Doctor and mom

Calling on help from my blog followers

2012-02-06T21:28:00.002-06:00

Hello ladies and gentlemen!!

My son and I are participating in St. Baldrick's day at my school and will be shaving our heads in solidarity with children affected with pediatric cancers.
Please help in any way you can - spread the word among your family and friends, donate any amount you can there is no amount that is too small or insignificant.

Thank you all for your help in spreading the word and helping us raise funds to battle pediatric cancer :)

Reflections: 2 years since my life changed

2012-01-25T21:26:00.002-06:00

Today 2 years ago, my life forever changed - it was my interview day.
That day will forever be etched into my mind. The clothes I wore, the snow on the ground, being in the glass room...every detail will forever stay with me and be part of me. It was a day I thought I would never see, the day I know some others also thought I would never see and it was finally here. That day my life changed......that day began the journey that has forever changed me.
On that day if you had told me that the last year and a half of school and life would be filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and that somehow I would survive it all, I do not know if I would have believed you.
The last year I have faced tremendous challenges, some of which have left me speechless and shocked that somehow I had the strength to get through it all. I find myself stopped on more than one occasion and just in awe on how far I have come and the amount I have learned about myself as well as in school over the last two years. There have been times when I have been pushed to my very limits of what someone can handle - faced with issues with my son's school, the gossiping of classmates, the health issues my grandmother faced and just the general stress of being in medical school and whether or not I would succeed. All of the things in my personal life just placed so much stress on top of what was supposed to be a dream come true and turned it at times into a living nightmare. It made me dig to depths I did not know I had, doing my best impression of a phoenix on more than one occasion, and bring everything I had. And somehow, someway, much to my surprise still occasionally, I made it through and got to a much needed break.
I am so glad that I got to go with my family this summer to Disney. It held so many echoes, as the last time we were there I was still pregnant with little and we had brought my granny with to enjoy the sites with us. It was a welcome trip but at the same time just held so many echoes of what was, yet it was great to enjoy what is. The sheer enjoyment of watching little at the Princess lunch, the enjoyment of the dude as he got to experience it all again (even though he really has no memory of the first time) and the tolerance of the teen as she was pressing getting to the edge of age for enjoying the trip.
Then the realization that second year was completely different. I remember there were times during the first year when my second year friends would tell me that second year was so different than first year and wondering to myself what they were thinking and that they were completely off their rocker. Well lo and behold I will be the first to admit they were all right. This year has been completely different, I feel like it is much more suited to how I think and how my brain thinks and the classes are more interesting. Of course it could just be the Disney effect ;)
So two years later, and numerous times of wondering if I was doing the right thing, knowing I am doing the right thing, back to wondering if I am doing the right thing - I am still here. I am enjoying successes in the small victories - every step made is a step forward in the right direction, every victory is cherished, every challenge embraced. I will forever be grateful for the chance to be here, I am forever grateful that I sat in the room that day - despite all the bad, the good has far outweighed it.
Here is to a year and a half down - and roughly 4 1/2 months until d-day :)

waiting - the holding pattern and the other shoe

2012-01-22T11:06:00.003-06:00

As the end of January comes closer and the start of February comes rushing towards me, I feel like I am in a perpetual state of waiting.
Part of me feels like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was about this time last year that things started going to heck in a hand basket. My grandmother was gearing up for a d&c and we knew there was a likelihood that she would need a hysterectomy. And I was so worried, so scared. Not nearly as scared or worried as I would be come February and things with her really went wrong. I was so trying to hold out hope, so trying to just get through the day. I was also dealing with my son and his teacher who for some reason did not like or care for my son and made his life a living heck, which was an incredible amount of stress on our family and me as a mom. Then on top of the stress and the waiting in my personal home life, the crap came raining down at school in my professional life. I found out through a friend I trusted that people were circulating rumors which were nasty and false about me, then I ended up having to talk to the Dean about said rumors and life was just so incredibly stressful. It was not a good time this time a year ago, and if I said otherwise I would be lying.
So here I am, same time a year later and part of me marvels at the fact that somehow someway I survived everything that was thrown at me, I marvel that I had the strength and the wherewithal to survive the onslaught of chaos and stress that was thrown at me. But at the same time, right now I can feel the anxiety in me welling up. I can feel my heart sink every time my phone rings and it is my parents, even though I know they are not calling for anything bad. I can feel my stomach turn every time I check my email, even though there is no chance that anything bad could be there. I just feel like I am waiting for something bad to happen, even though this year has been so remarkably different from last year for me, part of me somewhere deep inside feels like something bad is around the corner waiting to rear its ugly head at me.

