attempt to score once again. Whack! All I could hear was the sound of multiple bodies smashing together, and painful shrieks being let out after. As I rushed over to the scene with the rest of my team, we were quickly shooed away by the ref and coaches rushing toward the hurt player. It took me moments to realize that the girl crying at the top of her lungs was my teammate! After many minutes of pure terror and fright, and ambulance showed up and my friend was carted off the field on a stretcher to a local hospital where she underwent surgery to put the bones in her lower leg back together. By the time the ambulance had left and everyone's nerves had somewhat calmed down, we finally resumed the game. We were not able to play the full length game because the tournament games were only able to be played at specific times and we had taken up most of the time slot for our game. Good thing we were ahead and ended up winning the game, because that led us to a tournament win for our injured teammate!
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Luke Johnson
9/8/2013 10:13:16 am
This past February, I was getting through my senior year in high school. I had been with my friends as they drank on new year. I was watching them, keeping them from getting hurt or hurting other people. I didn't want my senior year tainted with sadness from losing any friends. I had been getting up every day to go to jazz band at 7 am each morning. When in the middle of February my band teacher didn't show up. He and I had been in classes for years and the previous summer we had toured Europe together through a band program. We had a jazz competition that day. So even without his presence or guidance we played and practices our concert order. He ended up showing up right before we boarded the bus. The next day he was absent again, not even late that day. He missed day after day. We contacted the administrators, we tried calling him. We reached out. The students received no response. The vice principal came in and told us that they had received and email that he would be taking a personal break. This statement intended to settle our worries only left a sour taste in our mouths. It was a Friday, two weeks from the initial lateness. We were invited to a band meeting after school ended. When we walked in the room we saw that something was wrong by the tears in the counselors eyes. Even before they said what had happened, I knew. I knew that I wouldn't see him again. I know that the memories I had of him would have a foul essence about them now. I knew that my friend, my teacher, my role model was gone.
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Lauren Cole
9/8/2013 02:02:21 pm
Wow, Luke. What an intense story. First of all, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss and I hope you continue to live out your band teacher's memory through music still. Your different perspectives, student and mother, evoke several different emotions in different ways and that makes your writing powerful. I enjoyed your intro with the very teenage, emotional thought process and reaction to such a tragic event. However, I felt more moved by your motherly intuition response because the love a mother feels for a child is one of the most powerful forces of human nature. An interesting and devastating perspective to finish off your writing made it moving!
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Luke Johnson
9/9/2013 01:38:47 am
I am glad you enjoyed it. While writing it I couldn't help but get emotional, but it was very satisfying. I haven't written anything about my experience with it yet and it was a very good experience. Thank you for your comment.
Audrey King
9/8/2013 10:16:47 am
Immediately I felt nothing. But slowly I began to feel a warm sensation spread down from my lip towards my chin. I pushed the towel against my face and when I looked down it was entirely red. This didn't even seem to surprise me. I put the towel down and thought it best that I go find something to stop the red. So I walked down the stairs, to the kitchen. I asked mom for a Band-Aid, preferring a pink one to match my shirt. A Band-Aid would fix it. I thought I had asked nicely, but mom did not give me a Band-Aid. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, a light was shining so bright I could hardly see mom. She was crying.
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Cole Garcia
9/8/2013 10:34:57 am
I was rowing along our quaint little metropolitan lake in the central of downtown Tempe, Arizona when I felt something abnormal. My chest started to feel heavy and fast, I have had pretty bad asthma throughout my life, but this felt like something completely different. I was rowing in a 4+, a boat that consisted of me, three other rowers, and one coxswain, and our coach was watching do a race piece from his safety launch. After the discomfort became unbearable I simply stopped rowing, and grabbed my chest,. my heart feeling like it was going to explode. I stepped into the launch, and he raced me back to shore where he called an ambulance to rush me to the hospital. While waiting for the ambulance to arrive he proceeded to diagnose and attempt to mitigate what was going on with me. I was grateful to have a doctor there and felt safe in his capable hands.
