Oral Exam

Oh snap!
So, today I had my first oral exam! Well, technically it was a quiz, but when you have to face every single preceptor and regurgitate diet prescriptions on the spot...it's an exam.

Here's how it goes.
We had an oral quiz over our "phase one diet prescriptions". Basically, this means that we needed to be able to recite any and all diet prescriptions that could be used in basic, easy-to-handle patients during our first phase (the first three weeks of the internship). The diets could include, but are not limited to

• 2g Sodium with Fluid Restriction
• Wired Jaw
• Heart Healthy
• Dysphagia I
• Dysphagia II-III
• Kosher
• Gluten Free
• Fat Free
• Lactose Free
• Etc

Well, those first four listed are the ones that my class was given to talk about. Thankfully, my particular assignment was the Heart Healthy Diet! I had prayed to get, "an easy one" and I am thankful! I spent all day Monday with heart patients so I would have felt pretty comfortable with either the 2g Na or Heart Healthy. Thanking the Lord that He delivered me through my first oral quiz - and I didn't even shed a tear!!!!

p.s. All the interns totally nailed it - great job to all my classmates!!

Beauty from Ashes

So, the Friday before my internship started, Jarred took the day off! When we were here (in Sierra Vista visiting my grandparents) last Thanksgiving, Jarred wanted to go to the Chiricahua (cheer-i-cow-uh) National Monument. However, there was a massive fire in the mountains that previous summer (summer of 2011) that temporarily closed to park. So, the park has now reopened and we went for a visit...see!

So, according to the park services people, the Chiricahua's formed billions of years ago from a volcano that burned the rocks into these crazy formations (Idk if that's really how the story goes but there was something to do with a volcano!). Either way, I like to think that God just pointed his finger and went, "Bam!" and there were the Chiricahuas! Can you see them in the background?

On our journey, we hiked to the Grottoes. It was just a simple mile round-trip hike that led to rock formations that you could crawl around in.

We also saw a bunch of wildlife, mostly lizards (Jarred's favorite) and Mexican Jay's. Jarred fed the jay's some doritoes from our picnic so they followed us around all day!

do you see my lizard friend?

nom nom nom!!!

And, of course, everywhere around us there was beauty from ashes. All around us was evidence of last year's fire. Basically, on every mountainside there were no trees; some small shrubbery was growing back but certainly nothing else. The fire had destroyed everything...everything except the rocks. Perhaps that's another reason why we call God The Rock of our Salvation?

you can clearly see the blackened trees as evidence of the fire

Big Week Part II

Well, here's a continuation of my week! ha!

Wednesday:
Wednesday at work was full of information and I finally got to do more hands-on stuff - so that was good :-) But, most of my Wednesday updating has to do with the preggos!
First of all - I'm proud to report that I very successfully wore a pencil skirt to work today (and I didn't even have to unzip it while sitting down!). If I were a tweeter I would probably do something like this, #winning. I'm very thankful that I haven't had to spend exorbitant amounts of money on maternity clothes yet but at the same time I'm looking forward to really looking pregnant.
Second - we were watching reruns of New Girl on Hulu. We watched the Christmas episode where Jess and Paul breakup and they take Jess to Candy-cane lane at 2:00 in the morning and start screaming at all the houses to turn on their Christmas lights. This very kind gesture may or may not have made me cry...I may or may not have blamed the child...
Finally - I have to be praying for my brother and sister-in-law as she has been having contractions very consistently since Sunday (what a stud to have contractions for like three days and still go to work!! whoop whoop to her!!) She went to the hospital this evening but they sent her back home...baby Frakes will be coming soon! Please keep them in your prayers!

Thursday:
Today I stared at a computer screen all day - learning how to enter medical records... F.U.N.
But on a brighter/far more exciting note, Jarred and I are auntie and uncle!!! My bro and sis-in-law had their baby! They waited to find out the gender...sooooo....baby Sophia Joy (obvs a girl) was born at the butt-crack of dawn!!! And Shelby (the sis-in-law) did it all natural!! Kuddos to you my friend! As for me, the idea of all natural is spectacular but likely not a reality for me! (partially because I'm a pansy and partially because it appears I have a bicornuate uterus which makes my liklihood for premature and breech birth way more likely, thus, c-section could be in my future!). But anywhos, new life is such a miracle, baby Sophia is beautiful and a gift from God!

