91 - Cassandra Firemark: Second Doesn’t Mean It’s the Worse Option

Join Dallas, Texas, Winchester, Virginia, and Los Angeles, California native Honored Guest Cassandra Firemark as she waxes eloquent about about her family, her many careers in life, the extremely frightening moment that made her want to enter nursing, what she loved most in nursing school, her life-altering diagnosis, how she is navigating the change life has handed her, her incredibly inspiring view of setbacks and failures, and more!

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Feeding Our Young podcast. I am so excited today to be sitting with today's honored guest because she and I have tried to make this, we first talked about this, I believe as long as maybe seven months ago. It was shortly after I first started this whole little venture and she's like, absolutely, I'd love to. I need to get through some nursing school stuff and I gotta do this and I gotta do that, but we'll make it happen. Beautiful and and there's been just this back and forth over the last half a year to make this happen and now Miracle of miracles. She's in studio. Ladies and gentlemen, Cassandra Firemark. Cassandra, how are you today? I'm doing well, thank you. Yes, it's been a long time coming, hasn't it? It really has. I hope you all listening audience don't mind. We're gonna have a special five part episode. I'm just kidding. One part for every month. Yeah, we try to do this. so Cassandra, let's just open it up. As you like, as you know, I like to have you introduce yourself and let's get to know you a little bit. So if you don't mind, who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing? Well, my name is Cassandra Firemark, as I said, and I currently live in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but I grew up in Dallas and in Winchester, Virginia, and my journey's been all over the place. I lived in France for a while. I moved back to Texas after I lived in France. Now I'm here and probably will be here forever. Oh my goodness. If you don't mind my asking, so what do you love about LA? And this is really ironic, because the person I just sat with, she is actually from California, Southern California, and her and her husband moved to Texas because she had family there and all the things and they didn't, it's how they wanted to raise their kids and they wanted to get back to the family. So now we're talking to you, no less than. you know, a few minutes apart and it's reversed. So, what is it about LA? What do you love about LA? And what did you love about your hometowns, if you want to expand on that? Well, what I love about LA is, I mean, you have the beach and you have the mountains and they're, you know, an hour apart from each other, maybe two depending on traffic, because everything depends on traffic. But there's just a vibe here in LA where you've got people from all over the world. And I love the intersection of all these different people. And you can I mean, in the suburbs here, not so much, but in LA itself, you certainly have, you can walk down the street and hear any language from anywhere. And, you know, having lived in France, I'm always like, are they speaking French? No. But it's, it's just really interesting to see how all the cultures and languages and histories. meet up in the city and it's this wonderful melting pot of everything. let's see, Winchester was a lovely town when I was there. It was only 20,000 people. And what I loved there was that we did have four seasons and four distinct seasons. wasn't, you know, like here in LA we have summer and winter basically, but winter is not winter. I mean today it's probably going to be 70 degrees and sunny and This is not winter. no, not at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But the similarities here versus Winchester are the mountains. I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and here I can step outside and see mountains from my doorstep and that's one of my favorite things that I did not love about Dallas. Although it's a great city, there's lots to do. I mean there's some great things to do there but it's just not. quite as pretty as the other places. I mean it has its own appeal. The skyline of Dallas is cool. I loved living there. My dad was there. My stepmother was there. I had other family around. But now they've all either moved or have died so there's nothing there for me anymore. No connection to speak of there. So we'll expand on this a little bit more, but what nursing school have you attended? College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita. No, it's a community college. very cool. College of the Canyons Community College. That's fantastic. They're like quadruple C's. I love that. What three words would you use to describe nursing school? challenging. It's definitely the most academically challenging thing I've ever done, probably. And fun. That was, yeah, it's definitely a lot of fun. I loved all the, like the labs and learning how to give injections and never a dull moment and really fun and really, really demanding. Physically, emotionally, mentally. every aspect it was demanding. Yes, yes, awesome. