I never thought I would say this at 22 ...

Remi Mooney graduated from Parker as a lifer in 2015.  Since then, her life has been all about nursing. 

A nursing student at San Diego State, she studies furiously, spends hours in labs, and stays actively involved with the Student Nursing Association.  She is also about to publish her first article in the association magazine, Vital Signs, about her perspective as a nursing student on the healthcare experience.  "Being the science and math person that I am," she said, "I never thought I would publish something that wasn't research related."

But Remi's road to becoming a nurse was forever changed when her father got sick, and that's what she writes about here.  Fair warning, the story is sad and tragic.  But Remi comes out the other side with some heartening and thoughtful advice -- about dealing with loss, about appreciating what we have, about coping, about moving forward. 

"My hope," she said, "is to inform others that life can change on a dime.  I hope my advice can help."

- C.H.

Anyone that knew me well at Parker, knew that I was and still am very family oriented. While a lot of high schoolers partied hard on Saturday nights, I would usually be doing something with my family, like meeting some family friends for dinner or catching a movie. I am finishing my fourth year of college and have yet to go to a college party because frankly I simply do not want to. I just simply don’t have an interest in it and I am okay with that. Plus, nursing takes a lot of time and energy. I would rather spend my Saturday night making pasta with my friends and watching ‘New Girl.’ Anyone that knows me knows I am an old soul. My mom always says how I was born 45. There was a period in high school where I wore cowboy boots – I tried anything and everything to spice up that uniform. Why cowboy boots? Well, that was because of my dad. My dad was from the south and got me hooked on country music since I was little, my current obsession being George Strait. I always said ‘Ma’am’ and ‘Sir’ to my teachers but I was often told not to say that because me using the expression made them feel old. That’s just how I was raised, with southern hospitality.

I remember my senior year of high school, it was mid-February and I was sitting in Mr. Esch’s AP Calculus AB class. During the break my mom had kept calling me saying that I needed to check my SDSU account to see if I had gotten into the nursing program (the program of my dreams that was very hard to get into). One of her friend’s son just found out about his acceptance to SDSU for business so it was bound to be my turn soon. During that class [sorry Mr. Esch], I kept refreshing my account on my phone. It just kept saying ‘pending’, ‘pending’, ‘pending’. And then all of a sudden it said ‘admitted.’ I remember I stood up and sort of screamed out of excitement, and the whole class looked at me. Talk about awkward. I just quietly said “sorry” and ran out the door. I called my mom; she freaked out. And then I called my dad. I remember when I called him, I said, “Guess what? I got into the nursing program at State!” He told me he was driving and had to pull over because he was so excited. My dad didn’t go to college, so this was a big deal, his firstborn getting into college.

Fast-forward, I was in my spring semester in my third year of nursing school. My dad, out of nowhere was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He was a perfectly fine and healthy 53-year-old one day and then the next my mom made him go to the doctor because he had this weird bump, which I initially thought was a cyst. Next thing you know, my dad has Stage 3 synovial sarcoma. With all of the factors considered, my dad had a 1 in 12 million chance of getting this cancer. And he happened to be that one person. That’s a 0.000000083333333% chance my dad would be that one person. My life forever changed that day.

After a hard, gruesome, short six-month fight, my dad lost his battle. He didn’t pass away from the cancer; he passed away from hospital acquired pneumonia (but that’s for another blog post, another time). My family was by his side holding his hands as he slipped away. My dad was diagnosed in mid-April of 2018 and passed away in early October of 2018. I never thought I would say this at 22, but I just lost my dad. 22 is young, but I can’t really get my mind around how my three younger sisters have coped with such a loss. Two of them are in middle school. The reason why I emailed Mr. Harrington is because I wanted to share some coping mechanisms I have learned along the way to not make the pain burn as much. Losing someone so close to you does not hurt, it burns.