Friday:
Today we had to take the clinical rotations pretest. This test, I was told by the preceptors, is harder than the RD exam, that no one ever does well, etc. Going into this exam I'm expecting to have to know every single detail of every single clinical manifestation that I may encounter during my four clinical phases. That said, I prayed prior to the exam! And, I was also fully expecting to literally get a 50%. Actually, I was shooting for a 50% and realistically expecting a 20%. Plus, my rationale was, if I get a 20% the first time, I can still do really poorly on the post-test and show massive improvement. Welp, needless to say, the exam grade made it to my fridge - I thought hubby would be proud!

Miraculous Thoughts

Well, after the birth of my little niece, I wrote in a post (I will publish over the weekend) that new life is a miracle. This post is likely TMI for some of you, so I apologize and give you permission to stop reading right now! Well, actually, read the last paragraph and I'll be content :-) But, I want to walk you through my pregnancy. Not how I got preggers, we all know how that happened...but how I got pregnant in the midst of many trials.

First, I am a recovering anorexic. I was amenorrheic (without a menstrual cycle) for quite some time. That, along with many, many, many other changes the a body undergoes during an eating disorder (particularly anorexia) make conception much more difficult and unlikely.
Second, birth control. I started birth control very shortly after my struggle with AN (anorexia nervosa) because I was gonna be gettin' married in a very short amount of time. I had been on birth control FOUR YEARS and somehow still managed to get preggers.
Third, I have a bicornuate uterus. This means that my uterus is heart-shaped rather than triangularly shaped. see...

You can clearly see my uterus is not normal (the top is normal, the bottom is mine...). This type of uterus generally makes it very difficult to become pregnant. If by chance you do become pregnant with this uterus, miscarriage is very high. If you don't miscarry early on, preterm birth, along with breech delivery, is very likely. The baby will eventually run out of room to keep growing because this type of uterus can't expand like a normal uterus would. I mean, you can imagine trying to grow in the misshapen thing...it's gotta be awkward.

Anywhos, I wanted you to see all of that - why my pregnancy is a particular miracle. I once read in a book, that if anyone ever asked why you believe in God you should say, "Sex." That makes since - what an ingenious creation sex is - that everything goes on the way that it goes on and somehow a baby comes out 9 months later. Well, I have to tell you, if sex is not a good enough indication that God exists think about my unborn child. Think about what that little baby had going against it before it was ever a baby. Think about the fact that God didn't even have to work hard to create that baby inside of me - even with what the world would say are hard circumstances. Won't you think about it?

Big Week

So, this week is the first week of my internship. Thankfully it is only a week of orientation so critically ill patients aren't depending on stupid me for nutrition support, but either way, it's a big first week! Here is an overview of my feelings/emotions after each day so far!

Monday:
I survived!! Today wasn't too terribly busy but it was still full of anxieties. It's kinda like the first day of every semester - when you see all your syllabi sitting next to each other, filling out your planner and highlighting all your deadlines and you never think that you will ever survive. I was a little overwhelmed when I saw so many deadlines, mostly, when I saw that every exam I have is preceded by a huge case study presentation. I don't know why, but I wasn't anticipating to have some many things back-to-back and having those things be such big assignments/exams. Either way, I have been praying for my future patients and for my ability to learn and handle each situation that arises. I feel the God has given me a peace about this upcoming semester - and for that, I am thankful!!
Oh, and here is my first-day-of-orientation picture

Tuesday:
Tuesday was good. We actually had classes today that seemed useful. Yesterday was just a bunch of policies and procedures and such (which are certainly important) but it's difficult to see how those will all be used on a daily basis. Today, that was not the case! While I was familiar with most of the info from today, it was really good to feel like I was learning useful stuff. Today I pretty much drank my weight in supplements - we tested a handful of supplements we could offer to patients. Unfortunately, I had already been introduced to many of them due to my extended stay in the eating disorder unit (those aren't necessarily days I want to relive but I praise God that I haven't relived them in over four years!!!). Today we also had classes in nutrition interviewing skills - we had one example where we needed to determine necessary questions to ask a prego lady...nailed it ;-) And then our day ended with a class on objective measurement assessments. Tonight I plan to actually start my reading assignments and some of my homework...we shall see how that goes!
Also, Jarred decided that my outfit for today finally accentuated the baby bump enough to take the first official bump picture! 15 weeks, 6 days looks something like this