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Ericka Moreno
9/8/2013 10:50:34 am
All I know is that something is wrong, I can’t place where I am or what has happened but the severe pain in my head is definitely letting me know that this can’t be good. I look to my left and see my teammates running over, I look to my right and see my coach already by my side, I look above me and see the lights and the set of parallel bars. I hear my name being called but don’t look to see where its coming from. I lift my head up and struggle to an upright position. My coach explains I need to stay seated for now and that I most likely have a head injury so will need to go to the ER. All I feel is pain, I am not even worried about figuring out what happened because all I want is for my head to feel better. The next morning I am in bed at home and recall the prior days events. I was at gymnastics practice and while doing a giant on the bars I peeled off and took a hard fall. I went to the hospital and was told I had concussion.
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Eden Laase
9/8/2013 11:00:51 am
When I was in 2nd grade I remember my dad telling me that my grandpa was in the hospital, but not to worry. He was only there for a week, but we visited everyday. Each time we went I would bring him a new present. One day it might have been a drawing, the next flowers from my mom's garden, or a piece of candy. The whole time it just seemed like a fun game. It wasn’t until a few years and several hospital trips later that I realized how serious it really was.
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Zaine Yzaguirre
9/8/2013 11:01:19 am
The most gruesome injury I have ever witnessed occurred during my freshman year while participated on my high school football team. It was a relatively warm summer afternoon in Los Angeles while our football team had been finishing up some last minute drills before calling it a day. Phillip Melendez, the smallest member of our team, had been summoned by our coach to act as the running back for the next play. Everyone on the team seemed to anticipate some sort of trouble as Phillip ran from the end of the bench and into the huddle.
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Bailey Essig
9/8/2013 11:11:12 am
Last September while I was in school my mom called me to inform me that my grandmother was in the hospital. When she called she wasn’t able to tell me much other than that my grandma was having troubles breathing and they were running tests to see what was happening. Concerned about my grandma, I left school early and headed to the hospital to meet up with the rest of my family. Not knowing what was wrong with my grandma at the time, my mind was left to roam and consider all the different possibilities specifically the “worst case scenarios”. I was nervous and anxious the same time because I wanted to see her yet wasn’t sure what to expect. By the time I arrived the tests were in; she had built up fluid in her lungs and a blocked valve in her heart. The doctors informed us she would undergo open-heart surgery within the next few days and would need to replace the blocked valve. A few days later she had the surgery and since then has felt better than ever.
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Zaine Yzaguirre
9/9/2013 02:24:22 am
Thanks for sharing! I had a similar experience with my grandfather about a year ago, so I can definitely relate to the anxiety you must have felt not knowing what was wrong.
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Aaron Sleasman
9/8/2013 11:11:29 am
August 2012 I was golfing with my brother. We were on the back nine where I found the two of us in a pickle. We just finished up a lousy par five, lousy because I hit a double bogey, ad my brother had made par. I was the one driving the cart, as I was unable to have a beer when the refreshment cart came. I was moving the cart very quickly when we pass a “Slow, Carts” sign on our left. I saw the sign but I did not slow down much. When the turn hit the cart followed the path with a tight right at first then a quick left. I succeeded at the first part of the route, but I was unable to spin the wheel quick enough to the left to finish the turn. The front right tire left the edge first, giving us a violent shudder and tilting the cart over to the passenger side. The rest of the wheels quickly left the edge, and we were off.
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Cade Miller
9/8/2013 11:26:00 am
About 10 years ago, my parents received a phone call that they need to report to the hospital immediately. So we rushed out the door and I will never remember that moment of confusion where I had no idea what was happening or why everyone was in such a rush.
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Anna Lague
9/8/2013 01:17:27 pm
My point of view: I was at work it was a normal Tuesday afternoon, and I had just finished warming up the children in lines for tumbling class. The gymnasts had separated by skill level and I took the younger ones to help them work on their simpler skills. Five minutes into the rotation I had them working on I heard a scream from the floor opposite me, and someone saying the words "I can't feel my legs, I can't feel my legs." I immediately turned around to see a young girl names Alexa in the other instructor, Garrett's, arms, and knew I needed to call 911. Alexa had sprained her neck and was in shock.
