Update on Matty

Hello friends,
The past week has been an absolute whirlwind and I can honestly say that I have never felt so many intense emotions in such a short amount of time. I am left exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I feel drained, relieved, sad, mad, thankful, happy, scared, and just about every emotion you can think of all at the same time.
So I felt the need to update everyone with a few things.
First of all I want to say thank you to everyone who supported me. I got so many texts, calls, e-mails, twitter messages, and facebook messages that were so encouraging and supportive. I also had so many people help spread the word in order to help find Matt. The countless hours spent praying, searching, and caring have not been overlooked and I, along with countless others, am truly truly thankful.
Second of all, I, myself, am still trying to deal with this incident at this time. I think that this is something that had a great effect on me and will take some time to process. I'm exhausted from processing and thinking, therefore, I cannot bring myself to fully talk about the situation yet. However, I do feel like I owe the people who have supported Matt and me and followed the story some sort of explanation. So I took a paragraph from my sweet friend, Ms. Tiffany Rabon (soon to be Webber)'s blog:

"The past few days, most people who are familiar with Campus Outreach would say that they have been preoccupied with the disappearance of a staff member. There’s no need really to get into the details at this point. The important part is this: He has been located and is unharmed. Personally, I am overwhelmed with joy. The past few days have kept many people that I consider friends up at night. Now, they can rest knowing that their dear friend is safe. Also, what an opportunity this was to proclaim the Gospel to the world! The hands and feet of Christ took to the streets and showed an unshakable faith to people watching across the globe. God was merciful in bringing Matt home, and He will be continually merciful. If I could say anything to Matt right now, it would be this. “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6). I have been nearly obsessed with this passage lately, and I am mesmerized by the fact that once we enter into a relationship with Christ, His good work is just beginning! We’re not finished yet, friends… how beautiful a picture of Christ’s love for us. He is so committed to us that He keeps caring for and developing us. That’s all for now. I hope that we can all enjoy this Memorial Weekend, especially now that a lost man is now found!"

Again, I am so thankful to have such great friends. And I am so happy that Matt has been found. Please continue to keep him, his family, and friends in your thoughts and prayers as we sort through the details.

xoxo

*URGENT* Missing friend...

Hello all,
I have made it to Myrtle Beach and boy has it been a rollercoaster already. I moved in on Tuesday and met my roommate, who is super sweet! Then I spent the whole day yesterday playing with Zachary, Eden, and Nias, who are all absolutely precious children. While I was hanging out with Amy and her little Zachary yesterday, she got a text from a friend in DC asking if she had heard from our friend Matt. Thinking not too much of it, we realized that no one had heard from Matt in about 24 hours. Some staff decided it would be best to not make a big deal out of it (especially since the students were scheduled to arrive the next day). However, it is a big deal. I woke up this morning to a text from Amy telling me she wouldn’t need me to nanny for a while and that they were trying to figure out what to do about Matt. At this point, the staff had alerted all of the other leaders so that we could all be praying. The feeling around beach project has been very tense today. People are trying to put on happy faces and greet the students, but it is hard to be happy at a time like this. In reality, our friend Matt Hill is missing.

Here are some details. PLEASE spread the word. His picture has been in newspapers and there is a private investigator and other police on the case, but really every little bit helps.

Matthew (Matt) Alan Hill
Height: 6’
Weight: 165
Hair: Dirty Blond
Eyes: Blue

Last Seen Tuesday, May 24th, 2011at the Verizon Center in Washington DC around 10:30am.
Matt drives a 1996 Black Honda Civic LX (plate number # DT-2747)

**Please contact with any information you might have***

Family Contact: Holger Hill 704-839-9699
DC Metro Office Contact: RW Kennedy- 202-715-7300 (precinct number)
Detective McClam: 202-730-1903
Missing Persons Case # 073-157
Detective in Montgomery County: Rod Stevens

Elon Graduation

Congratulations to the Elon University class of 2011. We did it! After 4 years of all nighters in Belk, countless bricks tripped on, delicious killer cookies, more squirrels than students, and watching a restaurant switch from Cantina to Brown and Co to Town Table, we did it! I’m not sure where these past 4 years have gone, and I will admit that there were moments when it felt like time was creeping along so slowly, but somehow overall it all happened so fast.