A Sweet Request

This past weekend one of my fellow interns invited all of us to his house for a barbeque. It was super yummy!!!!! It was the first time I ever had twice-baked potatoes and oh. my. gosh! So good! Thankfully, the same intern, told us about the sweet little butcher shop where you can purchase said potatoes :-) In addition to the yumminess that was our dinner I also made a cookie cake for dessert because the hosting interns birthday was the following day. After making said cookie cake, another intern requested the recipe. I originally found the recipe online because I was looking for a small cookie cake recipe I could make for Jarred's birthday (upon his request!). I've made a few modifications to the recipe and now the cake goes something like this:

Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1 1/4 cup DARK chocolate chips (I usually buy Hershey Special Dark)
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour (I've used a couple different whole wheat flours and it doesn't make too big a difference which one you pick)
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 tspn vanilla
1 large egg

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
• In a separate bowl, cream the brown sugar, butter and vanilla on medium and then high until smooth but not too creamy! Then add the egg to the creamed sugar and butter and cream for another 30 seconds or so, again until creamy but not too loose.
• Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture in three divisions (it will be a fairly dry dough by the end of it...no worries!)
• Add the choco chips!!!!
• Bake in a glass pie pan (mine is a 9 inch) for 18-22 minutes. Even if you bake it for 22 minutes it is still nice and soft in the middle...and by nice and soft I mean pretty gooey :-)
• Leave it in the pan to cool for 10 minutes before you release the edges, and should you choose, wait 4 hours before you flop it out of the dish :-)

Hope you guys enjoy!

A Few Victories!

So, I'm writing this today with the intention of not publishing until much later - my life will not always be so exciting as to have something to post every single day. So, I have to update you on fun things that happened today.

First, I bought my first real maternity thing today. See...

Considering I'm 15 weeks and only have to unbutton my pants while sitting, I'm thinking that I can (hopefully) wear most of my normal clothes throughout most of the pregnancy...with the help of this little tool. It's the Beband. I bought it from Target. But the idea is that you can keep your pants undone and just put this uber elastic band over your pants to keep them held up. But yes, I did feel moderately silly buying said item seeing as that I am really not showing much yet...And, the thing was $16.99, but I figure it's worth it as long as I can keep wearing all my current pants!

Second victory for the day...I whopping $4 purchase...

Cute coral skirt. It's a nice cotton blend that I thought would be really comfortable at work...even with a growing belly! And, I don't really have this color (at all) in my wardrobe. Again, thanks Target for the good deal!!

Finally - I got mail!!!

For my birthday a couple years ago I got the Reebok Easy Tone shoes...ya know...the ones that are supposed to tone your butt and thighs and such. Well, of course it's a total crock and the government also agreed it was and made Reebok spend like $2 million in litigation, refunding everyone of their purchase. I didn't get the total worth of the shoe back, but I'll take a surprising $45 check in the mail :-) woo hoo!!


I'm so thankful for the little victories God blessed my day with today. Not to mention, I got to spend the WHOLE ENTIRE DAY with my hubby...BIG victory and blessing!

It's official

Welp friends, it was a big week in the realm of the Caple's!

First, Jarred got back from VA!!! But, naturally, if you know Jarred you know that his flight was delayed (He is the person who was delayed like 8 hours the day he proposed to me and he has not been on a non-delayed flight since...). He was supposed to get back Monday night at 7:55. He missed his connection in Atlanta because of a storm or something and then there were no other flights to Tucson until 8:00 pm the next day. So, he took a flight into Phoenix, two hours drive from Tucson. That flight was delayed five more times and eventually was set to arrive at 12:30 am :-) You can imagine my excitement... Oh, and this was all being told to me after I had been driving, literally, for an hour trying to find a gas station. And, all of this happened after meeting my fellow interns and doing paperwork. Regardless, the most amazing hubby of all times is with me once again!!!!!

