“It’s harder to build than destroy. To build is to engage and change. In jazz, we call progressing harmonies changes. Changes are like obstacles on a speed course. They demand your attention and require you to be present. They are coming…they are here...and then they are gone. It’s how life comes. Each moment is a procession from the future into the past and the sweet spot is always the present. Live in that sweet spot. Be present.” –Wynton Marsalis
Author suggestion: When reading this, have David Bowie’s Changes playing in the background. I am officially a master of one. I felt like I had a leg up on Aziz Ansari, who is a self-proclaimed master of none, but then I remembered that he worked with Amy Poehler and that realization quickly served as my slice of humble pie. This weekend, I graduated with my Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology finally. Well, I say finally, but at the same time the past two years went by in the blink of an eye. That’s the thing, time flies whether you’re ready or not. The trick is to live in that sweet spot. For the past six years, my cohort and I have been hard at work building. We have been continuously building the foundation for an exciting career that will never cease to involve construction and reconstruction. This fact is awesome. The never-ending opportunity for advancement and the unending ability for betterment for yourself and your patients is a unique privilege. Consistently living in a state of gerund. -ing. As in growing, learning, failing, modifying, failing, adapting, learning, changing. Note that failing and learning were mentioned more than once and could have been mentioned several more times. As someone who loves to learn, the fact that I have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, as well as making mistakes, I am excited by the challenge. Of course I, and every other person, will fail. Those mistakes are just a job hazard to being human. How we embrace the mistakes determines how they will impact our future. G. K. Chesterson said, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” Our perspective and our reaction to a mishap speaks volumes. Make your misstep a step in a new direction and consider it an adventure. A direction where you know a little bit more and actually have a little bit more direction to guide you. Our cohort had an award ceremony and were given advice from two individuals who were in our shoes last year at this time, and we were reminded of John C. Maxwell’s advice to fail forward. It’s simple. This two-word phrase packs a lot of life advice into a concise message. You cannot be afraid to fail. If you live in a way that you never fail, you need to look and see if you are creating a glass bubble for your life and actively push yourself towards new things that may involve failure. Failure means you took a chance. Failing again means you had the strength and persistence to try again. As long as you learn something, you fail forward. I know that mistakes will be made, but I also know that I will learn from them and become a better clinician because of it. Like Wynton Marsalis said, it is harder to build than to destroy. The changes are really the only aspect of life with any consistency. I’ve learned time and time again that I cannot plan for my life. Though I actively try, I also am reminded during times of change and uncertainty that living in the sweet spot, the present, is where I need to be. A place where I am thankful for my past and the experiences that brought me to where I am, as well as waiting in hopeful anticipation for the future. I still have no idea where my newly acquired degree will take me, and I flutter between anxiety and eagerness. I struggle with being overly nosey and at this point, I just want to know. I am currently in an obstacle on a speed course and need to remember to pay attention and keep my eyes on the road so I have a better sense of direction to help guide me through. To the ladies in my program who already have jobs lined up, congratulations! I mean that sincerely, I know how hard all of us worked and you definitely deserve it. For the ladies who accompany mean on the obstacle course, the foundation we have been building for the past six years as well as the people who have helped us lay some bricks, will help give us steady ground to complete the obstacle. Once again, thank you, thank you, thank you to all those individuals for your support, guidance, direction, and for helping us to build our steady foundation. To my cohort, we chose an amazing field, we are privileged to help others, we will fail forward, we will always be learning, we did it. Now it’s time to turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes. Bring it. Always, Molly “We can endure almost anything if we have someone at our side who truly loves us, who is easing the burden and lightening the load.”