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Sarah Redding
9/8/2013 01:42:00 pm
The day started out like any other. I walked out the door that October morning and told my dad that I would be home at 3. Sure enough, I pulled up the driveway that afternoon at 3 and noticed that my dad had been working on the yard, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. This didn’t worry me because I thought that he would just be inside taking a break at his computer. I walked through the front door and turned down the hall to my room only to face something that I wish no one will ever have to experience. All shaken up I dropped my bags and after my third attempt I successfully dialed 9-1-1. I couldn't believe what was unfolding in front of me. I was sitting there helplessly curled up against the wall screaming at some random woman on the phone. All of a sudden the piercing sound of sirens replaced the quietness and my driveway then became flooded with emergency vehicles, and even though I knew the unfortunate fate of this situation, I still felt a sense of relief. I had watched enough movies to believe that situations like these usually have a happy ending.
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Ericka Moreno
9/12/2013 02:30:49 pm
I'm so sorry this happened to you. I can relate to how you felt when you said it was just another day on the job for the rescue crew but to you it was so much more. Its comforting because they are so calm in the situation but frustrating because it seems like they don't understand your panic and stress.
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Ellaine Taniguchi
9/8/2013 02:13:51 pm
Above all the yelling and fast-paced movement on the court, I could hear the sudden smack of Michelle’s head against the thick concrete wall of the gym and a second later I saw her lying still on the polished, wooden floor.
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Jack Allenbaugh
9/8/2013 02:31:48 pm
About six years ago when I was in eighth grade, I was pitching at baseball practice and I felt something tear in my elbow. It wasn't super painful or anything so I kept on practicing and playing baseball for a few more weeks. After a while, the nagging pain became pretty bad and my parents finally took me to see a doctor. We figured out that a ligament in my elbow tore pretty bad and a piece of bone on my elbow broke off and was essentially "floating" in my arm. The doctor said that this required surgery so a few days later I had the operation. I woke up and my whole arm was completely numb. The doctor said that this feeling would go away in a few days but a week later, I still could not feel the right side of my forearm and hand. About a week after that, I had an CT Scan which revealed my Ulnar nerve was pinched by scar tissue, which killed it from my elbow down. This, of course, required another surgery. The doctors were able to fix the nerve and they said that I had about nine to ten months before the nerve would finish growing back. A couple of months of physical therapy later, there was another problem. As a result of having two surgeries in the same spot on my arm, too much scar tissue had built up and I was not able to straighten my arm all of the way, maybe seventy percent of the way. After a third surgery, they were finally able to fix the original problem... nearly. All of this chaos ended about midway through my sophomore year in high school and to this day, I only have about ninety percent of the feeling on the right side of my forearm/hand and I can almost extend my arm fully. The whole thing kind of sucked and I had to quit baseball, and instead I turned to soccer, and my junior year we made it to the state championship, so maybe it was partially worth it.
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Alex Cumings
9/8/2013 03:11:34 pm
I will never forget our family vacation to Monterey, California during spring break of 2010. My youngest sister and I read my other younger sister's journal for the first time and discovered she was suffering from anorexia nervosa. I watched as her bones seemed to grow, but it was just her muscles shrinking. I watched as she was rushed to the emergency room twice a week and waited for her arrival, as she was usually there for days at a time. I sat with her at dinner, and as I cleared my plate, she ate only vegetables. Her nervous habits, constant exercising, and contagious depression not only ruined her life but made mine a nightmare as well. Mental health is, in my opinion, the foundation of physical health. If you are not mentally stable, how can you be physically stable?
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Lauren Cole
9/8/2013 03:41:04 pm
What a terrifying experience to have to go through, especially wondering what could have happened had you not read your sister's diary. I really enjoyed your insight on the relationship between physical and mental health. But what I really thought was interesting was your father's perspective and the internal conflict he must have experienced. It was interesting to see how one separates their personal lives from their work when the two overlap. A really nicely written perspective!
