the beginning and the end

ER.

it's over. it's been a good run. I'll admit I didn't always watch faithfully (some of my college years got in the way) but this show changed my life.

Explain: When I was 12 I started to watch this medical show with my mom. I wanted to be a elementary school teacher or something at that point in my life. Then one day amongst the blood and guts when I was 13 or 14 watching Nurse Carol Hathaway just clicked. That was it, that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Emergency medicine became my dream and obsession. That summer I became a junior volunteer at Cottonwood hospital in the Emergency department. I worked every Friday from 4-8pm. Boy was I hooked. From melted feet, to stabbings, dead Santa, to tibia's broken up through a shattered femur...this is what I wanted to do. Organized chaos at it's finest. I stayed there as a volunteer until the August I left for USU, logging almost 600 hours of service.

Then came the episodes where Dr. Carter and Dr. Karev were in Africa. Doctors without Borders still looms in the back of my head, tempting me to join someday. Going to work in a medical clinic/school in Kenya in 2001 sealed the deal on that one. Someday.

So after almost 15 years ER has ended and my nursing career has just begun.

So thanks for the inspiration, laughter, tears, shock, and entertainment!!