Then I am waiting to figure out what is going on with rotations and scheduling and the like so I feel like I am in a perpetual holding pattern like and airplane waiting to make its final descent to he ground on a busy day. I feel like so much is up in the air right now. Aside from the obvious waiting for the big bad board exam in June, which will keep me waiting forever it feels like some days and like it s on top of me others, I am also now waiting to find out if I will get the OMM fellowship at school. I decided to apply and was offered an interview coming up next month. So of course this puts everything in a potential state of flux. If I get the position, I will be pulled out of the track I am currently in and placed in another track for the fellowship spots. I have no problem with this, but I feel like I will not truly know my schedule for third year until i know if I will stay in the track that I am in or if I will be switched out. Of course there is the obvious waiting that is going on right now - the waiting for the interview. I want this fellowship so much and I can honestly see myself doing it that it is driving me crazy to wait.

So as I wait, for good or bad, I decided all I can really do is be true to myself and who I am because that is all I can do and if it is not to be then it is not to be. So each day I wake up, place one foot in front of the other and decide that today will be a good day.

new year, new beginning, long roads and same fears

2012-01-01T21:29:00.005-06:00

Time for long overdue update. I must apologize for being gone so long. I am afraid the holidays, especially these first holidays without my grandma have been really difficult and required my attention directed more to family matters and supporting my family so I am afraid the blog has gone neglected.
I think my new years resolution is to try to update at least once a week, especially now that we enter that really crazy time which we all know and love as Board prep time *eek* and *double eek*....more on d-day later :)
Even though this marks the start of a new year, I am faced with many of the same fears and doubts. It was shortly after this time last year that everything started going to heck in a hand basket. While the rational part of me says I lived through what can only be described as he&l last year with everything that happened with my grandma plus the added stress of having unfounded accusations being thrown at me by someone at school and that there is no way that anything like that could happen again this year, the decidedly un-rational part of me still has a heartbeat skip when I sit down to take a test, still longed to call and talk to my grandma about making the decision to apply or not apply for the fellowship, or just to talk to her and hear her voice, part of me still panics before exams as I go through last minute material but I also then have to go through my mini mental checklist of picking out a focal point and things like that - things that I should not have to think about but do. But enough about that, let me update on everything that has happened as well as the decisions I have made over the last few months.