Now back to meeting those fellow interns of mine... All I shall say is I feel largely inferior. I generally struggle with an inferiority complex assuming that everyone around me is a better musician, better Christian, smarter, funner to be around, prettier, somehow superior to me. So when I hear about my fellow interns previous experiences and such, I'm feeling intimidated! I just really hope I don't cry too much - that would be ultra awkward!

Now, back to that paperwork I had to do...
BAM! Check it out!

I know it's backwards but I just figured it was easier to take my picture in Photobooth rather than with my camera and then upload it, etc. So there it is folks, my badge! I'm an ultra nerd, I know, but I'm super excited to have my badge :-)

The Morning Message

So, I always worry about my faith...my salvation and being "left behind" seriously cause me so much anxiety. It sounds totally ridonc, but it's been something that I've really been struggling with for about 9 months now. I question the sincerity of my faith; do I really believe in Christ or am I just seeking to be fire-proofed? if I have these doubts and questions, it must mean that I don't really have faith and therefore can't be "saved by grace through faith." And since I have these thoughts/questions/doubts it makes me sometimes fear eternity. Do you see where being Type A, perfectionist, etc can really get you into trouble?

So now that you have some background information on my current struggles and temptations, I wanted to share something that was semi-encouraging to me. This morning at my grandparent's church (shout out to Village Meadows Baptist!) the sermon was called Being a Courageous Parent. Ironic since I'm going to be a parent in a very short amount of time... Anyways, there was a piece of scripture that stuck out to me some. The pastor spoke about Moses and his parents and their courage. In the message he shared this passage, Hebrews 11: 24-25. It reads:

²⁴ By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.  ²⁵ He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

This passage was encouraging to me because by faith Moses made certain decisions. I'd like to think that I too have made similar choices, to not do what this world enjoys, because I have faith. I pray that the way I have lived my life is because I sincerely want to please and honor God, and not just simply because I was raised a certain way or had no desire to become a drunkard or all of the many other reasons I tell myself. 

So, hopefully this little tid-bit of my randomness has encouraged or challenged you. And I humbly ask for your prayers while I continue to seek and find confidence in my relationship with the Lord and the promises He offers.

oh, and I apologize for lying...there aren't any pictures in this post either...sorry!

Starting Up

Well, let me update you on a few things...

First, writing is not my strong-suit! You will find grammatical, technical, spelling errors...errors of every kind in this blog! Please do not judge :-) If anything, you can blame my friends Meghan and Merileigh for pestering me to start this thing without thoroughly sampling my writing skills! While writing is not my strongest subject, I really just want to write this blog to share our lives with friends and family that are very far from us, to vent my many changing emotions, fears and anxieties, and hopefully develop my relationship with God. For some reason, writing really helps me to reflect on Him and I would love for this blog to increase the maturity of my Christian walk.
Second, life has been semi-chaotic lately. I have the most wonderful husband of all time and he recently followed me on a journey from Virginia to Arizona so that I could complete a dietetic internship. I am so thankful for him and his willingness to support me in this "adventure" of ours! But now he is back in VA to complete some work and will be back in Arizona with me very soon! Until then, I'm chilling with my grandparents - VERY thankful for them offering their home to me while Jarred is away (also thankful to my mommy who came to visit for a few days too - thanks for helping me set up my kitchen!).
Finally, Jarred and I made a very important announcement today on Facebook. We. Are. Preggers! Ohhhh snap! Many days it completely terrifies me that I am going to be a mommy - I don't feel oober prepared for that. But today, I saw a baby. I saw a baby that is 14.5 weeks old, roughly the size of a peach. I could clearly see that baby's legs and feet, I could see it's heartbeat (which was 156 bpm, by the way!), and most of all, I could clearly see that baby move!! I will never, ever forget that! My baby is full-blown superman, or superwoman! But for real, my baby was lying on it's tummy and would suddenly just freak and stretch out all four teeny, tiny limbs - unbelievable! I think he (yes, I said he but with no real evidence) even had a cold chill at one point because his whole body shivered! My doctor smiled and giggled at our baby as much as I did. What a very special and terrifying day! Now that I know that little baby is still in there (since I haven't had any big problems or pregnancy symptoms) it's unbelievable how my Type A self won't let my mind rest from worries. I can't do anything but pray for little Caplette as it continues to grow!

So, sorry there are so many words in this first blog - but that's just what's going on right now! Next post will be mostly pictures :-) I like pictures!