Here is how it all started.  My sweet friend called me a month after the birth of her first child. I lounged on my midcentury sofa as I listened to her fluster through her menial struggles. We laughed. Well, I laughed until she said something that changed the course of my life. Something that now serves you.

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I studied nursing. I set out to love others and impact lives. With a bit of naive confidence and my own daily mantra, “don’t mess up,” I started my career. The pediatric cardiac intensive care unit (for kids after open heart surgery) taught me more in my first month than four years in the university. Emergencies didn’t scare me anymore. Sure, that rush of adrenaline never goes away, but panic long-lost its edge over the six years leading up to this conversation.

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“I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to my baby.” This is MY friend! The educated wife of an Anesthesiologist. The one with the pre-baby checklist. She went on to describe the white-walled, fluorescent-lit sterility where she took the CPR class, aka the hospital. “It sounded way too complicated and unfocused.” You see, she gave up learning everything that day because it was too hard to grasp any one thing. It sparked. I knew exactly what I needed to do. I thought about all the things that make a CPR class awful and dreamt up a scene where friends got together at home and just learned without all the external pressures and distractions you find in most classes. I eventually came up with the term “CPR Party” and the idea spread into a very useful reality for many parents.

Three years after starting Precious Hearts, the feedback I receive after every single CPR class still overwhelms and humbles me. “No one ever explained it this way,” or “I never knew what CPR really did,” and best yet-with a bit of surprise-“I actually feel confident now.”

I cherish the privilege of teaching a wide breadth of parents through private home parties and classes in a variety of settings. Teaching celebrity parents and everyday parents is the same…if they’re in my class, they want to be the best for their child. I love that!  Here’s a glimpse into what a home class looks like.

As Precious Hearts began to grow in Nashville, I had to increase the reach. Too many of my clients have the same questions that need to be answered. It’s not just about CPR anymore. There’s so much more. I am here to serve you through this blog. I devote time and effort researching things that matter most to you. If you have anything you’d like me to write about, please contact me. I read every email.  For starters, I compiled the most important concepts I share in my CPR class for you in this free eBook: “Super Simple CPR”. I hope it gives you a big picture view of CPR.

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE EBOOK

ABOUT ME

I love life.
I love people.
I love to laugh.

If you made it down this far on the page, you might be interested in a bit more detail:) Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, my earliest memories include making plans to help orphaned children around the world. As I grew older, that passion to empower the underdog stuck and I chose a career path to equip me to have something to offer the world.

I became a Registered Nurse with the intent to work for a couple years and then take my skills to the third world. Before graduating from Nursing School, I had the privilege of going to Uganda with a team of students setting up day clinics in rural villages. Once I graduated, I worked in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. It is just as intense as it sounds. Open heart surgery, meticulous IV medication monitoring, tubes, and more. I learned a lot about life from the frailest children and their families. Two years later, I traveled to India and served in an organization that rescues trafficked girls and AIDS orphans. Those two months score pretty high in the highlight reel of my life and I continue to work closely with them. I returned to Los Angeles and worked in the ICU a few more years as I moved around the country and eventually started Precious Hearts in Nashville, Tennessee.

I have so many passions and things that tug at my heart.  I’m working on a children’s book about monsters.  Well, it’s really about fear.  Fear isn’t just for children, right?  What an introspective project.  And fun, of course.  I’ll work on it for a season, put it down, then pick it up again with fresh eyes.  I also hope to work on a children’s album, too.  I love love love sweet sounding old-fashioned children’s music.  I feel that it is a lost part of childhood in the modern world.

I also love cooking for people.  Cooking more than baking. Though, I just learned how to make baklava!  It would be so fun to open a Mediterranean restaurant in Nashville one day, but for now feeding our friends will be just fine!  There are a few things sweeter in life than to sit around the table with lovely people.  I look forward to getting to know you, too, and I am excited to share with you what I’ve learned as a nurse and educator over the past decade. Please contact me if there is anything you’d like to learn about.  Be in touch!