Okay, first the big bad board exams. Based on the specialties I am most interested in and the availability of fellowships in both the allopathic and osteopathic world, I have decided that if I go straight residency without fellowship I will do an osteopathic residency while if I decide to pursue the option that leads e down the fellowship program I will be applying to dually accredited or straight allopathic residency programs. Couple that with the fact that I am limited as to where I can apply due to the whole house/family/husband job situation I have decided ultimately to take the USMLE in addition to the COMLEX as I would like to keep as many doors open to me as possible. However, after a long thought process I decided not to take the USMLE in June like most of my classmates are doing. But why would you not want to do that Becky?? Quite simply it comes down to one word - preparation!!!!! I know how I like to prepare for exams, I know if I opt to take the USMLE that I need to ensure I do reasonably well as it is bad to take it and do not so well, and I know I could not handle the stress and havoc of prepping for two major life and career determining exams at the same time. Yes there are similarities, yes they are essentially over the same material - BUT, there are enough differences that they require separate preparation and dedicated study time. When I was talking to my classmates the other day, one of them said he thought we had to take the USMLE in June which is not true. As part of our education to continue we have to take the COMLEX by a certain date in June in order to continue on in rotations and meet graduation requirements. There is no requirements for me regarding the USMLE, none. AS an osteopathic student it is not required of me to take the USMLE during any part of my educational process, so since it is essentially another hoop I am willingly putting myself through why not optimize my chances of doing the best I can do and do what I feel is the best in order to achieve that goal. To that end, I am registering for the three month window of October-December of the end of this year. This allows me to tackle the COMLEX between now and June 11th (my d-day) and then knowing what I feel I was weaker on as well as the differences between the exams, I can then focus my attention on the USMLE and performing the best on an exam that while I know the material I am not really prepped in school to take due to differences in testing styles etc. I have been so used to saying next year, well I guess it is now *this* year that is all abut the board exams. Plus I figure if i take the USMLE later in the year, it gives me a bit more time to explore where I would need it and what score I am shooting for etc.
So why does this all matter you ask. And well I have to say that is a really good question. It all comes down to a two word answer - track preferences. Since we all go through the same hoops rotation wise third year, my school chooses to organize them into tracks. Each track has the rotations scheduled in different orders and then we rank which track we would like first, second, and on down the line. So when I looked at tracks, I was looking to rank the ones towards the top that met the criteria of not having a "heavy" schedule before the end of the year (not doing both surgery and OB before december for instance), the possibility of having an elective toward the end of the year during which I can opt to take 2 wks off to really do intensive prep or having the elective in the latter half of the year leaving the possibility open to be able to do one in Emergency medicine. And of course the big no-no from everyone I talked to or posted an opinion about it - ABSOLUTELY NO surgery and OB/GYN back to back unless you want to audition for a role in the next "Night of the Living Dead". Since we do our OB/gyn and pads in one 12 weeks block with 6 weeks of each and there is no way to guarantee that you will do pads first if you have that block right after surgery I avoided any track that had those two blocks of rotations back to back so those were my very last options. After all things were said and done, I ended up with my first option starting with surgery then a fairly light load of family med and psych until elective between thanksgiving and new year, my second option has the elective in late feb/early march but very similar in early scheduling with internal med at the end of the year, my third option has the elective near the holiday again but slightly earlier and then the fourth again has the elective near march. So I will find out sometime this month which track is the winner and then I can go forward with further scheduling and thinking and planning from there.
Of course this all goes out the window if I get the fellowship as far as rotation scheduling. Good thing about that is that it will require me to do surgery and OB in separate summers because they length of the rotations it is virtually impossible to schedule them both during the summer after MS-2.
That was the other big decision made later in the year. After much back and forth and weighing of pros and cons, I decided to apply for the Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Fellowship at my school. OMM has been something I will freely admit I knew practically nothing about when I started this path as the DOs I worked with did not use it to any great extent. However, OMM is something I truly love and enjoy and found I have a natural talent for both in the doing and the teaching. This fellowship is so unique and such an incredibly wonderful opportunity, I ultimately decided that I could not let things go by without at least tossing my hat into the ring. I do not think I will know anything until March or so, so any positive thoughts or prayers are appreciated - I could certainly use any help I can get.

So here I am, new year - a ton of new hopes and dreams, all marked with a tinge of sadness at those who are not with us, all marked with the echoes of the things that happened last year but all very different and exciting and full of possibilities.
At the end of the day, I am still chugging along, still doing okay in my classes, still keeping life together at home and still plugging away at this amazing journey one day at a time while being blessed to have an absolutely amazing family at my side throughout the whole thing.

May all your new year dreams come true and may the year bring many blessings to each and every one of you no mater where on this journey you may be.

The "don't become too focused" debate

2011-10-26T10:34:00.002-05:00

*sigh*
So I do have some idea of what it is I want to do when all is said and done with school. And that idea has changed as I have crossed things off my checklist which I found did not meet some of the criteria I know I want in my career as a physician and things have been added as I have discovered routes and options that I had no clue even existed. And I am sure the latter will probably still continue as I enter into rotations and see more options in medicine.
However, I was talking with someone the other day here at school about one of my newer interests and quite frankly probably one of my top prospects of consideration, and he told me I should not become too focused and eliminate things. Huh????
I do not think I am *that* focused, I simply know what I want and know what I am bad at.
For instance, I am a clutz. I swear I can trip up stairs, and I have in fact done so. Knowing this, I know surgery probably not a good career choice for me. Is it bad for me to say I know this is not me at this point in the game knowing that the field and what it requires is not ideal for me??
Also, is it bad to say no I do not want to do OB/GYN because I do not want to have to deal with the insane hours of call that are required because you can not control when someone goes into labor (as much as we may try). This does not fit with my idea of what I want for my family. Is it bad for me to eliminate this at this stage of the game because the demands of the career are not what fits in my lifestyle and my personality???
I guess it leaves me in this crux. I am trying to keep an open mind to new things that fit what I want, but at the same time I think when you do this as a non-trad you have to have some idea of what it is you want and where it is you want to go. Otherwise, how do we endure all of the exams, all of the sacrifices we make, all of the junk we put ourselves through as we reach this dream?? What makes it worth it if it is not for the light at the end of the tunnel?? Why sacrifice a weekend with our family to spend time with 30 cadavers if not for the knowledge of the fact that we are doing so in order tone able to do what we were meant to do and what we love to do? And to endure that torture (sorry for those that love anatomy, but it is definitely not me), why is it bad to keep in mind the goal we are working toward?
And even now, as I debate the whole do I or do I not take the USMLE debate, why is it bad to have some idea of what it is I want to do? Does this not help me make that decision based on availability and location of residency or fellowship programs? Does this not help me decide whether I want to put myself through the horrors of two major board exams, one of which I do not have to take, in order to be abel to have a career as what I want to do rather than settling for something less???
I guess it just comes down to one of those non-trad things that some people, despite their best intentions, do not truly understand.