Here are a few things I have learned while coping with my dad’s death and trying to continue to keep my head up:

1.  It’s okay to be quiet. When someone close to you passes away, everyone wants to talk about what happened. If you do not want to vividly relive it by retelling the story over and over, then don’t. Don’t feel like you have to, because you definitely do not.

2. Don’t feel guilty about people helping you during this time. During such a fragile time, people who care about you flock. They want to do everything for you. With everything everyone was doing, I felt guilty. I felt bad that they were doing something for my family and me. Don’t feel guilty about leaning on other people during your time of need. I did until I realized I would do the same thing for them. Instead of feeling guilty, be thankful.

3. You learn who your real friends are. Right after a trauma happens, like I said earlier, people flock. From near and far. People that you have known forever and people you have only known for a couple weeks. We don’t really have any extended family but we have friends that are like family, just not blood related. Everyone is “all up in your grill” (as my dad would say) for the first month, and as soon as the newness wears off, people fade away. People you wouldn’t think would leave you when you are most vulnerable. But it happens. You know who your real friends are when they ask you how you are doing a few months down the line. Friends who I thought cared about my family and me dearly, shockingly dissipated quickly. The people that are with you every step of the way are the people you want to be around--not the people that are involved for a hot minute then forget. Surrounding yourself with people that care about you, blood related or not, is crucial.

4. Don’t be afraid to give your condolences if you are on the opposite side. So, I just wanted to point out that giving your condolences when someone experiences a loss is very important, both in person and in other forms of communication. It does not matter if saying it makes you uncomfortable. You have to do it. Bottom line. We saw friends who knew about everything that had happened, but they didn’t say a word to us when we saw them in person. Not only is it awkward, it’s insensitive. It makes the person feel like you don’t care.

5. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. If you need to sleep, sleep. If you just want to watch Netflix, watch Netflix. A tragedy takes so much out of you, both mental and physical energy, which is super easy to forget about. It’s draining. The physiology behind stress and coping is, I find, very interesting (again, another blog post). Surround yourself with things you love and bring a smile to your face. I have two rescue pit bulls and they make me laugh every single day; they warm my heart. One of them, Kai, was horribly abused wherever she was before we rescued her. She has come such a long way and reminds me every day to never get up and keep going. Resilience is key. I like to watch funny movies with my mom and sisters. If you are like me and put other people before yourself, you have to remember that in order to take care of other people, you have to take care of yourself first.

6. No matter how traumatic your experience was, use it to propel you farther and make a difference. Since high school, I have strived to become a ER/trauma nurse. But now with what happened, my main passion is still emergency medicine but my situation has sparked a new passion in infection control. I might one day become an infection control and prevention nurse. It’s something I have experienced first-hand. And knowing that I might be able to make a difference and work towards improving my hospital’s infection control and prevention keeps me going even when I get really sad about my dad. My goal is to prevent this from happening to other patients and their families.

I realize that a lot of you haven’t gone through what I have gone through -- no one really has. But I hope you can take something away from this and help you heal your own scars. Everyone has them, no matter who you are and no matter how superficial they may be. It might be dealing with going through a nasty break up or the loss of a beloved pet. Everyone is different. The other point I am trying to make here is that life can change in an instant. Everyone says that but no one takes it seriously. Well, take it from me (very seriously), it does happen when you least expect it. My family had just had Easter brunch like we do every year the week before my dad was diagnosed. Who would have thought?  So, you didn’t do well on a test? Don’t sulk about it, learn from it and do better on the next one. Hard to say that coming from Parker, where your GPA floats above your head like a cloud as you walk through the halls for everyone to see. But it’s true. I learned that very early on in college. You are NOT your grade; it’s about who you are as a person. I have learned to be more mindful and be more present -- I swear that changes your quality of life so much (for the better of course). To be more aware. To be more kind to myself. Anyway, the point is, be thankful for every day and don’t forget to remind the people you love that you love them.

Take care of yourself and please don’t forget to be present (I promise it makes a difference),

- Remi