Journal #5

These past couple of days have been busy busy busy. I find myself staying on campus 'till late at night for classes, going home to get food, then returning to the Library to study. I am constantly tired but I can't sleep because I have so much to do. My classes are awesome but so time consuming. I can already tell my Psychology 111 class is gonna kick my butt and I have to study A LOT for my Physiology tests. But even with all of this going on I can't tell you how good life is. Life is oh so good. My classes are mainly medically related classes which makes me so happy. I am FASCINATED with the human body. At 14 I knew I wanted to be a Nurse. At 16 I knew I wanted to be a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nurse. This is my fourth semester at BYU and I have learned an immense amount of information and don't ever want to stop learning. I have yet to take a class that I don't see how it would ever help me in real life or my career (ok maybe stats and history classes.. yuck). Now my plans include becoming a certified Athletic Trainer then moving on to do a post-bachelors degree for Nursing and I couldn't be happier with this plan. It is because of my Athletic Training Lab that I am going to Ghana (Thanks Katie!). While I think of my career here in the states I understand that I deal with so many refugees with critically ill infants. That is why I am so excited to go to Ghana. I want to see what kind of Neonatal care they have. I want to experience first hand what a mother does to prepare for pregnancy, delivery, and raising a little one. I want to understand the differences in medical treatments for mothers and infants. Each time I look up articles about Health care in Ghana I am astounded by their improvements in decreasing MMR and IMR. Ghana is still an underdeveloped country but making so much progress. 

My project is becoming more and more about Infant care and a little less about Maternal care. I want to look at Maternal care to get a better look at the Neonatal care because they are so related. The prep class has helped me so much with figuring out my project and preparing me mentally, spiritually, and physically for Ghana. Separating into individual groups is so wonderful because 1) the girls are absolutely fantastic and 2) I learn so much! My mom calls me all the time and asks me what specific things are like in Ghana and at first I knew probably as much as she did… not much. But little by little I am able to answer my "nervous nelly" mom and her thousands of questions. She worries about my safety which is totally understandable but I assure her that BYU isn't going to set me loose in the country of Ghana without any preparation or guidelines. At least that's what I hope… 

I am so grateful for the prep class and all the insight I get and even more grateful the opportunity to go to Ghana and do research.