–Jeffery R. Holland When I was around sixteen-years-old I started having these random movements that I could not control and could not understand. We called them my “twitches.” About the only thing we knew about these movements were that they were their worst in the morning shortly after I woke up. I’m talking an upwards of 30 of these fun little loss-of-control ticks every morning. I had gotten somewhat used to them and did not think much of them. The most common form of my “twitches” was my hands flinching. Often when I was putting on mascara. Now, let me tell you, mascara in your hair is an absolute pain in the ass to get out. And in high school I was already typically running late, so sometimes the mascara-streaked hair just was my fashion statement for the day. Less common, but still annoyingly common, was when my knees would buckle and I would fall down. Unfortunately, this usually took place when I was walking down the steps, and you can see where I’m going with this story…tumbling down the stairs. Sometimes, the uncontrollable movement was substituted with me completely zoning out whether I was just sitting there or in the middle of a sentence. Still, because these were just my “twitches” and we did not know what they were, I never really questioned them. The idea of my “twitches” being something that just happened and I would deal with them or grow out of them changed my freshman year of college. They had gotten progressively worse, and the hand ticks were still in full force, plus my knees buckling was also a daily common occurrence. It actually got to the point that I became dependent on my roommate, God bless your soul, Em, for supporting me on the way to an early morning class or to breakfast. On these lovely early morning fall-laden strolls from McGee to Massman, Emily was my human crutch. I commend her, because when I would go down I would go down hard, but she was always good at keeping on my feet as best she could. On one day in particular, when we finally got to the cafeteria, I got some food on my plate and then what do you know, a “twitch” happened and my food went flying. The lunch lady had no idea what had just happened and was feigning annoyance (although, I’m sure a portion was actual annoyance) about how she had just given me my food and I must not have liked it because I threw it on the ground and now she was going to have to clean it all up. This was early on freshman year, and in one of the most public places on campus I had the lunch lady jokingly scold me for dropping my food. I called my mom that day crying. This was it, and I had had enough. I cried through the phone telling my mom that we needed to figure out what the hell was wrong with me because I could not walk to class by myself without falling anymore and I should not have to rely on my roommate to make sure I could get somewhere on campus. At this point, my mom knew that these “twitches” were getting more serious, and that something had to be done. Lucky for me, my older sister, Katie, was a senior at Rockhurst at the time and I had her to help me through whatever this was as best as she could. We had an inclination that these were seizures, so the term “epilepsy” came up. Shortly thereafter, Katie gave herself the title of my epiligiologist. Not a real thing. For Katie, however, it was a newfound job. Basically, what she would do was videotape what was happening to me so we had footage to show the neurologist I was scheduled to see soon. What this meant is she would wake me up early when my “twitches” were at their worst, and I would walk around campus, usually accompanied with one of her roommates who would help catch me if I fell and Katie camera in hand. We got our best footage one morning when I was walking my youngest sister, Claire, to her bus stop before school. The appointment was drawing near, and we—Katie—wasn't satisfied with the current footage. Katie took her self-appointed position seriously, that I will give her. I was standing at the bus stop talking to a mom of a young boy up the street. A twitch happened, and I remember the mom saying something to the effect of me having weird dance moves and laughing. Immediately I became furious and wanted to go back home and go back to bed. She did not know what I was going through. I didn’t even know what I was going through. How dare she laugh?! I saw the footage later, and truly do not know how she did not laugh more to be honest. One second I was standing there, and then the next I resembled a flailing frog mixed with a newborn deer. Katie had found her diamond in the rough. After showing him the video, the first thing he said was, “Huh.” Comforting. He then consulted another neurologist outside of the room and then came back in to tell me that they weren’t sure about whatever was going on in the video. Awesome. He said that they believed it was a myoclonic seizure or a myoclonic jerk. He proceeded to tell me that if it was a seizure, there were ways to treat it, but if it was a jerk, we would let it go for a while and see if I grew out of it. At this time I had been twitching/jerking/seizing/weirdly dancing/whatever you wanted to call it for over two years and it was getting worse and I was not about to “see if I grew out of it.” I told him my sentiments and we agreed to do an MRI to rule out a brain tumor and an EEG which tracked my brain’s electrical activity. So, after my scalp was colored on, lubed up, and stuck with electrodes, we were on our way to discover…nothing. In the time that they did the EEG, I did not have any abnormal brain activity. So, the next plan was a V-EEG. This meant that I got to wear these electrodes that were connected to box at the base of my skull for two days with gauze so heavily applied to my head that it looked like I had just had major brain surgery. The stares I got leaving the hospital walking were priceless. I think people thought they were witnessing a miracle. After two sleepless nights because the box was so painful on my head, I finally had a diagnosis. I have epilepsy. Finally, an answer to the madness! Here comes