The "how do you do it?"/ "I don't know how you do it" crowd

2011-10-03T21:35:00.003-05:00

*sigh*
I swear if I had a nickel for every time someone said to me either:
1. "How do you do it?" (med school and family) OR
2. "I don't know how you do it" (med school and family)
I think I would have a serious dent made in children's college educational funds ;)

I know these comments come from a place where people do not understand and would like to understand, but I find it hard to explain. It would be like me asking a traditional student "how do you do it without a family?". They equally find their words lacking but they know that they just do. Just as I just do, just as I keep trucking away one task, one accomplishment at a time towards a finish line that keeps inching ever more closer.
Over the past few days I have given this some thought and here is what I have come with so far in my sleep-deprived musings:
I was a mom first. I came into this being a mom, being a medical student was merely a bonus. Being mom was my identity not being a student not being in medical school but mom. That has not changed. When I come home at the end of a long day, I am still greeted with choruses of "mommy!!". I am still greeted with bounding running hugs coming from the bus stop by the over excited kindergartner. I still read stories at night, I still ask what happened in school that day. I am still mom.
Before this began, I knew how incredibly time consuming and life consuming this process could be, and I made a conscious decision NOT to let that happen to me. I made a decision that there is nothing in this world that is worth my family. I was raised in a family where both immediate family and extended family always came first, we always watch out for each others back and always lend a hand where one is needed. Family was always first, and that was something I vowed to keep as I entered medical school....it is something that has been problem some at times, but something I think I am keeping. It is simple things, like eating dinner together when possible, having lunch together on weekends, going out to a movie on a free Friday night, making plans to go to the apple orchard or making cookies on a night after a bunch of exams.
There have been so many times in this process where I have been grateful for my family. This process can become so communing, so overwhelming so....well I think it is hard to explain properly until you are faced with it but it can just take over your life if you let it. Having my family helps keep me focused, they help remind me that there is more to life than medical school. They remind me of the simple joys of eskimo kisses, laughter, pride at watching you child succeed and the joy of spending time with someone who loves you so incredibly unconditionally. It is more than just exams, which is what it feels like at time, it is life.
And life is beautiful and complex, and exists outside of medical school.
THAT is how I do it........but that is also WHY I do it.

update on my crazy week

2011-10-02T09:03:00.003-05:00

So here is the update on my crazy busy week last week :)

1. Pharmacology test Monday and Pathology test Wednesday. This means I have 7:30 mornings Monday and Wednesday and 8:10 mornings the remainder of the week. Needless to say there may be a lot of coffee involved this week.

UPDATE: Both exams went well. B in pharmacology and A in Pathology. I wish I could have done a little better in Pharmacology but there is always the next test :) I will say that Friday morning was a two coffee morning so yes there was an awful lot of coffee involved in my week.

2. Aeryn (my youngest) had an asthma flare at the end of last week, sometime this week I need to get her back in for a re-check.

UPDATE: Aeryn went in Friday afternoon for a recheck and she was doing much better. We have her off of oral steroids (she was on a five day course), and are down to news twice a day for the next few days then will be weaning her down to once a day. Her inhaled steroid dose is also going down from 2 puffs twice a day to 1 puff twice a day then we will go back to one puff once a day over the next few weeks.

3. We have dance Monday evening, Thursday evening and Friday evening between my two girls.

UPDATE: Dance was only Monday evening so thank goodness :) Thursday and Friday were cancelled due to the fact that the studio has a production this past weekend and they were having dress rehearsals for that. Of course this means that the classes that were missed will be made up eventually so that week is bound to be crazy *sigh* Thank goodness for carpooling

4. I have a school conference for Declan Tuesday evening.

UPDATE: Declans conference went well. Completely different picture being painted for me than what I heard about last year. It is amazing what a difference being in the right school with caring teachers makes.

