Day 2

This morning, I woke up in New York City. I looked out my window and could see Broadway and a sign for the Letterman show. I quickly got ready and went down in to the lobby to meet up with Cecil. I bought an apple turnover and we headed out at 8am for the Manhattan Red Cross chapter, a 15 minute walk through the city.

When we arrived at the chapter we went through in-processing and headed over to orientation. While standing in line for processing and also while sitting in orientation I was behind 4 girls who looked like they were about my age. When the teaher asked during orientation who was going to work in shelters they all raised their hands. Afterwards I talked to them to let them know I was doing sheltering as well and we have been hanging out together ever since. Their names are Dani, Crystal, Jenna, and Holly. They are all Americorps/Red Cross volunteers who are stationed in Phoenix Arizona. Holly is originally from Michigan and Jenna is from Wisconsin. Both Dani and Crystal are from Phoenix. (In the picture of the 5 of us below left to right it is Crystal, Jenna, Dani, Me, and Holly)

We headed over to check in with our supervisor and get our assignments. The shelter center asked for our names and then told us that we hadn't yet been assigned and they were still trying to figure things out. So they took down our phone numbers and told us we were free to roam around the city until they called us. So we headed out.

We made a quick stop by Starbucks so that Jenna could get her caffeine fix for the morning. After that we walked around a ton. We saw lots of buildings, a river, a huge ship, and a New York "park" that was really a walkway with about 2-3 feet of plants on each side. (See picture below)

Holly saw a HUGE pigeon on the road that was really round for a bird. She told us that she "just wanted to squeeze it". Needless to say none of us understood why since it would be super gross and it would probably just poop on her if she did squeeze it. She was relentlessly teased for the rest of the day. Her nickname is now "girl who likes to squeeze pigeons". Nicknames for the rest of us are yet to be determined.

At about 12:30 we received a call from the chapter summoning our presence to receive our assignments. We hurried back only to be asked 3 questioned and be handed a piece of paper. We were assigned to the Nassau County shelter. The shuttle was supposed to leave at 4pm. We were sent back to our hotels to pick up our luggage and return again to the chapter. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at a Steak Grill place for lunch. it was directly across the street from the theater where they are showing the musical "The Book of Mormon". Haha. We ate chicken sandwiches with avocado in them. Yum.

After lunch we picked up our luggage, hailed a Taxi (mostly the driver just saw us and stopped) and headed back to the chapter. Then, we waited.

After we waited, we waited more. Then a little bit more. And then we were told that the shuttle wouldn't be coming until 5. So we waited more.

After that we were informed that it wouldn't actually come until 7. So we left and went to a hole in the wall Pizzaria and ate awesome pizza for dinner, while laughing so hard because we were all so exhausted, almost to the point of going crazy. This was also the time when Holly received her appropriate nickname mentioned earlier.

After dinner we went back to the chapter and waited some more. We took a few pictures (see the one below of the 4 girls) and then waited a bit longer. Our shuttle didn't come until about 8pm. I ended up being put in a different van from the 4 other girls because there wasn't enough room, but it all worked out okay because we were going to the same place and I was able to sleep on the way there.

Although we are working at the Nassau County Shelter we are sleeping in a staff shelter with a secret location which I am not allowed to disclose-partially because I don't know where it is. I do, however, know that it is on Long Island.

After the ride here we unloaded our stuff and went up to the 3rd floor of the building where all of the other volunteers who are working in the Nassau shelter were staying. We met the shelter manager and received 2 official Red Cross blankets (Sweet!!!), and chose which cots we would be sleeping on.

One of the cots near me belongs to a lady who is about the same age as Mom. She came over and told us that it was time to go to sleep and we needed to listen to our Mom. I like her already. She also asked me what I was reading and I told her it was The Book of Mormon. She said "good for you" and then walked away. That seems to be the most common response from people here.

I know that it seems like I had a fairly unproductive day, and that is because I did. But it was really cool to meet and spend time with so many volunteers at the Manhattan chapter and to get to know Jenna, Holly, Dani, and Crystal. They are all super nice and way fun to hang out with. So far we have gotten along great and I am excited to be able to work with them.

I am also REALLY excited to get to work! Tomorrow I leave the staff shelter at 7am to report for my assignment!

Wish me luck!

