At the end of June I was able to attend the National Association of School Nurses' annual conference in Philadelphia, PA. I went with my fellow Johnson and Johnson teammates to be presenters during one of the break-out sessions of the conference. We presented on our efforts to bring immunization clinics to schools. During the 2014/2015 school year we were able to host 10 immunization clinics in schools throughout Spokane County. The clinics were offered to children 4-18 years of age and were free of charge. Vaccines that were offered were vaccines needed for school attendance. The clinics were well received and well attended. We also shared information about a 'Clinic in a Box' toolkit that will be available on-line in October. This toolkit will outline the procedures/protocols for school nurses to follow to bring immunization clinics to their schools.
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| J&J team, Cheryl Sampson, me, Dawn Epler, and Becky Droter
I learned a few things about myself while I was at the NASN conference. First, I really am not a "conference girl", meaning I did not enjoy sitting all day in a conference center listening to lectures and presentations. I tried to pick topics that sounded interesting, but even though sessions didn't really hold my attention for very long. Fortunately, we were in a city full of history and the conference center was only about a mile away from the historical hub. After I attended all I could handle of the conference on a given day, I wandered down to the historical district and absorbed all of the history that I could. I posted way too many selfies on Instragram of my touring.
I also learned that there are some things that really make me think of and miss Kate. One of my favorite things that I found in Philadelphia was the Once Upon a Story history benches sponsored by the National Park Service. These benches were scattered throughout the historical district and had 20-something young women as the story tellers. There was one gal who reminded me so much of Katelyn. It wasn't just that she was blonde-hair, blue-eyed, but it was also her mannerisms and voice inflection as she told the story. I visited her bench three different times just to listen to her and picture Katelyn in that role. This is kind-of embarrassing to admit, but during one story I got a little teary-eyed because I was just overwhelmed with my thoughts of Katelyn and I missed her immensely at that moment.
Presenting at the conference also reaffirmed my love for public speaking and presenting. My teammates expressed some anxiety and sleep disturbance the night before our presentation. I, however, slept like a baby (that might have been due to my adventure in getting to Philly) and had no butterflies or anxiety before or during our presentation.
Finally, I learned that conferences can be a great place to catch up with friends who live on the other side of the country. Last year when I was at the Johnson and Johnson institute, I met a gal from Alexandria, Virginia. We clicked immediately and have spent the last year exchanging occasional texts. It was fun to reconnect with her at the NASN conference.
She is a runner so we also got in a couple of 6 mile runs in the mornings to start our conference days off right. Of course, you can't be in Philadelphia and not take a picture with Rocky so we made sure to do this on one of our runs.
Next year's NASN conference is in Indianapolis. I won't be attending that one. However, the following year is in San Diego. Althea and I have already made plans to meet again in San Diego.
Flying home we were chasing the sun as it went down. I was able to capture a few sunset pictures over Denver to help feed my sunset obsession.
 
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