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. The other fun question that I like to ask, what are three of your favorite songs in life right now? Right now, I have been obsessed with Wicked for 20 years. So right now with the movie out, I'm just like, okay, popular loathing defined gravity are on repeat in my brain 24 seven. I love it. And for the benefit of those listening, is Wicked just came out last month at the time of this recording. You're gonna hear this obviously months down the road, but my goodness. And I've heard nothing but wonderful things both about the actual Broadway play as well as the... so good. I've seen the Broadway play four times, the show, because it's a musical. And now I've seen the movie four times. I know. can't wait. So by the time this comes out, we'll only have what, three or four months until the second installment comes out. And I will be obsessing again. Yes, yes. So I'd like to do something that's relatively new, mixing things up a little bit. And I like to call it my unofficial personality test. I'm going to ask you five questions with your permission. I'm going to ask you five questions rapid fire that she has not prepared for. You're going to give me an answer. You can give me rationale if you want. but it's just gonna be boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then we'll know everything we need to know about you, okay? Okay, here we go. Here we go. To be fair, I did warn her this was happening, and all this could be for nothing. I might take it out, but we're gonna give this a go and see what happens. All right, the unofficial, the Feeding Our Young unofficial personality test, are you ready? All right, Cassandra. Hold on. She's so excited for it, she's getting choked up. All right, here we go. Would you rather have the ability to fly or breathe underwater? Are you team pie or team cake? Cake. Would you rather instantly learn a new language or instrument? language. You have a time machine. Are you going to go back in time or are going to go see the future? back. Mmm, and the most important one of all is Wham's last Christmas actually a Christmas song yeah. And there it is everybody, we know everything we need to know about Cassandra having done the unofficial feeding our young personality test. All right, this will be fun. We're gonna see if this thing sticks or whether or not we just find this to be really silly. So moving on Cassandra, let's talk about you a bit more. Why don't you share with us if you don't mind what you'd like to share about your family? Do you have any pets? What does that look like? yes, we have pets. I have three cats, two dogs, and three kids and a husband. In that order. So yes, we have two cats that are a sibling pair and they're Luke Bedwalker and Luna Petunia. And then we have Pixie, the great and terrible. She's a little Siamese and yeah, she's a little Spitfire. but she's the one who sleeps on me all night, every night. And if I move, she will meow or hiss at me to stop moving. she's a little character. And she's like nine pounds and thinks she runs the world. And then we have the dogs, Rosie, who's a yellow lab, who is six and a half or so. And then we have Poppy, who is a mutt. She's like, I don't know, we got her DNA tested and there's this long list of breeds that she is. She's like 40 % golden retriever, but she's black. she's six months old and she's giving Rosie a run for her money. definitely. Definitely. She's really fun though and sweet. love it, I love it. And about your kids, are they, are we talking younger, are we talking adults, where we're going? well, I was 40 when I had my first. Yes. So we were very lucky to get three. and surprised to get three, but yeah. No, my oldest is 16. He's six foot two and weighs like 145 pounds. He's a string bean. just like my brother was at that age. and then my he's he's great he's a great kid he he's in academic decathlon at at his high school and he they did a scrimmage and he had to write an essay and he had like 45 minutes to write it and it was really stressful he got third in the state i know it was like are you kidding me this is amazing my goodness. So it was really great and I'm really proud of him and he's just a great kid. And then my daughter is 14 going on 40. She knows everything. You can't tell her anything without getting an eye roll. And I'm like, I somehow managed to recreate myself. Isn't that amazing how that kind of passes along there? It's it's crazy But no, she's she's also a great kid. She Just finished her silver award for Girl Scouts a few months ago. She built a little free library That we put up in front of her troop leader's house and Like she learned how to use some, you know woodworking machinery that I probably don't know how to use them. So she's yeah she's she's awesome. And then my youngest is 11 almost 12 and that child is never