a line that shows up in just about every blog post...the brain is absolutely fascinating to me. (I promise I wrote this a really long time ago and don't intentionally try and work that line into every post...) Every single movement we make requires thousands and thousands of neurons passing a message from one point to another. During a grand mal seizure (the bad one--the one you see on the TV shows), thousands of neurons are sent with no destination, and that is when the seizure takes place. It is my body’s attempt at using all the neurons that my brain is sending. The fact that I can take something twice a day that acts as a neuro-inhibitor and stops all my misfirings of neurons never ceases to amazes me, but it does cease my weird dance skills. That I'm okay with. For me, my pill acts as a stabilizer. My life was incredibly shaky (literally) before we figured out what was going on. This little yellow pill that I take twice a day helped stabilize my brain and my body, and I am so thankful for it. I desperately needed this stabilizer in my life. I think most people do. Not in the sense that they have uncontrollable muscle movements, but uncontrollable life experiences. People can act as stabilizers for each other in a similar was that my pill does for me. If I have learned anything so far, it is that life is joyful, messy, beautiful, unpredictable, every-emotion-under-the-sun, and yes, sometimes shaky. We need other people as support systems to help us stand on our own two feet when it gets hard like Emily did for me. (Thanks again, Em.) We also need to remember to be the support system for other people as well. This is not only talking about the physical aspect of support either. Emotional support should never be overlooked. There is something about just knowing that you have someone to help you carry the load if it gets too heavy that sometimes eases the load. I think it’s one of the pillars of a good life. To lighten each other’s loads and find others to help lighten our own. When you find these people, hold onto them (as well as their loads), and never let them go. Always, Molly “My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina and the colada.” – Ellen Degeneres
Balance isn’t exactly my thing. I try and I try, but I’ve realized the harder I try and attempt to mentally will myself into holding a yoga pose or some other physical feat requiring balance, it seems to inadvertently make me stumble. I find that there are times that I am playing a gnarly game of Twister against myself. And it’s all tied up—haaa. Okay, sorry… In yoga, often people are told to find a focal point to fix their gaze on, and it will help you stay balanced. This focal point is a drishti. I’m trying to find my drishti in life. Here’s the thing, you’re going to fall. I’m going to fall. I don’t mean to sound like a Debbie Downer, but such is life, right? (Also, quick sidebar, if you ever are feeling blue or just need a laugh, the link for the SNL Debbie Downer skit is at the end of this post. Betcha five bucks it’ll make you feel better. Empathetic Subway Screaming is also a five-minute podcast through the Moth that never fails to brighten my spirits.) A lesson I am learning through yoga—and my struggle with balance—about life is how to fall a little bit more gracefully. Where I used to get embarrassed if I fell out of a pose, now I can say to myself, okay, start over, try again, here is your drishti, focus, breathe in, breathe out, go. And then typically by then it’s time to change poses because others have been holding it for long enough. No matter, I’ve found that the more I’ve accepted that I will fall, the better my balance has become. Don't get me wrong, there are still some times I lose my balance like good ole Buzz Lightyear...falling with style. Though more often less stylish, and usually trying (and failing) to suppress a weird noise...anyway, moving on... I’ve been working on my balance, both on the mat and in my everyday life. As a soon to be graduate, I have an unnerving amount of question marks hanging over my head. I guess I could say I'm balanced with nervousness and anticipation. Although currently, the scale is slightly off kilter on the side of nervousness. I'm still very much in that state of frisson. Here are just a few things that I have learned that I can and am actively working on applying off the mat:
Always, Molly As promised here are some links that never fail to brighten my day: And her. And her. And her. And her. And her. And her. And her. And her. And her. And her.
The upside to what many millions consider a downside is the unity that was seen on January 21, 2017. Worldwide, there were marches to unify the idea that women's rights are human rights. It's 2017. How are we still dealing with this? Snowflake, a pejorative for an entitled person, has been thrown around through the election process as a derogatory term--usually to describe those who do not support Trump. According to some, the Women's Marches that occurred worldwide were full of these "precious snowflakes." You know what, women do share some similarities with snowflakes. Like snowflakes, women are beautiful, women are intricate, women are unique, and like snowflakes, when there is enough, you better get the hell out of the way. Damn right we're snowflakes. Winter is coming. Until there is respect for a woman's existence, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there is resistance. Respect is not just words in an empty apology where you assure people that "no one respects women more than you." Hate should not, cannot, and will not win. Love trumps hate. Always. Molly “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
