Brainstorming My Digital Story

1. Describe a positive scene from childhood in detail. 

Something positive that happened to me as a child was when my family first took me to Myrtle Beach. When I was around 5 years old my parents decided to take us to Myrtle Beach, SC for the first time. Ever since then we have always went every summer together. It was always just the four of us that went; my mom, dad, sister, and myself. We would go to the beach in the mornings and in the evening go out to dinner and go to a show. Having this week with my family was always wonderful because we were able to spend time together and find something that each of us liked doing.

I love the beach and if I could move there, I would in a heartbeat. Going to the beach really was something special for my family because we were able to make fun memories. We always bought boogie boards and stayed in the ocean playing on them all morning until it was time to get ready for dinner. Going to the shows was something else that I love.

This event that year led to our family going to the beach together every year since then. My sister and I took friends and sometimes our grandparents would join us as well. Now that we are older we are still making time to go on vacation together. My sister, my nephew, my mom, dad, husband, and myself went this past summer and we had a blast. I can’t wait to have a little family of our own so that I can introduce my child to the beach and make memories with them each and every year. The beach is more of a tradition for my family and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

2. Describe a negative scene from childhood in detail. 

When I was in first grade, my dad used to coach high school softball for South Harrison High School. My sister and I were the “bat girls” for the team. One day my dad had a game at home and my sister and I were there helping. In the middle of the game my sister and I got into an argument and I went to my dad’s truck to work on some homework. I sat in my dad’s seat and used the steering wheel to hold up my homework so that I could see it. My sister is 4 years older than me so we fought a lot growing up. No one knew that I went to car during the game, so when one of my dad’s softball players hit a ball through his driver’s side window, everyone cheered and laughed that she hit “coach’s truck”.

When my sister told my mom that I was in the truck my mom ran over and got me out of the seat. She put me on the back of someone else’s vehicle and tried to talk to me to make sure that I was ok. I was ok but I was very upset about my dad’s truck and wouldn’t say anything else but “daddy’s truck” to my mom. My mom is a nurse and she started looking at my eyes to see if there was any damage. When the ball came through the window, the shattered glass went into my face and into my eyes. My mom had to rush me to my eye doctor and one by one he took out each piece of glass with a pair of tweezers and a q-tip. Once all of the glass was out of my eyes, the doctor noticed that the glass put a hole in my retina. He prescribed eye drops and I couldn’t go to school for a few days.

 Once I was home, it became hard for me to see in the light. Where ever I went in our house the lights had to remain off. The only thing that the doctor could do was prescribe me eye drops. My eye doctor was very concerned that I had lost 50% of my vision and was afraid that I would never gain it back. After a couple of days I was able to go back to school but had to continue with the eye drops. Eventually I was able to gain back 100% of my vision and weirdly enough, I am the only person in my family today that does not have to wear glasses or contacts.

This was an important event for me, because that was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me as a child and it really scared a lot of other people as well. My sister felt so guilty about fighting with me and the girl that hit the ball even brought me a teddy bear when I returned home. To this day I am petrified of fly balls and I always have to keep my eyes on the ball when I am at a baseball or softball game. This event made me very grateful that I regained my vision and don’t have any issues with my eyes today. This could have ended differently for me, but I am so thankful that it didn’t. 

3. Describe a particular event from your teen-aged years that stands out in your memory today. 

My favorite memory that stands out above anything else was when I was a high school cheerleader. When competing in high school cheerleading, the top two cheerleading teams from each region go to states. There are four different regions in West Virginia. We were in region 2 when I was in high school. Throughout my high school career we always competed at West Virginia Wesleyan.

 My freshmen year we were not very good so we didn’t make it out of regionals. My sophomore year we almost made it out of regionals but lose by a very small amount to the second place team. My junior year was the first time my high school made it to states in school history, and we won second place. Using all of the experience that I could, my senior year we won regionals for the first time and made it to States. We competed in the Little Kanawha Conference as well and won first that year too.

My senior year was the best year of cheerleading that I had ever had. It was a bittersweet year, because it was my last, but all of the girls (13 to be exact) went out and did what they needed to do to make it to states. We worked 6 days a week and put in over 20 hours in the gym working on our routine to make it perfect. Regionals were on a Saturday in early November and it was really cold outside. Single A went first this year so we competed at 10am, which meant we had to be there extremely early to get ready. We stretched and went to our safety checks to make sure that everything in our routine was legal and that we wouldn’t miss points over silly things that we could have changed. We were set to go last in the single A competition. Our biggest rival were the CeeBees, they went to states every year and always were the team to beat.