serious. It's like you ask him something and he gives this hilarious like pat answer sometimes but it's like where did you come from? He's he's really he's a good kid. He's a character. He just like Neither my husband nor I have any clue where he came from even though We are his parents and I gave birth to him. He's just his, I mean, they're all their own kids, but sometimes you're like, I have no idea where you got this. my goodness. And it's the same, that's what I love about, like same nature, same nurture, and yet totally different human beings. totally different human beings. I swear they come out of the womb as their own person and we just kind of like help them along because all three of them have sort of been the way they are since birth. My oldest has always been chill and easy to get along with. My daughter has always been a little higher strung and then then my youngest has always been like, nope, we're doing it this way. I love that. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. my gosh. So bringing it back around to you, as I understand it, you've had a number of jobs, careers, professions, et cetera. Would you care to expound on that? Sure. I have been in sales at IBM, telephone sales. We were selling maintenance agreements on everything from a mouse to a mainframe at the time. And this was in the 90s. So it's been a while, a couple of years. But I haven't changed a bit. I worked at a container store which was the most fun job I've ever had. And I only left because I was moving from San Diego to Los Angeles. And there were no container stores in LA at the time. But it was so much fun and I still love organizing and, you know, plan, like, we used to plan the closets on paper, now they have a computer program for that, which is amazing. I've seen it in action. It's like wow and we used to do this on paper. So yeah that was really fun and I've been a financial advisor which didn't last long because I felt like I was selling my soul but I learned a lot and I was licensed as a financial advisor in Texas and everything so I passed the seven and the 63. I think it was the 60, 63? 60? I don't know. It's been a while. And, you know, at some point I got married and had kids and was a stay at home mom. I've been a stay at home mom now for 16 years. But I, oh my gosh, it's the hardest job. No vacation time, no days off, none, no pay. But it's also very rewarding seeing these kids. helping them grow up. I wouldn't have traded it, but I'm also glad to be starting to do something else. Yeah, which which I guess transitions us naturally into why nursing? So when my daughter was six, she kept falling asleep. Like we went to Six Flags one day, Magic Mountain. And my youngest was about three and Lily was six and we were having a good time. We were wandering all over the park and she climbed into the stroller and fell asleep. And I was like, this is... Okay, she must be tired and but that wasn't the first time and she a few times had complained of some neurological symptoms like she said she couldn't open her hand fully or she felt like she was dragging her foot or she felt like she couldn't talk right and she kept getting headaches and she would like touch this particular spot on her head. So we were like, I remember telling her I don't know what's going on with you, but we're going to figure it out. And then about a week later, she came into my room. It was July 5th at like midnight, know, just turned July 5th. We'd gone to see fireworks the night before and she said she had a headache. I said, okay, let's give you some Tylenol. Didn't help. Gave her some ibuprofen. Then she puked all over our bed. And of course, Gordon had just left for a business trip. So I was at home. Yes, Gordon, my husband. So I was at home alone with three little kids who were eight, six, and three. And I can't get my daughter out of pain. And she's having these neurological symptoms. At that time, she said she was experiencing all those things with the speech, the hand, the dragging foot, et cetera. I couldn't see anything. but it was clear she was having something going on. So I called a friend of mine who was at my house within 20 minutes, it was about 1.30 in the morning, and I said I need to take Lily to the emergency room. And she came over and she stayed here while the boys slept. And I took Lily to the ER. And they... took one look at her and said, well, we can get her out of pain. That's no problem. I'm like, good, because that's why we're here. And then they looked at her and said, but why is she so pale? And I looked at her and she was just ghostly. And I had, I haven't really put it together because you know, at that time, I had no nursing experience or and what did not have a plan to go into healthcare at all. And I was like, yeah, she looks whiter than the shade she's laying on. That's not good. And she had like dark circles under her eyes and they did some blood work and her hemoglobin was 3.2. Yeah. And, you know, I'm like, well, what can cause this? And this idiot