First of all, I think the term “acutely aware” usually has kind of a bad connotation to it—this does not. This post is about my experience at The Mayo Clinic, and I am just trying to be punny because it was an acute care setting. Get it? Ha. Okay, moving on… If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t think I would like acute care. I like to develop relationships, and that doesn’t always happen in a hospital setting. You actually hope it doesn’t, because that means that people are getting healthier and get to leave. I was thankful that I was getting the experience, and at the Mayo Clinic of all places, but I somewhat went into it thinking this will be an interesting semester, but acute care isn’t for me. Come on past Molly, give future Molly a chance so present Molly can take it all in… The human-sponge absorption process was in full force every single day at Mayo. My Google this later list was quite extensive just by the end of week one. This past semester has completely changed my mind and makes me that much more excited about how diverse the field I have chosen is, and that I have found another realm that I am fascinated by. Moments I was made aware:
Jonas Salk once said, “I feel that the greatest reward for doing something is the opportunity to do more.” I had an amazing supervisor that had the perfect balance of direction and independence, and had a great sense of when to instruct and when to kick me out of the nest. With her support, I was given countless opportunities to do more, be more, and learn more. Thank you, Nicole, for those opportunities. She also put up with so many questions from me. One of my favorite things about my supervisor was that if she didn’t know the answer, she didn’t make up something that I would have undoubtedly fallen for. Instead, she said Let’s Google it. Google knows all. So, I guess thanks are in order for Google as well. The instruction I had at Mayo from the entire speech-language pathology department was an incredible learning experience. Everyone was kind enough to let me pick their brains on a daily basis. I love seeing how people add their own personal style into their clinical application, and believe that everyone’s personal spin on the discipline made the department run so well—and what made it so fun. My overall experience at Mayo was extremely rewarding, and I cannot wait to apply the knowledge I have gained at my externship and in my future career. For now, I am going back to the good ole 314 area for a little bit and working with outpatient neurorehabilitation at the Rehab Institute of St. Louis. I am so excited for my next placement, much less so to be returning to St. Louis in the thick of winter. Today in Florida, it was 76 degrees. I will not be welcomed home with even half that temperature… Always, Molly "If you're going to love someone or something, then don't be a slow leaking faucet—be a hurricane." — Shannon L. Adler I am proud to say today is my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. From high school sweethearts to five kids later, those two lovebirds are doing alright. This is a little story about our celebration of them five years ago. To celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, my sister and I wanted to do something big. In theory, this was going to be awesome. When it came to practicality, I quickly realized that it was going to be a little bit harder. Katie did not have this same realization.
Katie and I are the oldest of the McCune siblings, and with this, we took on the responsibility of planning, as well as assumed a large portion of the financial burden, to figure out some way to celebrate my parents. Now, at this time, I was 18 and Katie was 21, and we were both in college. So, another way to phrase that is we were both broke. The younger three would not be in much of a position to help us financially either, so we started brainstorming. Katie’s first idea was to get our mom, who loves taking pictures, a nice, quality camera. The ones we were looking at were about 800 bucks. We had a couple months to save, and while I felt my palms getting sweaty at the thought of the five of us trying to save the money (while still eating) we pushed on. Katie, however, wasn’t done. Along with my mom’s new camera, she thought that we could get my dad a Mac. That would bring our new total to $2000, with a couple months to save, and five broke kids. Katie was not realizing the huge, glaring negative sign in this math equation when it came to looking at the money we had in relation to her extravagant plans. At this point I was thinking, Okay, I currently have enough money to get mom and dad a card that is not from the dollar section and a stamp. Did the financial impossibility stop Katie? No, it didn’t. Also, let me remind you again, that Katie, the eldest, soon to be college grad, was the one who was blissfully unaware of our financial ineptitude and the plans that she was making. Like I said, Katie still wasn’t done. In addition to the new camera and Mac, Katie also wanted to send my parents away for the weekend so they could enjoy some time to themselves. At this point, I was done adding up the money that this would take, and instead started saving to try and make a trip home to surprise them. I had abandoned Katie’s plan, but do you think she was done? I would love to say that she was. I really would. Katie was just so absolutely blinded by giving my parents a huge celebration for their anniversary. Quick sidebar: Katie still thinks that it is four days later than it actually is every year. She lets my parents celebrate on their anniversary, and then four days later doles out her congratulations. Back to her plans of well-intended ridiculousness… When my parents were enjoying their weekend away on our dime, Katie wanted to have our basement finished. Ty Pennington style. She was set on contacting our uncles, family friends, contractors, and finishing the basement in the few short days that my parents were gone. Again, on our dime... which was about all we had at the time. At this point, I had to shatter a few dreams and tell her that I didn’t think in the next couple months we were going to be able to scrape together the thousands of dollars that was needed for the party that she had envisioned. She used to swear that she was never serious about any of it. I am here to tell you that that is a load of crap. Now, she will just tell you that she was dreaming big. While my parents did not get showered with