I have made the majority of my best friends at the school and they have helped me to become the person that I am today. I could not have chosen a better school for me, and I definitely could not have chosen a better major. I am filled with so many emotions and feelings right now, excitement, sadness, anxiety, nostalgia, and exhaustion. I can’t wait to see everyone and reunite at homecoming, and probably blog more about graduation and Elon in the future when I am thinking more clearly.

But for now, I have to unpack and repack so that I can leave for Myrtle Beach for 3 weeks on Tuesday!!

xoxo

Routine

Well, here it is. Thursday night. My parents and a few of my best friends come into town tomorrow before graduation on Saturday. Endings make me sad. I know there is the cliché ‘when one door closes another door opens’ and ‘endings are just beginnings waiting to happen’, but really they are still the end of something. Tonight is the last night that I will go through my regular bedtime routine. The same routine I have had for 3 years. It’s very boring, actually. Plug in computer, turn on side table light, wash face, brush teeth, pee, turn off big light, take my medicines, check face book and e-mail, turn on my iTunes sleep play list and turn up the volume to 28, turn on fan, plug phone in, set alarm, and turn off light. It doesn’t seem special, but it is routine and I love routine. And I know that tomorrow night with so many family and friends here, I won’t have that routine anymore. So here’s to my last ‘normal’ night in my first college apartment. Goodnight friends.

xoxo

One Month

Wooohooo! Classes are over yall! And graduation is in 3 days! It has all happened incredibly quickly and I am so excited to walk across that stage. Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately. I have been busy with finals and packing and senior week activities! And unfortunately my blogging frequency probably won’t get much better. In 6 days I will be packing up (again) and moving to Myrtle Beach for a month. I’m going with my campus ministry to a summer program called Summer Beach Project. I went as a student in the summer of 2008 and learned so much! Now this summer, I will be going for a month as a nanny to take care of the project director’s baby boy. He is 3 months old and absolutely precious. I can’t wait to spend time with the little guy, plus get to see some friends and learn even more! I don’t really know what my schedule is going to look like during this next month. I know I have a baby to take care of 7 days a week, 2 weddings to go to, and apartment hunting and lease signing…all within the next month. So excuse me if I am a little bit absent. I promise I will try to update with pictures and little stories! And if you really wanna keep in touch, let me know and I can give you an e-mail address, which I will be able to check more frequently. Until then…

xoxo

Imagination

I was standing in line at TCBY today and looking at all the little children running around and I wondered to myself if it’s fun to be a kid these days? I think I can count the number of times I played on the computer or TV during my childhood on one hand. Yes, there were occasions when I would sit down with my best friends and play Mario Kart or Mario Party on the Nintendo64 (or Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega), but most of the time my friends and I were making up games and using our imaginations. Some of our favorite games when we were younger were:
-pretending we were orphans and creating an orphanage
-sitting on eggs and pretending we were birds
-playing “The Secret Garden”
-making up/choreographing dances and putting on shows
-rollerblading while pretending to be ice skating
-pretending the ground was lava
-climbing trees
-making up mysteries and solving them

Activities like these really did require so much imagination though. I remember looking at the swing set and being able to clearly picture it as a boat with red, hot, bubbling lava below. I wonder if children these days still do that? Or if the ridiculous amount of technology, iPods, computers, game boys, and other electronics create a world where children don’t have to play outside, interact with one another, or use their imagination? That makes me so sad to think about. I honestly think I had one of the best childhoods. I remember spending days on end waking up at friends houses, playing outside, and then camping out and doing it all over again the next day. I hope that children still find time to go outside and play and use their imagination. “Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.”

So to the kids who still believe that sheets and pillows can be a fort, or specs of dust might actually be fairies, keep on believing!