ER doctor? have great respect for doctors, but bedside manner is super important. He's like, well, there are only three reasons for a kid to have hemoglobin this low. One is, you know, leukemia. And of course, my brain's shutting down like, Yes. And then the other one was like, you know, deficiency something. And I'm like, this is not good. And I don't even know what the third one was. And our local hospital doesn't have a pediatric unit, so she had to be transferred. And so we went to Children's Hospital in LA. And, you know, I'm texting Gordon. He's in Chicago. I was like, you need to come home. We don't know what's wrong with her. They're saying all these really scary things. And I texted a bunch of my friends and I said, please can you handle the boys? I need to be here with Lily. And I gotta say, every single one of my friends stepped up. I had like six people I texted. Between the six of them, I had somebody bring me clothes, I had somebody spend the day with the boys, I had somebody bring them food, I had somebody... I don't even remember everything, it's been a while, but everybody helped. It really did. And so at Children's... I was told she had transient erythroblastopenia of childhood. That's a mouthful. It is a mouthful. And I was like, what does that mean? And looked it up and of course it's viral, caused by virus that ends up, you know, it starts like as a cold, it can then attack the red blood cells and make you anemic. Okay, fine. It's transient. This is good. This will pass. She had three blood transfusions before we were done and released. And you know, as the only parent that was in town, I had to sign everything and when you're signing paperwork to have somebody else's blood put into your child, it's a little stressful. Yeah. And I mean, obviously she's fine. But as it turned out, at an appointment a few months later, the provider said something about IRIDA. And I was like, what's IRIDA? And she said, well, this is the form of anemia that your daughter has. I said, I have not heard that term before. This is not what I was told in the hospital. And so I wrote it down, started reading studies about it, and like 60 people on the planet have been diagnosed with this. It's iron refractory iron deficiency anemia. So it's genetic. You can't absorb oral iron. Wow. She can absorb a little bit, which is why she made it six years before she crashed. But that whole journey of finding out what she had, what she really had, and learning about it, because nobody knows anything. Only 60 people have been diagnosed with it, and this was years ago, there probably maybe 100 now at most. So I had to read everything I could find and we tried oral supplements and everything but now she gets iron infusions roughly every year so far. So that started my journey towards... towards nursing school basically, although I didn't know it at the time. All I knew then was that I was enjoying learning all these medical terms and reading about this condition plus being diagnosed with my own autoimmune issues. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's a few years before Lily tanked. And, you know, helping, I had gone through, a health coach program. I had gone through this health coaching program and never really did a lot with it because I wasn't feeling good enough, healthy enough to really do more than what I needed to do for the kids and around the house. I did have a few clients here and there but I never did a lot with the health coaching thing. then I... You know, when somebody says you can't do something, that's when you know you're going to do it. Lily's hematologist, who I actually love now, initially can come across as a bit... condescending maybe? I said something about do you have any studies that I can read about this condition and he's like well you know it's probably above your head and I'm like that's not quite how he said it but that's how it felt and I was like I was like you don't know me and I said well let me decide that I can use a you know I can figure out what things mean and he did send me some information which was helpful. And, you know, now we have a much more long-standing relationship and he, after several months of dealing with me, and I do say dealing with me because I'm probably not the easiest patient's mother, because I do ask a lot of questions, but after dealing with me for a while he grew to understand that I knew more than he thought I did. Good, good, good, good. So, yeah. So that was what really set me on the course to nursing was her issues and realizing how much I loved reading these studies and learning more and you know nursing is such a career that the learning never stops. Yeah. Yeah. you know, if you want to learn more, there is more to learn. And I've always had this insatiable desire to learn more about whatever, whatever piques my interest. like, I love learning about new things and health stuff just is right up my alley. I've always been interested in it. But I, you know, when I was, when I was in college, my