What you think, you become.
What you feel, you attract.
What you imagine, you create.
The moment is here when I realize that I have created what I have been envisioning. Wow, what a surreal moment. My personal legend and sense of purpose for life has now become a reality. My heart, my soul, my whole being is in this business. I am thrilled to share it with all of you. To embark on this vulnerable and liberating moment, I wanted to share a brief autobiography.
My life has changed lives. I have fought for, changed, saved and lost lives. My innate characteristics and abilities infused with my experiences have given me a unique perspective on life and made me an individual with experience well beyond most of my peers.
“I have fought for, changed, saved and lost lives.”
I believe we all have gifts that are given to us to use. I think that along with our gifts we all get a promise that if we use our gifts, they will get better, and eventually they can help us help others. The potential of humanity is limitless if we let ourselves grow and use what we have been given as well as we can.
My life's purpose has been to use my gifts to help others in their lives. I cannot remember a time that I did not have a strong predilection for helping others. My interest in science and helping others led me to initially pursue a path in medicine. During high school, I became interested in psychology, which introduced me into a whole new perspective of the human brain. The confluence of my love for science and helping others lead to taking an ROP course to become a certified nursing assistant, working with elderly, and intensive care patients.
My passion for helping others continued in the medical field. I spent many years in the hospital setting, including the Emergency Department, before transitioning to field work as an Emergency Medical Technician for American Medical Response (AMR). During the time I worked at AMR, I also became employed as a Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department Deputy Coroner doing death investigations, death notifications, and post-mortem examinations.
I chose to contribute to my skillset and knowledge by continuing my education in the field of Psychology. I earned by Doctor's degree in Psychology with my dissertation research based upon stress in the fields of Fire, EMS, and Law Enforcement. I conducted hundreds of interviews with local personnel from AMR, Modesto Police Department, and Modesto Fire Department in order to complete that dissertation.
I have held a stranger in my arms as they died yet also experienced the utter joy of looking into a person’s eyes knowing I played a role in saving his life while he knew the same. I have been at the crime scene, the hospital, the bedside, the rainy highway with the parents, spouses, and children who have suffered loss or intense emotional trauma. I have not only witnessed their grief but helped them cope with it at that moment. With butterflies in my stomach, I have been the knock on the door at 2:13 am, delivering the most painful, hardest, life altering news. I have been inside homes as family run to their loved one's bedroom door hoping in their hearts, he or she was home this whole time. In all the countless death notifications I have performed, in most cases, I was the only person to support the family. I have continued to receive telephone calls from such people even after retiring from death investigation, reflecting the positive impact I made on their lives.
While I have saved lives, sadly I have seen more go. Some people cannot be saved, even with heroic measures. There are times I help people but there are times I cannot help those who refuse to accept help. My life, my work, my experiences have taught me that the small things can matter the most. I have also learned that I cannot, in some cases, undo years of neglect, self-abuse and a refusal to take care of oneself.
“I have the passion, energy and intellect to make a difference in the lives of people...having lost people makes it so much more rewarding to change a life.”
Life has taught me, in cold, stark ways, that my interventions are not always going to make or break the situation, but I have helped and for some, I truly make the difference – changing or saving their life. I have the passion, energy and intellect to make a difference in the lives of people which is tempered and strengthened by my experience and understanding that sometimes efforts to help those who refuse to help themselves are futile. Having lost people makes it so much more rewarding to change a life.
"People must be willing to be better, become what they want to be"
My years working in psychology reinforced those same themes – sometimes people are victims of circumstances beyond their control but how they respond afterwards is something they have power over. Some people suffer from their own life choices and can be steered towards making better choices but, like in medicine, people must be willing to be better, become what they want to be and not just waste away as life passes them by.
“The lives I have saved, the lives I have seen go and the many lives I have touched and changed in beneficial ways have affected me and given me a perspective that few people will gain in a lifetime”
The lives I have saved, the lives I have seen go and the many lives I have touched and changed in beneficial ways have affected me and given me a perspective that few people ever achieve. I know that I have changed lives, that my actions and words continue to affect lives in an incredibly positive way, and I look forward to sharing that experience. I continue my focus serving the people of my community and will enjoy doing such knowing that I will make a difference in the lives of the people I touch.