5. Speaking of Declan, I also need to get him in to the doctor. He had a cold a few weeks back but he just can not seem to get rid of the cough completely, it sounds really deep when he does cough and he has been tired lately. So he needs to get in to make sure nothing else is going on.

UPDATE: Declan went in with Aeryn on Friday afternoon, he is okay they think it is just allergies since he does not have any abnormal lung sounds. But he does however have a blocked tear duct so we got some ointment for his eye.

6. We have OMM next week, which means I will start working on that at the end of this week.

UPDATE: OMM is tomorrow morning and I feel pretty ready for it. I am going to do one more pass today then look over the practical sheets later as well and start working n those. I need to review cervical diagnosis but I think that will probably be tomorrow afternoon.

7. I need to make the charts for micro.

UPDATE: I actually decided to go with flashcards for micro and I have indeed started them but I need to make significant progress here so I imagine I will be working on this today.

8. I need to make flashcards for Pharmacology

UPDATE: I started flashcards and am almost through the first 3 lectures so I need to get cranking on this as well.

9. Declan has picture day on Tuesday so I need to figure out what he is wearing.

UPDATE: This was my sad moment of the week. I stopped at Lands End after school on Monday to pick Declan up something and without even realizing what I was doing I picked him out a pale blue plaid shirt, a heather gray shirt and dark blue corduroys. AS I set them down on the counter, all of a sudden as I looked at them I realized what I had done and my heart ached. My heart ached because I knew it was one of those outfits that if my granny had seen him in it she would have said how handsome he looked, she always loved him in blue. :(

10. Thursday evening I am helping out in the Health career professions day at school, something I love but something that means I will not be back until late in the evening, which will make the 8:10 class friday morning that much harder.

UPDATE: This was so much fun. I truly enjoy doing this so I always have fun. I have one more coming up in the spring then I will not get to do these anymore.

11. I need to find time to get my TB test down and my flu shot done so I can do my ECCP soon.

UPDATE: First step of TB and flu shot scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

12. I need to arrange my ECCP with someone.

UPDATE: I signed up to be in the ER on my birthday, cause what better way to spend your birthday then in the emergency room??

13. I need to call the allergist and make an appointment for Aeryn. Well first I need to find a new allergist. The one we have been seeing only is in the location close to us one day a week and that simply is not going to work with my schedule.

UPDATE: This was harder than I thought it would be, first I had to find an allergy group that took pediatric patients that did not have a zillion and one offices. But I found one and Aeryn is scheduled for her appointment on October 19th. I am praying they find something, that something comes back positive this time although I know there is a chance that she may still pop negative,

14. Somewhere in all of this I suppose I need to sleep.

UPDATE: I did indeed sleep, not as much as I would have like perhaps but I did sleep.

Busy week ahead :)

2011-09-25T09:43:00.002-05:00

In an effort to keep up my blog more I am going to document as much of this journey as I can. This week ahead is going to be crazy and challenging and if I come out of it with less than 10 more gray hairs it will be a moral victory.
So here is a glimpse of my week:

1. Pharmacology test Monday and Pathology test Wednesday. This means I have 7:30 mornings Monday and Wednesday and 8:10 mornings the remainder of the week. Needless to say there may be a lot of coffee involved this week.
2. Aeryn (my youngest) had an asthma flare at the end of last week, sometime this week I need to get her back in for a re-check.
3. We have dance Monday evening, Thursday evening and Friday evening between my two girls.
4. I have a school conference for Declan Tuesday evening.
5. Speaking of Declan, I also need to get him in to the doctor. He had a cold a few weeks back but he just can not seem to get rid of the cough completely, it sounds really deep when he does cough and he has been tired lately. So he needs to get in to make sure nothing else is going on.
6. We have OMM next week, which means I will start working on that at the end of this week.
7. I need to make the charts for micro.
8. I need to make flashcards for Pharmacology
9. Declan has picture day on Tuesday so I need to figure out what he is wearing.
10. Thursday evening I am helping out in the Health career professions day at school, something I love but something that means I will not be back until late in the evening, which will make the 8:10 class friday morning that much harder.
11. I need to find time to get my TB test down and my flu shot done so I can do my ECCP soon.
12. I need to arrange my ECCP with someone.
13. I need to call the allergist and make an appointment for Aeryn. Well first I need to find a new allergist. The one we have been seeing only is in the location close to us one day a week and that simply is not going to work with my schedule.
14. Somewhere in all of this I suppose I need to sleep.