gifts, vacations, and home remodeling, we did however surprise them with all five kids being home, all of our family and close friends, and we hired one of their favorite local artists to come and play live music for the night. It wasn’t what Katie had planned, but it was something that my parents enjoyed which is all we wanted. Not having to take out a loan to make it happen was an added bonus. Like I said, Katie now says that she was dreaming big for our parents. Growing up with Katie, I have experienced this multiple times, but Katie is undoubtedly a dreamer. They are not always so out of reach, but Katie will do what she can and dream as big as her mind will allow for those that she loves. I think this story is a good testament of Katie dreaming big for those she loves. She will also go the distance for the people that she cares about. While, in this instance, she was planning to run a marathon and giving herself only forty-five minutes to do so, she will typically go the distance. Dreaming big, especially in regards to others, also brings out the idea of loving someone like a hurricane. Love should be big, bold, and sweep you off your feet. In Love Does, Bob Goff talks about the idea of loving someone differently than the conventional way we are told to do so. He said that, “[John] didn’t love people the way that Hallmark says to love people; he loved them linebacker style, in a full contact way.” We need more love linebacker style. Too often love is just thoughts or words, but the problem is that’s not how it should be. Love should do things, and make people change, grow, act, live, and do more. Love should never be stagnant. Love should never remain in the brain, because what good is love that is bottled up? We need to give love in a full contact way, with the strength of a hurricane, with big dreams in our hearts and in our heads. And remember, love is a do thing. As in a verb. Action is required. This world could use a lot more lovin' nowadays. Congratulations on 30 years, Keith and Kar. We love ya, and maybe one day we can remodel the basement. Something I have learned in the past 48 hours: prepping for a hurricane is way different than prepping for a snow storm. I know, most people, especially native Floridians, are thinking “Well, duh.” Hey, I’m a Midwestern gal, and snow and tornados are what I know. For the landlocked, our natural disasters require the essentials: bread, milk, and booze. Typically, it is a bunker-down and ride-out-the-storm situation. Okay, okay, of course there is more preparation than that, and I am not trying to say blizzards and tornados are a walk in the park; however, I have been fortunate enough to have been safe during those storms. That, and I always had my parents and my basement. Quick sidebar: I understand why Floridians don’t have basements (times like these), but I have grown a deep appreciation for my basement. With my family of seven and all the unnecessary shit that has found solace in our basement, I don’t know how we would have managed without one. Also, being from Missouri, we have descended to the basement per our mother’s orders many times in the past due to a threat of a tornado. Apart from the rough weather that I faced with my parents with me, the only other storms I faced were in college. It’s an understatement to say college students don’t really take weather warnings seriously. It honestly is an excuse to stay up late, drink with friends, and maybe build a snowman the following day. Snowpacalypse 2014 was a frigid, yet incredibly fun time. This is another story.
Where Katie and Chris live, and where I am currently residing, there were people who were packing up and saying goodbye to their homes. Their homes. That is an absolutely sobering thing to witness. So, I packed up a few things in my car and drove inland. Speaking of which, packing up and not exactly knowing what you will be returning to is unnerving. In the event of an evacuation, there is only a few things that I absolutely need. My memory boxes. Anyone who knows me knows that I keep everything, especially letters given to me. Sugar. My stuffed animal cat that I’ve had my whole life. My computer. Okay, I guess I don’t need my computer, but given the option I would like to have it. It is crazy to think about what you would take if you were only able to back a suitcase. It makes you think about what you really value and what you cannot replace. Lucky for us, Matthew cooled his jets a bit and was downgraded to a category 3 hurricane by the time he made his debut in Jacksonville, PTL. The eye of the storm moved to the east just a bit, and that made all the difference. He still brought crazy winds and rain, and I’m inland. The bridges are closed, and I know that there is devastation towards the east; however, for right now I am so thankful for my safety. I am also thankful that my cousin, Laura, lives more inland and allowed me to ride out the storm with her. Now, continuing today writing this, it is a beautiful day in Jacksonville, and I checked on Chris and Katie’s place and it is fine! There is no damage interiorly or exteriorly. There is no power, but that is the only thing. So, once again, thank God for our safety and for their home surviving the storm. I know that there are places in Jacksonville who do not have the same success stories, and I am hopeful that the people of the city reach out and help those in need. My prayers go out to all of those who were in Matthew’s path. I would have to say that surviving a hurricane is the most Floridian thing that I have done thus far, and I hope to not have to experience one again any time soon. Thank you to family and friends who checked in and made sure we were safe. Thank you to everyone who sent prayers our way, and a huge thank you to Big G for answering prayers for our safety. Thank you to the first responders in Jacksonville for all of your hard work to allow us to return home. Thank you for the wine that helped ease any nervousness. Goodbye, Matthew, you will not be missed. Always, Molly |
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