Raw Truths

People often tell me, “You should write a book,” or say I’d make an excellent professor of life’s raw truths.

Others insist I need my own reality show—nurses even state they’d come back to work with me if I had one!

Suggestions pour in about sharing my resilience, perspective, positivity, the unique challenges I face daily, and how I manage to navigate another day with gratitude despite it all.

But here’s the thing:

Living this life, day in and day out, is hard enough. Reliving it to craft a narrative, flipping through the mental Rolodex of experiences I’ve survived and endured, feels cumbersome. Why would I willingly go back to revisit what I’ve already fought so hard to move through?

At times, my presence alone unsettles others, forcing them to ask uncomfortable questions of themselves: What if this happened to me? Could I handle it? Yet ironically, I’ve come to see that my life—while uniquely challenging—is not so different from that of my able-bodied counterparts. The main difference? My highs are higher, and my lows cut a lot deeper.

So instead of trying to write a book, I’m keeping it real, bite-sized, and honest.

Below are the titles of blog posts I plan to tackle—snapshots of my journey, one pun and one story at a time.

1. "California Dreamin’ or Schemin’? My Love-Hate Saga with the Golden State"

2. "What’s Your Differential? Growing Up as the Diagnosis-Driven Daughter of an Advanced Practice Nurse"

3. "Let Me Sketch That for You: Life as the Offspring of a Mechanical Engineering Maestro"

4. "Ecuador? Is That a State? Navigating Life as Half Brown, Half Caucasian"

5. "July 24, 1997: The Day My World Turned—Or Did It?"

6. "Sara the Mentor? Maybe. Let’s Not Jump to Conclusions."

7. "Everything I Needed to Know In Life, I Learned Managing 6 Nurses at Once the Last 25 Years"

8. "The Gift of a Lifetime: My Sister, My First Lesson in Love"

9. "The Gift That Keeps Giving: When Your Baby Sister Becomes a Mom"

10. "Life with a Rehab Nurse: ‘Choice’ Isn’t in Her Dictionary"

11. "Careful with Your Words—They’re About to Live Rent-Free in My Head: Law School Dating Diaries"

12. "How Did I Know I Wanted to Be a Lawyer? Let Me Lawyer You on That"

13. "Promise, Promise: Building a Life with a Emergency Physician, Well Suited as Best Friends, Life partners, Not so Much”

14. "#MeToo: What Sparked a Movement and Why I Think I Get It"

15. "Online Dating: From the First Swipe to a Lifetime of Lessons"

16. "Mrs. Granda: Growing Up Feeling Dumb Because Madre’s IQ is Sky High"

17. "Stepmom Chronicles: Lessons from the Colombian ‘Mrs. Granda’"

18. "Birth Control, Boundaries, and a Career Choice: How I Became a Social Worker (and Why I Miss It Everyday)"

19. "David and Me: Motherboards, Cool Points, and a Lifetime with My Engineer Brother"

20. "Why So Much? What I’ve Learned About Living Like There’s No Tomorrow"

21. "Grateful, Always: Building a Life on the Foundation of Gratitude"

22. "Food and the Big Book: What 12-Step Recovery Taught Me About Life"

23. "Before Law School, I Was a Medical Social Worker—No, Really!"

24. "Pro Tip: Don’t Visit a Doctor Unless You Know What it is You Want from that Doctor"

25. "It’s Not a Broken System; It’s Our Healthcare System Operating as Originally Intended: Lessons from Health Law"

26. "So This Is What Lawyers Actually Do: A Peek Inside the Day-to-Day Grind"

27. "This Program Sucks—How do I Fix It? My Journey into Public Policy with DHCS"

28. "You’re So Accomplished? Nah, I’m Just Hustling Like Everyone Else"

29. "Doers Don’t Talk, Talkers Don’t Do: Practicing Quiet Humility"

30. "Granddaddy: The Man Who Made Me Believe in Heroes"

31. "You Should Start a Business with Your Mom! Which One of Her Talents Do We Monetize?"

32. "Chop, Chop! How Unstructured Time is My Ultimate Kryptonite"

33. "Christopher Reeve 2.0: Summing Up My Injury for the Curious Crowd"

34. "Phone Line Breaking Up? No, It’s My Ventilator. Welcome to My World."

35. "Hospital Stays - A Full-Time Job, Not My Healing Spa"

36. "The Day I Became ‘That Person with Health Issues’: 2014 Revisited"

37. "You Have Such a Great Attitude! Translation: You Haven’t Met My Mother"