best friend was a pre-med student. And at the time I did not have the self awareness or self confidence to think that I would be capable of going into healthcare. Now, of course, I know different. And I wish I'd done it like 30 years ago, 30, let's see, 30 plus years ago, because it's amazing. And we've learned so much. And there's still so much to learn about the human body and why we get sick and what happens and how trauma affects various things. And that's... You know, we all would do things differently in life, but I think that's one thing that I would have done differently if I had, yeah, if I'd had the wherewithal to know that I could do it. So, then now, you've chosen nursing and everything's hunky-dory, right? You go to nursing school and now your path is to use a wicked vernacular but you've got that golden yellow brick road in front of you and life is good, right? Wait, what? mean, you know, like with Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Road, there have been some obstacles. Hmm, intriguing. Would you like to share your story? Sure. So I finished my first semester of nursing school last spring. May 24th was my last day in clinicals and you know we have a 12-hour clinical day. Actually technically longer but that day was supposed to be 12 hours and it's like an hour drive down and back so it's a long day. And we weren't really allowed to leave the hospital. And of course, everybody wanted to talk over lunch. So I didn't really feel like I could go outside even. I don't even know if I was allowed to go outside for lunch. But at lunch, I was exposed to COVID. and I had not had it before that I know of and like 36, 40 hours later I had a tickle in my throat and I was like, well I just went to book club maybe the air was just really dry tonight I don't know and I woke up the next morning and I knew and came downstairs tested myself and was like thankfully we have a good-sized house and we can isolate no matter who gets sick. Somebody can, you know, we have enough room that we can make that work. So I pulled down the Murphy bed that I have in my office and I put on a mask and I went to get a few things from my bedroom and little did I know I would be in that room for a month. I tested positive for 26 days. and you know finally got two tests, two negative tests two days apart and sprung myself from isolation. Did not give it to anybody else, thank goodness, even though I'd spent you the night in the same bed as my husband. And now I have long COVID in pots. Mmm. So it has... When I first got out of isolation, I knew I wasn't sick anymore, but I also wasn't well. Like I was having trouble just standing long enough to take a shower. and my feet would turn purple and my heart was racing like crazy, you know, good old tachycardia and I was like, what the heck? What's going on? And thankfully I have an amazing doctor. And I'd heard of POTS. I didn't know if I had it, but I had heard about it and I wondered. And finally got in to see my doctor a couple months later and she said, yeah, you have POTS. And, you know, a lot of people with POTS, takes years to get diagnosed. But she has POTS. So I was very lucky. Yeah. diagnosis? Yeah, she has POTS and Ehlers-Danlos and a few other things. So she is well versed in this whole world of long COVID and POTS and everything else. by that time, by the time I got diagnosed, I had actually decided that I had to take the semester off from nursing school because I knew that I was not capable of being vertical for too long because I spent pretty much all summer on the couch. I mean, I bought a shower stool and, you know, I had to find some workarounds. We bought some bar stools for the island and the kitchen because I couldn't stand long enough to like cook vech- or cut vegetables up. And I still, even now, can't really stand for all that long and cook. So I took fall semester off and like really worked on getting better and figuring out what was wrong and you know now I have a cardiologist. I'm too young for this crap. cardiologist put me on metoprolol which helps you know I'm I feel more functional. I'm not excited about having to take this but it's helping and I don't feel like my heart is going to jump out of my chest when I'm in line at Old Navy or whatever. I ended up dropping out of nursing school because I can't stand and there's no way I can get through a clinical day. Like, I can do the academic work of it. I can do the lab work of it. You know, if I can sit for a few minutes, I'm okay. But just knowing that nurses spend nine out of 12 hours on their feet, I was like, yeah, this probably isn't the best choice for me now. Yeah. with my various health issues, because not only do I have POTS and Hashimoto's, I also have celiac, Sjogren's, and Raynaud's. my goodness. and I'm 56, I thought, I really want to go into a career where I will literally be exposed to all the things? And so... I had to quit. If you don't mind my asking then. So here's this dream realized later in life and this is what I want