A Fresh Start to Summer

I'm so happy summer is here!  During the spring semester, I worked Mondays and Wednesdays as a nanny for three awesome little girls and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I worked as a graduate research assistant in the Masters of Social Work Program at IUSB.  As a research assistant, I spent the majority of the semester at Family & Children's Center working on "data redaction" for a research project the Social Work Program was starting.  Basically, I went through client files and removed every bit of identifying information so that it could be used for research purposes and not violate privacy laws.

Now I'm about to start my second summer as a counselor for RECESS, a summer day camp offered through my church to the children of Miami Hills Apartments, a local subsidized complex characterized by great poverty.  Last summer I was the camp counselor for the pre-kindergarten kids and I had a group of mostly rough, adventure-loving boys!  It wasn't always easy, but teaching these children about the love of Jesus everyday was the best possible way I could have spent my summer.  I can't wait to get back out there again this summer and I have a feeling they'll end up impacting me just as much as I'm impacting them.

One thing I'm so excited to have out of the way in time for summer is surgery!  At the beginning of May, I had a surgery to remove keloids from both of my ears.  A keloid is kind of a "super scar" or rather an overwhelming scar tissue reaction at an injury site.  People with dark skin (I have a Mediterranean background) are prone to them and I happen to get them very easily.  Six years ago, I had my ears double pierced and small keloids formed on the backs of both of my ears.  A plastic surgeon removed them, but the tricky part with keloids is that they have a 50% chance of growing back if no other treatment method is used.  I ended up having steroid injections, but the keloids grew back three times larger than the first time.

I went back to my plastic surgeon who suggested I undergo radiation therapy, the same thing used to treat cancer.  So I went to the cancer center for a week prior to surgery to have me fitted for various items to be used during my radiation treatments and then had the surgery.

My right ear before surgery.

My right ear after.

Right after the surgery, I went to the cancer center to begin radiation and went everyday after that for a week.  On my last day of radiation, Justin surprised me with beautiful pink tulips, my favorite flower, right in the radiation room.  I was smiling from ear to ear.  Since the stitches have been out, I've been wearing "compression clips" on my ears (they look like really unfashionable earrings) because pressure has been shown to keep keloids from coming back.  Radiation has a 70-80% success rate on keeping keloids from coming back, and so far I'm keloid-free!  I'm praying that it stays that way!

Like I said, I'm so glad summer is here and I can enjoy a fresh start with summer camp and a summer away from school!  (This is the first time I haven't taken summer school in two years!)  I've been enjoying trips to the library, days set aside to just write and work on art projects, and spending time with my fiance!  God is good!