Here is to a crazy week, hoping I come out of it with some sanity intact!!!

A small victory

2011-09-22T21:02:00.002-05:00

We did phlebotomy today and I had a small victory.
I managed to draw blood on the first try.
After having two exams this week with a small amount of sleep it was a over deserved victory.
Sometimes it truly is the small things :)

And so we begin again........

2011-09-18T22:25:00.006-05:00

I am still unsure how exactly I feel about this whole early start thing. On one hand, it is nice because we start with less than a full load so it lets you get your feet under you before the real craziness sets in. This was especially useful first year as we got a feel for classes and how to study before we were fully entrenched in dissecting and all that other fun stuff. But this year has been harder. I has been harder to come back to things after having the summer consumed by the munchkins.
So what did I do this summer? Well, here is what I got a chance to do:
1. play chauffeur for the girls back and forth to dance lessons which they take year round
2. attempt to study for boards which I did do but did not make nearly as much progress as I would have liked to have at the time
3. attend the girls spring dance recital as well as the summer dance recital...yes there was a LOT of dance in my summer
4. play cheerleader at softball and baseball games and try not to lose it when my oldest daughter announced she will not be playing softball next year as it marks the end of an era for us, she has been playing softball/teeball since she was 6 (she turned 12 this summer)
5. got my littlest daughter ready for school. how on earth *I* have three school aged children I will never know. I swear she was just born last week and now she is in kindergarten *sigh* Moreover, who on earth told the 12 year old she could almost be as tall as me and have feet and hands that are bigger than mine *eek*
6. my oldest daughter started on pointe in ballet class. This of course is a huge deal for her and is something she has dreamed of since she first donned ballet shoes at the she of 5 :) she is in fact going to be in her first performance on pointe this holiday season in the Nutcracker. I am still shaking my head over how big she has gotten.
Than the last thing I did to officially say farewell to summer was something I would not recommend anyone doing as close to the start of school as I did. Yes ladies and gentlemen we did the insane thing...we did the probably stereotypical thing....We went to Disney World!!!!! Okay Disney in August is nuts, getting back from being in Disney in August the day before you start second year classes not such a brilliant idea. It seemed like it took me forever and a day to get back in the groove of things. Plus if you have traveled with kids, or evenly yourself, you know how insanely crazy it is to come back from vacation and all the things you have to do when you get back from vacation. *sigh*
Then we did the early start, which was nice. It felt good to get back into things to get back some of the identity I had associated with myself. It was good to see so many friends again.
The only bad thing about the early start is that they decided we should have our Immunology course during the 4 week August session *eek*. Now do not get me wrong, we did complete courses last year, we finished Psych but that was no where near as demanding and mentally draining as Immunology. Last year early start was more of a lets ease you into the process, this year I feel like we got both feet held to the fire right away. No chance to ease in, no chance to adjust just full steam ahead from the get go. Of course this was probably compounded by the fact that I had just got back from a long tiring vacation (who ever says Disney with kids is relaxing obviously has never gone to Disney with kids) and I was not completely ready to be in school mode yet. But there I was. It seemed like it took me longer this year to get my feet under me and to get that good study groove going.
Our family life has not changed very much. My son is at a different school which he is loving so that stress of dealing with a school with simply was not a good fit for him is gone. And obviously, I did not have the added stress of dealing with wondering what was going to happen to my granny because she had passed at the start of the summer. But that made first day so incredibly hard. She was with me and supported me every step of the way. She was my rock in many ways and took joy in rejoicing with me over the little things. First day is a day I would have called her to tell her all about spending 3 hours in Immunology and I could not, she was not there to call. So the next few days were tough emotionally. I know I have any more of these milestones ahead, I just hope that it gets easier as time goes on to know I can not caller and I have faith that it will simply because I am surrounded by such loving family and friends.....I am truly blessed.
There have been times in the last 7 weeks when I have wondered again why I am doing this. Times when I have pushed myself to the very limit of what I am capable of doing, times when I wanted to give up. This process asks so incredibly much and become so incredibly consuming. But then there is the little things. Doing well on an exam which you studied so hard for, having someone tell you that you picked the right path because you have the personality for it, meeting people who are as passionate about things as you, having a successful blood draw the first time ever. These things outweigh the lack of sleep you get sometimes, the fact that sometimes your stress level is high. The things you miss out on, my youngest first day of school, are sad but there are many more things and firsts you get to see and do. Balance......it is all about balance.
And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Ready or not second year.......here I come!!!!

update on second year coming soon

2011-09-13T13:23:00.003-05:00

My stalkers at school....yes you know who you are ;) (and I adore you all) mentioned that I have been a bit lax on updating here.