to do and I'm excited to do it. Gung Ho, all the things. Very Gung Ho, you're a go-getter and now your life has been upended. So I, for the benefit of those that are listening, I mean how have you been able to work through that severe, I would classify that as a very severe challenge. when your life is just, you're barreling down one track and all of a sudden somebody flips that switch and you're just going off in this different direction. like, wait, we're that way, not this way. How have you navigated that? It has not been easy. I'm still navigating it and I'm tearing up just thinking about it, but... My dream was to become a nurse practitioner and be able to diagnose and treat. And, you know, it was the closest I could get to going to med school and becoming a doctor without a zillion years of education and residency at my age, which I didn't think was a good idea. So letting go of that is hard. I'm still planning to continue my healthcare education. I, because of the pandemic, okay, I started my prerequisites the semester before the pandemic started. So fall of 2019 and then spring of 2020, we all know what happened. And with the pandemic came this really intense interest in epidemiology, especially with the challenges of getting accurate information out there that people will not only hear and understand but also believe because there's been so much misinformation about how viruses spread and how COVID works and does it even exist and you know all these other things. So that's my plan now. I am planning to take, three classes to take to qualify to transfer to an epidemiology program that I've already applied for. And at least that way, even if I can't diagnose and treat... and be in nursing, I can still be in healthcare. one step away from patient care. Yeah. or maybe two steps, I don't know, we'll see. But being able to have that impact. Yeah. And you know, maybe I can't impact each patient directly, but Epidemiology is still an amazing field. And it's fascinating to me. It's still hard to think about not being a nurse or becoming a nurse practitioner. But as second choices go, this is a really good one and I really am excited about it. So we'll see how goes. And go ahead. Even if I end up not getting into school for epidemiology, I will go find something else to do. When we're young and something doesn't work out, I think it's more devastating because we don't have the life experience to know that it will be okay. So that's perhaps one advantage of being an older student is that even though, yeah, I am kind of devastated that I won't be in nursing, I know it's going to be okay. You know, and for whatever reason, Maybe this just wasn't meant to be. I don't know. And you're gonna have the privilege of, again, coming back to that word impact, impacting others, it's just gonna be a different group of others than you originally imagined. Yeah. I can't thank you enough for being vulnerable enough to share that story because, you know, a lot of people maybe would shy away from that. for transparency, for everyone who's listening, like... we joke about how long it took to get us two in the studio together. And part of that was this journey, this unexpected portion of your journey. And if it's okay with you, I'm gonna share this and you can tell me no and we'll cut it out. But she texted me, I said, hey, I just check in. I try not to harass anybody about being on the show, but I definitely am like, man, I'd love to still have you if you're still available. You let me know if you have no interest whatsoever. you'll stop receiving the monthly texts or whatever. And she wrote back, was like, oh no, absolutely. know, Cassandra, I'll never forget. You're like, I've just had these setbacks and this, that, and that, and kind of expounding on her story. And then she's like, so I totally get it if you don't want me on the podcast anymore now that I'm not in nursing. And I was like, are you kidding? I want you on the podcast now more than anything. Because it's just inspiring. Like the fact that you are even still very raw feeling this. this pain of an unfulfilled dream, but yet taking it and going, you know what? I'm not done. This doesn't, this doesn't knock me down. This doesn't, it knocks me down, but it doesn't knock me out. And I think that's a huge, there's a huge difference between those two. Yeah. No, thank you. I experienced it myself. know, pediatrics oncology was going to be my entire career. And that was what I knew. for 13 years, I did that career for 13 years, but when I got into it, I was so passionate and that was it. This is how I'm gonna spend my entire nursing career until retirement. And then things happen, you know I mean? And it's hard not to, to be perfectly honest and to be vulnerable myself. I've talked ad nauseum about how I made that change and into postpartum and it was a... real struggle and talking to my wife and I was like, I don't know, like can I really, can you teach an old dog new tricks? That's how I phrased it. And, but at the