Always,

-Kat

Day 1

What an incredible day! Yesterday November 26th I submitted my availability to the Red Cross. The chapter supervisor told me that I would be on my way to New York in 24 hours and it was true. I caught a flight out of Salt Lake on the 27th at 1:30pm. I had a 2 hour layover in Pheonix where I met Tina, another Red Cross volunteer. This is her second deployment since hurricane Sandy hit the East coast. The first time she drove the Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) across country, which took 5 days. She is pretty peppy and super nice. She gave me some tips of what to do and where to go and I am even more excited to be deployed than I was before I left.

We departed from Pheonix at 4:15 and headed out to the JFK airport in New York City. I sat next to Madalyn an older lady who is a lawyer with one home in the big city and one in Pheonix. As I was explaining to her that with national deployment we are given a phone number to call to set up our flights and another phone number to call when we get to our destination she began to be a little worried. She couldn't believe that I didn't know where I was going to be located, let alone where I was going to sleep that night. She fidgeted in her seat for a few minutes and then handed me her business card and told me to call WHEN nobody came to get me. She was really concerned. I thought it was funny.

I arrived at the JFK airport at 10:45 pm and met up with Tina again as well as a guy named Cecil. We called the phone number and found out which hotel we were staying at for the night and how to get there. We picked up our luggage and then went out to the street to catch a cab. Yes. I caught a cab. It was awesome. Super expensive though. We each dished out $20 just to get to our hotel. The ride was awesome though! We drove past Bloomingdales and I caught a glimpse of time square. Cecil and I are staying at the Park Central Hotel for the night. I have my own room on the 21st floor. Pretty Awesome!!!

Tomorrow I report to the Manhatten Red Cross chapter at 8:30am to receive my assignment!

I will keep you all updated!

Peace out from New York City!

Hurricane Sandy

Trisha Holmes

Emergency Services Manager

The American Red Cross

I am available to be deployed starting on the evening of the 27th of November. I have a final at BYU on December 13th at 7:00am and need to be home on the evening of December 12th in order to be prepared to take the test.

Please let me know if I can be deployed to help on the East Coast. I will also contact Priscilla later this morning to confirm the information. Thank you. 

Sincerely,

Kaytlyn Monsivais

Ita Stories

Over the past year I have had the wonderful opportunity to get to know my Abuelita-my Dad's Mom- better. It has been a really good opportunity for me to develop a better relationship with her and learn more about who she is and the things that she has experienced.

I have been told many stories at least twice and other stories at least four times. I recorded a lot of the stories and will hopefully post them in her own words eventually, but I decided that for this post I would share a few of the experiences that my siblings and I have had as her Grandkids over the last year.

Story 1: Ita has a cell phone. It is just a little cell phone, and it is mostly used for receiving calls, very rarely for making calls and never for texting. Because she is old, she is also hard of hearing, and thus her cell phone is always on the highest volume for ringing. Her ring tone has been the same since...I think she originally got the phone. The actual ring tone is a fairly catch tune which I think will be ingrained in my mind for the rest of my life since when it goes off you can hear it throughout most of the house. She also receives more calls in a day than I receive text messages, so it goes off quite frequently.

The other funny thing about Ita's phone is that even though it is on the highest volume for the ring, she often doesn't hear it. There have been multiple times where she was sitting with a bunch of us in the living room and her phone would go off. We would all look at her and wait for her to realize that her phone was ringing, but she wouldn't and so one of us would have to tell her. Classic. :)

Story 2: Ita has a bell. You know, those bells that are at reception desks so that if the receptionist isn't there you can ring the bell and they will come? Ya. One of those. (See picture below if you are still confused)

Over the last few months Ita has become more and more immobile. There were a lot of things (now it is everything) that she can't do by herself that she needed help with. If she needed something she just needed to ring the bell and someone would come up and help her. It started out as a fairly good idea. She would ring the bell once and someone would come and that was that. In the last 3 weeks it has progressed to the point where she still rings the bell....but she NEVER rings it once. She will generally ring it between 6-18 times depending on the need at hand. For example: If she needs to use the bathroom it necessitates about 6 rings. But, if she needs to have her food tray moved closer to her or her blankets moved up, that usually requires up to 18 rings. I am still trying to figure out the logic and any kind of a consistant patter, but I'm at a loss.

