About Me!

Hi! I am Lori, aka the High Plains Practitioner. What does that mean? Well, I am an active duty Air Force Major, family nurse practitioner who is currently training to deploy to Afghanistan. I am also a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and lots more. I was asked by the publishing folk at the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International, to document my experience in Afghanistan over this next year, so this blog came to be.

Many people ask: Why the Air Force? My typical response – the Air Force choose me. I was attending Saline High School (in Saline, Michigan, a small town about 5 miles outside Ann Arbor) and interviewed extensively for an AF Academy slot. At one interview (my last), I was asked if I was ready to make the AF my career. As a typical teenager, my response went something like: “I don't even know what I am doing Friday night; how can I answer that question?” I then went on to attend Indiana University where, at my parents suggestion, I enrolled in the AF ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and discovered I really enjoyed the people and the structure the detachment provided me. Next thing I knew, I was awarded a four-year nursing scholarship and the rest is history!

Since entering active service in the fall of 1993, I have experienced an amazing career. I met my husband within months of arriving at Travis Air Force Base in beautiful northern California and we were married two years later. We have since lived in Ohio, Nevada, Washington, DC and are currently stationed in the southwest United States. Each assignment has been interesting – some more than others! Ohio is where we got our first “boy” - a golden retriever puppy named Tahoe. Nevada is where our human children arrived (Goose, our girl, in 2001 and Ham, our boy, in 2003). We had fantastic neighbors in DC who we continue to count as friends today. Our current assignment is one we went to hesitantly but have learned to love. We experience great schools, a true family-focused community and play as much golf as possible. Who could complain?!

For those of you who stuck with this to the end–thank you! I am excited to develop this blog to showcase the mission we are doing in Afghanistan and the role of NPs in rebuilding this war-torn country. For the rest of you, there will be plenty about my first deployment, my experience being away from my family and silly things that happen over the next 12 months. I am looking forward to this experience. Thank you for sharing it with me!