same time, what I haven't shared is that there's also this feeling of failure in that, in that like, you know, again, which is a disservice to what has come before it, but this feeling of, I thought this is what this was gonna be and it wasn't. and to then be able to embrace that and to work with that and to not, you know, I still walked past my old unit every time I'd go back to the car and you're just like, you know what I mean? It there's feelings of failure, there's feelings of bitterness, there's feelings of pain, not because I left in any state of disgrace. It just was this is a dream that changed and And so for you, like if there's any encouragement I have to offer, I'm, you this month I turned five years old in my postpartum career and it was the best thing for me. Even though at the time it was like, well, it was my second choice out of nursing school. And so I'm going to my second choice and yet second choice doesn't have to have a negative connotation, I guess is what the takeaway is, right? Second doesn't mean it's the worst option. Yeah. Cassandra, I thank you so much. I if we can I don't want to before we end your episode before we pull it all back around nursing students who are hearing your story, who have felt like a failure, who have whether it's just an assignment or whether it's, you know, failing a full semester or having to come back after a life event. What would you say to those students who are listening now or to those people in life? Nurses otherwise, what would you say to them? I would say, you know, sometimes the dream that you have... isn't always the dream that can come true. and whether or not you start out in nursing and end up in nursing or end up in something else, there is no less than. You know, certainly in healthcare, every role is massively important. Even if you're just in, you know, I don't know, any role. Any role in healthcare is important. And even if you're not in healthcare, even if you go through nursing school and don't pass the NCLEX and end up doing something else, which, God, I hope that doesn't happen, but it's okay. Life goes on. The issue isn't what happens to you so much as how you respond to it. We all have failures. We all have setbacks. We all have things that didn't go the way we wanted them to. And it's not what happens to you so much as what you do in response to what happened. So you can let it feel like a setback. You can let it feel like a failure. That's okay. But moving on from that and understanding that those setbacks, those failures have a place in your life. And sometimes they have a... A place that is... I'm reaching for the right words here. Sometimes they can act as seeds, I think, for maybe a different plant than you thought you wanted to grow, but a plant nonetheless. Like I, five years ago, when I was over five years ago, when I started my prerequisites, I did not plan to go into epidemiology because I wanted a job that was, you know, on my feet, not at a desk, in front of patients and nursing and nurse practitioner was it. Great. Let's do it. And I mean, it took me a long time to do my prerequisites because I had three little kids and a life and house to take care of as a stay-at-home mom, it took me a long time. And then my dad died during that time and two uncles died during that time and like I think, I think in those five years nine people in my family have passed away. So it took me a long time. I took a semester, I took the rest of the semester off when my dad died and I was really glad I did. I needed that time. But then I went back to it. But I didn't plan on epidemiology. I'm still not 100 % sure that that's what I'm going to do. I think it is. I love it. I want to. But who knows what other roadblocks might come my way. I mean, I am improving somewhat with my POTS and long COVID, but you know, if I catch it again, will I still be functional? I don't know. I have, you know, I knew before I even caught COVID that I had some risk factors for having a more severe case, but, and I have never stopped masking because of that. But do I think I would catch it from my classmates? No. Thank you. I almost want to end it here, but let's just do justice to the questions we asked before and the questions we typically ask, because I love your take on things, on life in general. You gave three words that you would use to describe nursing school and your experience within nursing school. What were they and why did you pick them? Challenging was the first one and I chose that one because I had no experience with hard sciences before I started taking my prerequisites. I was a French major in college. So like all the scientific words and concepts were new to me. I mean I had high school biology and my college science class was geology. But as far as learning everything about, you know, the body, mean anatomy and physiology intimidated the crap out of me. I was so scared to take those classes. So it was like I felt like I was learning a new language. You know, the language of science. I still