PS- when I was younger and we didn’t have iPods, my friends and I would push the radio to the window ledge, open the window, and turn the radio up as loud as possible so that we could skate to music in the driveway :)

The Emergency Room- A Novel

Let me start this post by giving you some background information. A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with POTS, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which is a form of Dysautonomia. If you are wondering what the heck that is, don’t worry…I would say about 80% of doctors don’t know either. Anyways, after hours of convulsing limbs, shaky hands, and the inability to stand for more than 60 seconds without completely blacking out, I decided it was time for a trip to the local Emergency Room. And because it’s always such an awful interesting experience, I decided to share some of my favorite ER moments from today.
1. The Arrival- I checked in and explained my symptoms. They immediately brought me a wheelchair and my friend Laura wheeled me into the waiting room. That was fun, other than the fact that the rolling of the wheelchair made me incredibly dizzy.
2. The Fake Out- After about 45 minutes of waiting, they called my name. Could it be? Could the wait really be so short. Nope. They just wanted to take my vitals and ask me some questions.
3. The Interrogation- The sweet nurse, Brandy (who I have had many funny experiences with in the ER before, but luckily she doesn’t remember me), asks me what’s going on, takes my blood pressure and temperature. She then goes on to ask me a long list of questions. My personal favorites were “So you have low blood pressure. Why?” Well isn’t that the million dollar question, lady! And then my second favorite was “You are really pale. You have no color. Are you usually this pale?” Um, nope. But if I was you would have just made me feel really self conscious. She then follows up with “go back to the waiting room and we will call you back to take some blood in a minute.”
4. The Blood- After waiting a minute an hour in the waiting room, I am finally called back to have some blood taken. Yada yada yada, normal blood draw. Low blood sugar was found. They tell me they are going to get me some orange juice and then they never do. Again, I am sent back to the waiting room.
5. The Food- After sitting in the waiting room for countless more hours and hearing the same news being broadcast over the TV again and again, Laura and I decided to bust up the boredom with a vending machine snack. Jumbo Rice Krispy treats were sure to get my blood sugar back up! After still more waiting, we decided the snacks weren’t gonna cut it and it was fast approaching dinner time; so Laura went home, got her computer, some jackets, and some Subway sandwiches for us to feast on while wasting away in the ER on a Sunday night.
6. The Fake Out (Part 2)- I was sure that the next time they called my name I would be going back. Nope. Just as Laura walked through the doors with our sandwiches, they called my name again. I was so excited, I shut my book without a bookmark and threw everything into my bag. “We just wanna check your blood pressure again. Okay, thanks. Go have a seat in the waiting room.” Cruel, cruel joke.
7. The Move- After more waiting, and a delicious sandwich, they finally called my name. Me, Laura, and some pregnant woman all got herded to the back of the emergency room, where they then shepherded us to our rooms. Room 17 for me!
8. The Wires- Shortly after getting in my room, some random nurse lady hooked my up to a million electrodes, a pulse ox, and a blood pressure cuff that promised to go off every 30 minutes (which it didn’t).
9. The Blur- The next few hours all ran together. At some point Laura told me jokes and sang me songs. At some point, I unhooked myself from a million wires to go to the bathroom. I literally could have just escaped and no one would have noticed. And at some point Laura and I did word search races, which I dominated.
10. The Doctor- Finally the sweet and actually really good doctor came in. We chatted, she looked in my ears, listened to my lungs, and all that jazz. I explained that I had dysautonomia and she responded with “oh that’s sad. A person your age shouldn’t even know what dysarrythmia is!”…further proof that no one knows what my condition is. She explained that she would have the nurse, Lisa, come in and start some IV fluids and run an EKG while they waited for my lab work.
11. The Man in Room 15- Unfortunately for me, and even more unfortunately for the old man, my across the hall neighbor (aka the man in room 15) seemed to be peeing blood through his catheter. Because the hospital really doesn’t do a great job with privacy, Laura and I watched as a flood of doctors and nurses went in and out of his room to check on his internal bleeding. Eventually they decided to move him upstairs. But because this poor man was legitimately ill, there were no nurses to come give me my IV. So the IV that was promised to me, was not actually given until 2 hours later.
12. The Help- Nurse Lisa came in to see me only after the man in room 15 had been whisked upstairs. She started my IV drip (thank God) and decided to do some orthostatic blood pressure tests. Although my blood pressure didn’t drastically change from lying to sitting to standing, I could certainly tell the difference. The spots and black that covered my eyes when I stood up was not fun.
13. The End- After my IV bag was finished, they ran an EKG, took out the IV and told me to hit the road. Finally. As I was walking out, Brandy, one of the many nurses from before, yelled to me “Didja pink up??” (referring to my paleness that she so kindly pointed out earlier). I wanted to stick my tongue out or maybe even flip a finger, but I resisted, and instead smiled and gave her the thumbs up.
And that, my friends, was my entire Sunday. I hate the ER.

