Personal Narrative: My Congestive Heart Failure

When I was 8 years old, my dad was in a major car accident where he was lying unconscious in the middle of an intersection where our car had been hit by a lady that was drunk driving. For the next 3 years, my dad had been in and out of the hospital with many serious injuries including a broken neck, concussion, vision loss, and other things. Because of his injuries, my dad lost his job. Because of the car accident, we could have lost our home. Luckily, we were blessed with a few miracles and did not lose our home. But it was scary knowing that we might be kicked out of our home because a drunk driver hit our car. These things happen to people all the time, but aren’t as fortunate as my dad and I were. Later in our speech we will share another story that for someone didn’t work out. “Let your love be the kindness to make a homeless person believe that a soul needs something more than just four walls and a ceiling.” -Munia Khan. This possibility of losing homes, losing everything, is what hundreds of thousands of people face in their lives. It’s the threat that all of us would not want to face, would never want to believe. But it’s a problem people who are not us, who don’t have what we have, that are facing this head on. You’ve seen stories about homelessness and that it is a major problem that gets overlooked too many times. We’ve all seen someone lying on the street, hopeless and lost. That person is one of the “75,000 people sleeping on the streets in American cities, and

The term "congestive heart failure" is somewhat misleading. The heart does not fail, but rather that it does not contract as strongly as before, and does not pump enough blood around the body to meet the body's needs in terms of oxygen. This is caused by a buildup of fluid in the lungs that impedes the breathing or causes disturbances to the lower limbs. Again, these symptoms are not manifested in all cases. Heart failure is a chronic condition, meaning that it lasts long.

Laying in bed hopeless with tens of doctors staring at me. My weak tiny body and red puffy eyes staring in shock looking for my parents, my gaze was left wandering around the room. You see it all started at a school playground what I thought would be a normal day, but little do I know this day changed my whole life.

When I was seven years old my great-grandma was dying, and she was in a lot of pain. A couple years ago she caught this disease that we had no idea about, so we went online and read all about it. It turned out that her cancer came back, however, my family thought that it could go away since it disappeared last time. The next week it got worse, so we took her to the doctors. The doctors said that she couldn 't get rid of her cancer, and that she didn 't have a lot if time to live. My mother went on social media to see what kinds of food would help ease her pain. Yes some things did not work out, but a few did. Turned out she lived for a few more years when she wasn 't supposed to. That is a great blessing that the internet has provided for me.

My childhood and my innocence came crashing down when my dad told me the worst sentence that I’ve ever heard in my life, “Your mom has cancer”. There is nothing, no amount of mental or physical pain you can inflict me with, that could compare to what I felt in that moment. My dad gave us the news after my mom was taken to the hospital in the middle night because she could not breathe. So while we were hoping for her to breathe safely, we get hit with an even worse situation.

Ever since I was young, I knew that my mother did not have it easy when she came to America. She was a strong single mother, who could not speak English, living in a foreign land. Knowing that my mother had sacrificed everything she had in hope of establishing a better future and life for me, I had to repay her.

Life is short, coming-of-age is important to fathom and treasure. As you grow and develop to the world you encounter situations that will make you see the world differently. Stories, encounters, and even playing around the house can cause people to see from a new perspective. Coming-of-age involves recognizing different perspectives.

It was under the most delicate of circumstances, when I realized what I was born to do for

Fatigue has manifested in both my mother and I, you can tell by just looking at us. I saw it in her eyes as she looked at me—but it was not really when she looked at me; rather, it was when she looked away. Her physical being was with me, but throughout the interview I wondered if her mind was elsewhere. The likelihood of her mind being elsewhere was rather high, given that we were discussing her lifelong battle with diabetes. Although my mother was diagnosed with diabetes during her pregnancy with me, according to her doctor, her body was extensively damaged from the years the diabetes went undetected.

Staples & Earle (2008) used a phenomenology research design, where they used a convenience sample of CHF patients to determine effective technologies for monitoring patients with heart failure admissions and mortality. The effectiveness of CHF patients through the use of telephonic assessments and interventions was implemented. Congestive Heart Failure study participants (n=591) were managed by a team of registered nurses and nurse practitioners. Data was collected using a telephone log and appropriate medical protocols were provided. Data was analyzed; determining frequency of calls, level of care required and scope of practice needed to ensure proper care of the patients. Calls were analyzed within the standard GRASP® MIStro® DataWorks analysis program (Staples & Earle, 2007). Unfortunately, the study did not capture patient outcomes, breathing statuses, vital signs, or clinical progress.

The reason why I chose to go to school for Nursing is because of my mother, Charlotte Anthony. My mother is paralyzed from waist down. I have been helping her since I was nine years old. I have helped her bathe, get dressed, and get in and out of the bed. My experience with her has taught me a lot. It will influence my academic work and goals at CCU a lot because she is my motivation. Every since I experienced this with my mother as a little girl this has always been my dream to help and take care of others. This has played a big role in my life because I love helping and taking care of others. My goals is to further my education in the nursing department and starting to plan my career in this academic field. This opportunity will help me focus

Hi Rayshonda, I love reading your interesting post. I was very excited reading the part where you mention that your mother was a dormitory director and living in the college campus was a requirement for your mother to get the job. My excitement change when you mentioned that you decided not to attend college. I understand that it was because you only were involved in the social life of the students. In my case it was very different. After my parents got divorced, my mother had to work harder, so she got a job in a sports unit. She worked two shifts since 7:00 am to 10:00 pm. After school I walked to my mother’s work and I was very motivated by the girls from the gymnastic team. The coach noticed my excitement and told my mother that I could

In 2012 I survived Hurricane Sandy. Since I just started first grade I was scared, especially when the electricity went out. We didn’t have electricity for 8 days. It was very hard for us because it was the first time going through a situation like this. But we kept on trying. Most of the nights I and my family would go in our car and check if there is any damage. Basically for the 8 days. I and my brothers made up games and did stuff in our note books. Luckily we didn’t too much damage for hose 8 days. We don’t have school for that period. Finally after 8 days we got the electricity and everything going back as normal. We are lucky because nothing was damaged at our

My systolic blood pressure is in the “pre-high blood pressure” range, this puts me at high risk of developing high blood pressure. I am at currently at risk of heart disease, breast, and colon cancer due to eating foods high in fat, especially red meat. My total cholesterol is 173 pounds, and HDL is 64 (moderate risk) and LDL slightly high at 100. Due to close relatives with diagnose of diabetes the risk assessment reported that I have a greater chance of getting type 2 diabetes. I was diagnosed recently with type 2 diabetes mellitus, my HgbA1C was 8.6 and fasting glucose 146 on 9/11/2015.

One of my experiences with failure took place when I was in fourth grade. There were many problems accumulated and I was a child who needed people to see if I did my homework or study for the test, because I couldn’t concentrate and was distracted by anything in the room. My brother also had problems that year, he needed more attention because he didn’t get along with his math teacher and my Mom was always after him with the homework; otherwise he would have failed Math at the end of the year.