We have started second year and are in the midst of it. I promise to give an update soon :)

Breaking the cardinal rule

2011-06-10T13:47:00.004-05:00

Traditional wisdom says to take the summer off to recharge between first and second year as that is the only summer you will have off agin in a long time.

Conventional wisdom and advice also say that one should prepare for the USMLE/COMLEX the same way you prepped for the MCAt and other standardized tests.

So what does one do when these two pieces of advice collide??

I know from the first time I took the MCAT with about 5 months prep that I am the type of person who needs more than 5-6 months to prepare. The last time I took the MCAT, I prepped for the better part of a year, spending time on the areas where I was weak. And my score was siginificantly better becuase of it.

Yet I am not supposed to be doing anything this summer, I am supposed to be relxaing....that is what many of my fellow students are doing. They are taking vacations, enjoying time off and just chilling out.

Yet, since I am not traditional, I am chosing notto follow traditional advice. As of a few days ago I officially started the prep for the USMLE/COMLEX Step 1 exams I will be taking next year around this time. I am taking this summer to review the areas in which I am stronger as well as shore up the areas in which I am weaker.

Sometimes I feel like I am playing chess while others are playing checkers. I am thinking eighteen moves ahead and planning and carefully thinking about what steps to take and what path is the best. I am thinking about how to best maximize my chances at getting a residency in this area, since we have the house here and my husbands job is here when I know that is the furthest thing from some of my classmates mind. But I think it is just part of being a non-traditional student. We need to think ahead, we need to plan ahead. Our lives are much more complicated than our traditional counterparts....we have other factors and people to consider....we do not always have the luxury of picking up and going just anywhere.

So here is to breaking the cardinal rule :)

Final update on my grandma

2011-06-07T17:44:00.002-05:00

For those of you who are not also my facebook friends....
My grandmother was readmitted to the hospital the Monday after finals with a right side lobe pneumonia, sepsis and a urinary tract infection.
Thursday morning, May 26th she went into multiple organ system failure. After fighting for over three months since she had her hysterectomy and her colon perforated, she passed away at 11:45pm on May 26, 2011 surrounded by her loving family.
She will forever be missed and forever loved.

A picture of my granny and me at my Masters graduation May 2010.

Reflections on 1st year

2011-06-07T17:18:00.003-05:00

What an incredible rollercoaster is all I can say!!!

So for those of you about to begin, or thinking about beginning this journey.....all I can really say is buckle up and enjoy the ride.

The hardest classes of the year by far: Anatomy and Neuroscience. Just an incredible tremendous amount of information and to know every detail in depth was daunting.
But at some point during these courses, it became not about knowing every minute detail, but simply about surviving. About passing. And you know what that was okay.