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Lauren Cole
9/8/2013 03:36:26 pm
On top of the world. The kings of campus. Invincible. That's exactly how the beginning of senior year of high school feels. Everyone buzzes with excitement about what classes they're taking, who is asking who to homecoming, and how could anyone miss the rival football game on Friday night?! Every senior awaits that chilly fall evening that they finally get to stand at the front of the student section cheering on their best friends beating up on the arch nemesis. I can't deny that I was just as excited to watch all of my best friends play in their last season of high school football, but it all became very different for me when my best friend Danny went down in the third quarter. The whistle signaled the end of the play and everyone sauntered back to their huddles, but I knew immediately that something was wrong with Danny. He wasn't getting up and he made no attempt to signal anyone over to him. My heart stopped as I connected the dots as to what had happened. I knew because I had been there lying on the ground before for the same reason. He was concussed and unresponsive. They say you realize how much someone means to you when you see them in pain and it hurt me ten times worse because there was nothing I could do to help. I was bound by the chain link fence feeling helpless and afraid. I immediately thought the worst. Permanent brain damage. Paralyzed and never would walk again. But several minutes later, the trainers were able to get him up to his feet and onto the sideline, by which time Danny's parents had made their way down to the field and I was washed over with relief.
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Lucia L
9/8/2013 04:55:20 pm
Well written. This really shows how much you care about your friends.
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Meg Maclean
9/9/2013 01:42:10 am
Love this! Very well written.
Jack Morello
9/8/2013 03:39:09 pm
It was the 5th inning of a dry, hot summer league baseball game in the San Fernando Valley. High school summer games had no real importance to them other than to get players extra repetition in certain positions. These games usually went 12 to 13 innings and would take up a lot of daylight. This game had started early in the morning and it was now almost 1 o'clock. Innings were getting long and the heat was a heavy tax on our bodies. My good friend was on first and decided to steal second base. As the baseball neared the shortstops glove, my friend slid and rolled over his leg. As he did this, his whole body bounced off of the ground and he flopped onto second base. In the dugout, my teammates and I giggled. But that stopped when my friend lifted his leg up in the air from the ground to reveal to himself and everyone else that his foot was backwards. I will never forget the feeling I got from looking at it, a deep hollow empty space filled my stomach. The whole ballpark was dead silent except for one mom in the stands let out an "OH MY GOD!" He had to lie on second base until the ambulance came right onto the field and picked him up. He missed the rest of that year due to a compound fracture and multiple torn ligaments. Thankfully, that was two summers ago and he is now back to playing baseball in college.
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John Tomassi
9/8/2013 06:05:17 pm
In the (modified) words of The Joker: And I thought my ankle problems were bad. Yikes! It's 1 a.m., and I hope I'll be able to sleep after reading that - which is another way of saying that you had some very good, realistic description. Oh, and forward my props to your friend - playing in college after that is pretty cool. (We have the same advisor, right? Correct me if I'm wrong.)
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Michaela O'Rourke
9/8/2013 04:55:45 pm
One weekend when I was in the seventh grade, I decided to stay the night at my cousin Emma's house. It seemed just like any other night, my cousins and I stayed up too late talking and finally fell asleep to the barely present hum of the television. Only a few hours after we had fallen asleep, we were suddenly woken up by my uncle. Still groggy, I couldn't quite make out what was going on. I remember my initial feelings of annoyance and my effort to fall back asleep before hearing him say to my cousin, "Get dressed, we have to take mom to the hospital." It didn't take long after hearing that for us to jump out of bed and get changed. As Emma finished gathering her things, I walked across the hallway to my aunt and uncle's room. The door was already open, and my aunt was curled up on the floor, sobbing and writhing in pain. My uncle was trying to help her but it was clear he didn't know what to do. Being the only man in the house he felt it was his place to control the situation, but there was little he could do, and his efforts were all marked with a constantly growing sense of desperation.
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Mika Andrew
9/8/2013 05:02:37 pm
Now, I've never been good with needles. So you can imagine my displeasure when my doctor told me that I would have to get blood work done as a part of my yearly physical. Knowing that drawing blood is not a particularly risky or even exciting procedure, I simply gripped my knees a bit harder and swallowed the tremor in my voice as I consented.
