My New Life

Last week (Tuesday night), I was straightening my hair before I left for Ohio the next morning. I don't like to get up in the morning, so I didn't really want to have to deal with it when I got up. I was listening to a bunch of Mormon Messages on lds.org in hopes to learn something I guess, and one video struck me in particular:

It got me thinking...how sad would it be to not be able to play with your kids in the snow because you were in too much pain? I was on edge. It didn't sit right with me that she was physically struggling so much.

The next morning, I went to work with my mom in Berkeley. I figured out that I could save a little change on BART if I catch it at the North Berkeley station, which is a 5-minute walk from my mom's work, than if I caught it from the Pleasant Hill station, which is up the street from my house. My mom couldn't take off work to drop me off at the San Francisco airport, and BART would dropped me off out front. Before I left for BART and the airport, my mom and I were talking. Stephanie's story still wasn't sitting right with me, but I hadn't told my mom about it. We somehow got to talking about my plan to go into the military and more possible job options for me. My mom was a nurse in the U.S. Army for a while, and she told me that if she could go back and do it again, she'd want to work in a burn unit. I was even more unsettled, and the more I thought about it, the worse the feeling got.

When I got to Ohio, I was talking to my dad, a firefighter/paramedic, about it. He said that he heard about something interesting, and then showed me the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXO_ApjKPaI. And then it clicked. I thought that the skin gun was great...for people with fresh burns. But what about people like Stephanie, for whom it's too late to use it for? I got this idea...what if you could somehow remove the scar tissue and THEN use the skin gun? I guess it'd basically be like plastic surgery, but you'd be made out of yourself instead of plastic.

Earlier today, I saw this video of her: http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Blogger-Stephanie-Nielsons-Daily-Struggles-Video. The littlest things are a huge struggle. Having to stretch out her skin every morning can't feel all that good. And I mean, not only do showers hurt, but she can't lift or hold her kids very well? REALLY??? I think about the skin gun and wonder how I can use it to help her and somehow fix her scars and repair her nerves so she doesn't have to be in so much pain. I think that once I figure this out, my world will be a happy place once more. :)