am not nearly fluent enough in it. But I seem to have done okay so far. But it was really challenging. I you know, my first biology class was spring of 2020. And we were supposed to have our first exam March, let's see, 17th. my- So of course we all shut down on the 13th. My professor had us come get the paper version of the test because he had no clue how to use like Canvas or anything for students. So we had to go get the test, come home, take it. Obviously it was open book. I spent like 10 hours on that thing. I would not have gotten an A had I had to do it in class. I was so glad that we had shut down at that point because I spent so much time on that thing. But doing that test helped me learn too. But boy, was a challenging because I only had limited time and I was looking up every answer. But I, I, and I did end up getting A's in all my classes, not on every test, but Overall, I did really well, but it was challenging. Yeah. The second word I chose was fun. And that's because the hands-on part of nursing school was so much fun and the labs in the science classes were so much fun. I remember in my anatomy class we had to dissect a sheep's heart or something. I think it was a sheep's, sheep or cow heart, I forget which. And I thought, this is going to be gross. I'm going to hate this. We got in there and I was like, my gosh, that's the tricuspid valve. That is so cool. And here I am with my gloves on, sticking my hands through the veins and everything. I'm like, this is amazing. It was so gross, but it was so cool. I mean, learning how to pack wounds on the mannequins and how to insert and remove foleys. I don't think that would be so much fun on a patient, but. It was fun on the mannequins because I am learning how to give injections. It's all just fun. It's I mean, you're learning and it's challenging and it's and it's fun. OK, the last word I chose was demanding. And that goes along with the challenging because. I mean, I have never before bio 100 spent 10 hours on an exam. ever, ever. And I never studied so much as I did in nursing school. It really can be all consuming, but it was fun too. I mean, I would make my little flashcards and quiz myself and, okay kids, here, take these flashcards and quiz me. So yeah, it was... It was really demanding and I I spent 60 plus hours a week on nursing school and studying for classes and stuff, but it was great. It was what I wanted to do. Still what I want to do. But, well. But, but, new dreams, new dreams getting, being realized, new plants being planted. Yeah. And you mentioned all consuming, and I think that segues into your final, if you had one piece of advice to give to nursing students today, what would that be? Get more sleep. Seriously, you'll do better on the exams and in class than if you stayed up another hour or two studying. Plan your life so that you can sleep because it'll make your study time more efficient and more effective and clinicals will not be so hard when you have to get up at dark hundred to be at the hospital by 630 and You'll be okay. Cannot agree with that more being a recent convert to day shift after 17 17 years as a night shift nurse Getting to day shift. I cannot tell you like I fiercely guard my sleep hygiene now and Much to the chagrin of my family and I can't tell you like I I just had a student former honored guest asked me he says so Can I pick your brain about stuff because I leave my door open for anyone like if you have questions down the road just shoot him and he says So here's these job offers I'm looking at. Can you weigh in on anything that I should be looking for, et cetera, et And he said, I really want to do like this, this one looks really good too, but it's a day shift position. And I really want that night shift diff. I told them, yes, the night shift diff, you you're talking about an instant 10 % raise. Fantastic. I said, but as a lifelong night shifter and thought I would be for my whole career, now that I've experienced the other side. Look at how much you're getting paid to start. It's gonna be just fine. Also, it's the trade-off is, yeah, just, my gosh. I just can't, I can't preach enough, Cassandra. That's perfect. Get sleep. When I was in nursing school, I remember talking to one of my professors and saying, I can't do night shift. I'm too old for that. I need my sleep. And with my health, I just don't think I can do night shift. And she's like, well, know, for the next few years, you're probably fine and you can probably get day shift because there's so much need for nursing with the pandemic and everything. And she did night shift a lot. but I'm just like, okay, good, well, that's one perk of not going into nursing is I won't have to think about night shift. There you go, there you go. my goodness. Well, Cassandra, thank you so, so much. I have appreciated chatting with you. Thank you for giving up an hour of your time for me and for the listening audience. Absolutely. You have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day. Thank you.