Story 3: This isn't something that I have experienced over the last year, but rather a more recent event, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The weekend that Ita was in the hospital a few volunteers in the family took over shifts to go and sit with her since she hates being alone. (Because of this, for the last year there has always been 2 people in the Monsivais house at all times unless Ita was at church or the doctor) The night shift that I took she slept fairly well. Well enough to dream and then talk in her sleep for a little over 3 hours. It was hilarious really.

At first she was kind of mumbling different things. I caught a few names like Hyrum, Maria, George, Chuy...things like that. Then she got louder. There was a point where she was calling for her husband, Manuel, and she was yelling. Well...as much of a yell as you can get out of a seventy-six pound, 86 year old Ita. It was loud enough though that I was worried about the hospital staff coming in to ask what was wrong.

My favorite part though, was when she started calling for my Mom, Rebecca. It started off something like "Becca! Becca! Rebecca!" Then she slouches back in bed, starts shaking her head, and says "Oh boy" like Ita always does when she is kind of annoyed at something. I busted up laughing and had to cover my mouth so I wouldn't wake her up.

Later that night she woke up after one of the nurses came in and started talking up a storm. She started telling me story after story and I was able to record most of them. About an hour and a half later she tells me that she is wasting all of my time and that I should go back to working on my homework (I was  really just watching a movie on my laptop, since nobody should ever willingly do homework at 3am). I said "okay" and told her to try and get some rest. Then she asks when dinner is coming. Confused I tell her, "Ita, it is 4:30 in the morning". It took another hour and a nurse to convince her that yes, it really was morning and that breakfast, not dinner, would be coming soon. It is probably a good thing that she was so confused because otherwise she wouldn't have told me so many stories! It also explained why every time she did wake up she told me to "turn on the light mi jita".

Spanish Lesson of the Day: 
Word: Mi Jita  Pronounced: "Me Heat-The"(ha ha) Meaning: My little girl/daughter



And to close out, here are a few more pictures from the last few weeks.

                                                                   Provo Storm Clouds

Temple Thursday 

Because Cotton Candy makes a buffet all the more appealing?

 Leah's Bridal Shower

 Bridal Shower Decorations

Maria's Halloween Costume: Joshua

My Halloween Costume: Lt. Commander Dax

This is the type of bell that Ita has.

Thinking Thoughts

So I am sitting here on the seventh floor of the hospital at 10:45pm with my Dad's Mom, whom I call "Ita".

She is hooked up to a couple of machines that are supposed to be hydrating her and giving her oxygen. So far she has gained like a pound because of the amount of fluid they have been able to get in. Wow!

It hasn't really been announced anywhere, but her kidneys are failing. For those of you who don't know, because I didn't, when your kidneys fail it means that they are no longer working effectively to remove excess fluid, minerals, and waste. Because of this Ita's legs and left hand have become swollen with the excess fluid. I can't image the minerals and waste are good for her either.

Because she is well beyond her roaring twenties and weighs nowhere near the amount that she should a lot of the treatment options....aren't really options. And so we wait, here in the hospital, to see if any of the tests that they do or the rehydration will work to help her function better.

Ita has a lot of funny stories to tell. A lot of them are about my Dad, which is always entertaining. Tonight she told me about a time when my Dad, George, wanted a bicycle. At the time they didn't have very much money, so this is how the conversation went:
George "Mom, I want to have a bicycle"
Ita "You want a bicycle?"
George "Yes Mom, a bicycle"
Ita "Well, we do not have very much money, so if you want a bicycle we can go and look for a new Dad for you who has money so that you can have a bicycle"
So Ita took George to the bank and pointed to the manager and told George that he would be his new Dad so he could get a bicycle. After looking the man over:
George "Would I have to call him Dad?"
Ita "Yes, you would have to call him Dad"
George "I don't want a bicycle"

Anyway, the doctor estimated that she would be here in the hospital for about 2 days. Mostly we are just hoping that God's will for her may be done, and in his time.

Speaking of which, recently my Dad has mentioned to me multiples times that sometimes people pray that "God's will may be done for them" instead of praying that "God's will for them may be done". It is interesting how a small change in wording can change the attitude of a prayer.

I will keep you updated on the happening here on the 7th floor, but in the mean time, I will leave you with these shots from the last couple of months since I am such a consistently irregular blogger.