Smorgasbord...what a fun word!

I have a lot on my mind. But none of the things are long enough to devote individual blog posts to, so I’ve decided to go with a smorgasbord of different topics tonight
:

1. Jana Kramer.
As some of yall know, I have had the pleasure of working as an extra 9 times on season 8 of One Tree Hill (which can be see Tuesday nights on the CW at 8pm). With this great experience, I have had the opportunity to work with and meet Miss Jana Kramer. Jana is an extremely talented actress and musician, and honestly one of the sweetest people I got to work with. That girl can light up a set with her laughter and jokes, and her absolute sweet heart really does shine through. I got a sweet e-mail from Jana , and honestly, when I am having a bad day I go back and read the e-mail and find myself so encouraged by her! Not only is Miss Kramer very talented, but she has a way with people. She has a way of making you feel like you are important and special. Which brings me to my next point…Jana has 2 songs on iTunes right now. The first one, “I Won’t Give Up On You” is a truly amazing song, and the lyrics are so sweet and reflect her personality quite well. Her second song, “Whiskey” is extremely catchy and her great voice really has a chance to shine through on this one! SO. If you haven’t heard of Jana Kramer, you are missing out. Download her music on iTunes. Seriously. Even if you don’t like country music, these two songs will probably make the “most played” section of your iTunes in no time!

2. Human Services Dinner.
17 days until I graduate from Elon University and receive my Bachelor of Arts in Human Services. I love everything about Human Services (except IPM papers and having to explain what Human Services actually is- think social work). I love the professors I’ve had, I love my classmates- I even love some of the late nights in the library that we have shared. There are so many great memories I have had with my 10 other Human Services seniors and I really am so excited to see everyone graduate and go on to do big things! We had our Human Services senior dinner and awards banquet the other night and it was great to be in the same room with my classmates and favorite professors. Each of the seniors stood up while the professors spoke about us, individually. I loved getting to hear about everyones accomplishments and the fun and funny little stories the professor would tell. One of the professors ended the night by saying
“You all came to us with different ideas, passions, strengths, and weaknesses. You all decided to enter the field of Human Services. Since you all have studied counseling in depth, I will put it in terms you better understand. You all came to us as unique individuals, through years of “counseling” or being in this department you have all grown and learned and become improved individuals. And now at the end of our 4 year long “counseling” session, I say to you what is often said at the end of counseling appointments: Our time together is up.”
Seriously?! I wasn’t feeling that sentimental until then.
But seriously, thank you to P.Mills, Bud, Beth, Marce Face, Judes, Cindy, and Sandra for putting up with us crazy human services kids for 4 years. And to Karol, Ginni, Kelsey, Alex, Mimi, Jess, Anne, Erin, and Jenae, I am so glad I got to know you all better and suffer through some crazy all-nighters with yall. You are the best!

3. Thunderstorms.
AAAAnd for my last random topic. Thunderstorms. It’s actually very simple.
I am 21. I still hate thunderstorms. The loudness of thunder scares me. I am also afraid that lightening is going to come through my floor and fry me while I am reading or laying in bed (I think this fear comes from a Maury episode I saw once). In conclusion, at the age of 21 I still find myself wishing I could crawl into my parents huge bed during thunderstorms.

That is all.