Since we took the floor last we were able to see what other teams were doing and what we had to do in order to come out on top. Going last is so nerve racking and our coach wouldn’t let us watch all of the teams in case we got psyched out. I remember standing by the bleachers and holding my teammates hands. We were more than ready for this moment and we worked so hard the entire season. What a lot of people didn’t know was that I was diagnosed with mono the start of my senior year, so being able to get through a routine was very hard.

We made it through the cheer portion and got set for our music to start. We hit a flawless routine and had every stunt hit. Once we ended the routine we rushed off the floor to watch it on a video that was in the hall way for us. We were all so excited and our coach was so proud. To this day, nothing can come close to that excitement that I had that day. As a cheerleader, a lot of people looked down upon us and always said that we were awful. That day we proved them wrong! I know to some this isn’t a big deal, but to me it meant the world. Coming from a small high school who didn’t care about us was something that we had to go through every day. I made a lot of friends through cheerleading and when I was a sophomore in college I started coaching high school cheerleading at my alma mater.

4. Describe a vivid or important memory from any time in your adult years. 

Something that stands out in my mind would have to be my first and only broken bone that happened last January. I was one of those people that would always say that I never had a broken bone and nothing ever happened to me that was horrifying.

Growing up, I always wanted a set of white figure skates to wear every time we went ice skating. So in January of 2015 my mom and I made a trip to Pittsburgh and bought me my first pair of ice skates. I was so excited to try them that I went the next weekend to Morgantown to see how they did. This trip we took my sister and her son, Cohen, with us. I skated with Cohen for a while because he was only 5 and it was his first time on the ice. I took him around a few times until his mom told him to take a break. I decided that I would skate by myself for a little bit and started to take off. For the first time in awhile I fell down between a few people. I got right back up and wiped the ice off of my pants. I found Mark standing near the bleachers and I told him that I fell and I felt sick to my stomach. We both decided that I just needed a break and would continue to skate for a little bit longer. I took Cohen out for a while until the zamboni came out and made us wait until it was finished to skate again. Once we were able to skate again they had us skate the opposite direction for the remainder of the time there. Well when we switched directions Cohen grabbed a hold of the arm that I fell on earlier and it made me cringe. I wasn’t able to straighten my arm at all and I started having pain through my lower arm. I told Mark about it so we decided that we would get our stuff and head home. I went outside and took my jacket off really quick to show him my arm and to my surprise I couldn’t get it back in my jacket. My left arm was frozen in one spot and I couldn’t move it without being in pain.

Mark talked me in to getting an x-ray and I broke my distal radial head (right where my elbow meets my arm). I had to make an appointment with an orthopedic doctor and they had to x-ray it every time I went to make sure nothing was moving the wrong way. They couldn’t cast it because of the location near my elbow so I could only wear a sling. I had to have 6 weeks of physical therapy to be able to even straighten my left arm again. Now that I have been released from the doctor and physical therapy I do everything that I used to do. But, now I am starting to have issues with a place in my elbow catching to wear I can’t move my arm. I never knew how much I rely on my left arm, but I am so glad that everything has turned out ok. I can never say now that I have never broken a bone.

5. In looking back on your life, you may be able to identify particular “turning points”.

A big turning point for me, which a lot of people don’t know about, is when I was attending radiology school and decided to quit and go back to college. A few years ago I decided to go to radiology school to be able to work at UHC. I love being hands-on and it was the perfect job for that. I went to school for 6 months and was completely miserable. I would get up at 5:00 am to get to class and come home after 5:00pm just in time to study for tests that I would have the next day. I was coaching high school cheerleading at that point as well.

A lot of people would ask me why I was so down all the time and I just told them that I was exhausted from school. I thought that I was always upset because I was worn out but it turned out it was because I was unhappy with the program. I didn’t like the courses and I hated being around sick people all of the time.

Finally, I had a talk with my parents and they already could tell that I was very unhappy. My mom understood why I wanted to quit but my dad couldn’t understand where I was coming from. I decided to quit with the program and go back to college to get my degree in Education (which is what I always wanted to do). The rest is history and I couldn’t be happier with my decision and where I am today from that choice. My life wouldn’t be the way it is now if I would have stayed in the program. I would have never met my husband or been around the kids that I have enjoyed teaching for the last 2 years.