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John Tomassi
9/8/2013 05:57:03 pm
We late-comers won't get many replies, but here's one for you:
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John Tomassi
9/8/2013 05:39:52 pm
It was not anything terrible, but it definitely was something. The quarter-sized protrusion on the boy's forehead had appeared there in a matter of seconds. It was just a minute before that I had been joking with the lifeguard with hardly a care in the world. The day was Thursday of my last week at camp after a long summer as a rookie cabin counselor, and I was ready for things to be done. While everyone else had been saying "hashtag last week!" since Monday, I wanted to hold on and do my job - but this was practically the last activity of the summer, so why not take it easy?
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Mariah Minder
9/8/2013 08:45:24 pm
I walked into the Emergency Department of a Spokane hospital like I had done one in the morning once a week for the entire semester. It was my week before finals and my last day volunteering in the ER. I keyed in, and as I walked through the ER looking for someone to report to, I could immediately tell something was off. The area that was usually bustling with nurses, doctors, and technicians was dead, and their wasn't a soul to be seen. It was then that I looked down the hall to the trauma rooms, which on a weekday morning always sat empty, and saw what can only be described as an enormous commotion. As I walked toward the trauma rooms, the charge nurse grabbed me and filled me in. He told me that the patient had just been brought in and was stabbed multiple times while walking their dog earlier that morning. He invited me to watch, telling me to stand in the adjacent trauma room of the patient where there was a window I could look through.
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Zachary Parker
9/9/2013 12:47:24 am
Last year me and my father were working in the garage with a new tool, a metal cutting band saw. My father was wearing gloves to handle the steel he was going to cut. We got the steel ready and I turned the machine one as he had instructed except that the glove caught on the teeth of the blade and pulled his hand into the pulley and crushed of the tips of two of his fingers. I was worried because at the time I had no clue what got cut off or if he was just bleeding a lot. He and my mother left so quickly that I didn't know what had happened until three hours later when they called from the hospital.
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Joe Virden
9/9/2013 03:13:12 am
I think you did a good job writing from your fathers perspective. I like how you have him recall the event as well as the last statement where you have him reflect on how most of it grew back.
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Meg Maclean
9/9/2013 01:40:48 am
All kinds of people have allergies. Children, adults, elderly people, but it makes a world of difference when it is someone close to you. You feel like their security blanket while you're with them. "I don't know, that could have nuts in it" or even "Maybe we shouldn't go over there. There looks like quite a few bees." are a few of the phrases you might hear from a watchful companion to someone with sever allergies.
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Joe Virden
9/9/2013 03:10:23 am
I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous I had never had any sort of surgery before and I wasn't sure what to expect. When the doctor entered to explain how they would put me under I could tell that my mother was nervous, but she hid it well.
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Nathan Disque
9/9/2013 09:44:56 am
Last summer me and a couple of buddies were headed out to the lake. We had the boat, the tubes and we were ready to go. However on our way to the boat launch we came across something none of us expected. I looked over and spotted a heated, crumpled pile of metal witch used to be a car. Not hesitating, we all hopped out of the truck and ran to the scene. What I saw is permanently scarred in my memory. There was a woman in the driver seat of the ruined car. She couldn't move. She was screaming and praying, as we arrived at the car we immediately called 911. The woman had no feeling so I knew we should not move her. As we waited for the ambulance she asked me to call her husband. So I did. Explaining this incident was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I was scared for her, and I could see how scared she was.
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Alec Temple
9/10/2013 05:29:55 am
My health story is about my mother and I. My mother is plagued by the surprisingly crippling illness that is unending stress. Stress wears at the brain so violently that its effects are visible even by the untrained eye. My mother believes in relaxation and stress relief through running and exercise. I also believe in relaxation and stress relief through running and exercise. The only difference between myself and my mother is the culture we each spent our childhood in. I grew up in a well off middle class family in Olympia Washington with resources and opportunities readily available to me where my mother grew up fifteen miles from the border of Mexico in a small house and a culture that dictated she learn house skills, marry and be a "good wife". Her parents wouldn't pay for her to go to school or support her higher aspirations and taught her only to work and clean and maintain their standard of lifestyle. She eventually left home, went to college with no financial support and became a pharmacist, but not before lasting impressions were left on her subconscious mind.
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12/29/2013 12:13:57 pm
Nice and very interesting. Thank you for your sharing...........
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November 2013
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