Most people have to only deal with the stress of medical school, which make no mistake is a HUGE stress.
On top of that, add in the fact that I had a grandmother who was in and out of the hospital and the ICU from February on, I am dealing with pre-teen drama courtesy of the almost 12 year old, the same almost 12 year old was significantly under performing in her classes and we had to push her to get her to achieve to the best of her abilities, my son had the teacher from heck who made his second grade year absolutely awful and miserable and just the normal stresses of having a family. I think my stress meter was at about a 15 on a scale of 1 to 10.
And just as I am in the midst of dealing with all of these things which are combining to make the first year of my dream a nightmare, the semi-truck hits.
It is hard being a non-traditional student. I think sometimes it is harder being a very identifiable non-traditional student. I have had so many people marvel at how I do it over the course of the year, openly ask me how I do it. There is no answer to this, I think it is something that only a parent understands. As parent, when everything needs to be done and you are the main one doing it you simply do what needs to be done to get the things done that need to be done. Things may not be perfect, but they are as close to perfect as you can get them, but they are done. And that was my year, I simply did what needed to be done. There were incredible sacrifices made along the way....we said no to family gatherings, we made the kids say no to birthday parties and gatherings with friends, we limited the activities they were involved in....but we kept the things that were important to us as family like always having dinner together or our family lunch on the weekends. But I guess there are some people who do not understand, who will never make any attempt to understand and who will try to undermine you no matter where you are. Those people targeted me, made me the center of their rumors and innuendo. Why?? Simply because I am different, simply because they can not understand, simply because they made no attempt to understand, simply because they made no attempt to know me or to know my work ethic and the sacrifices made to be where I am to do what I am doing to realize a dream so long in the making. I was so hurt when I heard of these rumors/innuendos, but now I am past hurt I am past angry, I am even past the point of trying to understand why these people would do what they did to me. I just know that they did it at the worst possible time, they did it when my stress level was at a 15 and they caused my stress level to creep up to a 20.
But these people are everywhere, I have seen people like them when I was working, even when I was volunteering. I think where I am now comes from knowing I can deal with these people, I can deal with these people and one day somewhere along the line karma will come and bite them on the behind.
So if you too are unfortunate to run across these people, these people who make no attempt to understand or to know, then I say to you what was said to me: Ask yourself if these are the type of people you would associate with if you did not have to. If you are like me and they are not then I was told the following: since you do not want to associate with these people, then why give them power over your happiness and let them control your path. And that was so empowering....to take the power back...to start to take my life back.
Then one stress got resolved.....we made the decision to switch my son to a different school next year. Knowing that he will be in a better situation for him is such a relief and has been a huge weight off my shoulders.

And now I have the summer to recharge :)

And I have finished first year. I may not have achieved everything I wanted to at the start of the year but I did the important goals:
1. I made it through the year without getting one of "those" emails from the dean advising me I was on academic watch/warning due to my grades in a class
2. I passed every class....again I passed. It may not have been the grade I was capable of if I did not have all of these other things going on but I passed.
3. I survived first year, the second half of which pushed me to the very edge of my limits.
3. Again I say to you I survived and passed first year.

May second year be smoother :)

Finals week!!!

2011-05-16T09:32:00.002-05:00

Okay here we go...finals week!!!
4 exams between me and being done with first year!!!!
Then be prepared for an onslaught of blog posts that have been started and saved but not yet finished on advice and hints on how I survived first year.
So that others may not make the same mistakes I have made and that they may find things which prove to be helpful :)
And of course, maybe with some prompting, I may share pictures of the munchkins who have been wonderful through this year and are my reason for being :)

Just barely two weeks left in OMS-I

2011-05-03T22:41:00.005-05:00

Holy S&^T!!!!!
I swear we just started yesterday...yet here I sit just slightly over two weeks away from being completely finished with my first year.

This year has been trying, not only in my schooling but with family stuff in general. It has pushed me to my limits. There have been times when I have been more than ready to throw in the towel and quit, times when that white flag of surrender was ready to be waved.
And then something would happen, even something small, that led me to know I am in the right place at the right time. I am where I am supposed to be and that gave me the strength to continue.
It is a simple as talking to the interviewees which always lifts my spirit.
Or struggling with then passing anatomy.
My first clinical experience in the ER in Chicago were I felt like I was coming home.
My second clinical experience where I got such valuable advice even if there were not many patients.
The blog followers who have come up to me and introduced themselves to me at the two health career professions day I have done on campus.
The way the people on campus have surrounded me and enveloped me and given me so much when I have needed it.
The way my classmates have rallied around me and have given support when it was needed and have asked for nothing in return.

I am ready to be done with this year....I am so ready to move onto next year. Yet in the same breath I can hardly believe it is over. I swear it was yesterday I started this journey. The time since the Christmas holiday has simply flown, and now it is almost done.

Deep breath.....off to study and survive finals and enjoy my last summer of freedom :)

Anatomy 101: How I survived

2011-03-31T21:44:00.001-05:00

There is no two ways about it, Gross Anatomy is the single most time consuming and challenging class you will ever find yourself facing. Unless of course you are an anatomy guru in which case it comes easy for you, but myself....I am no anatomy guru. I had to work, hard, and keep working to get very point to achieve the milestone of passing gross anatomy.

1. get a atlas....or two :)
I had a previous edition of Netter's lying around, plus I picked up a Rohen's and a Thieme.
I found I did not use the Netter's as much. I liked the Thieme over the Netters due to the fact that the Thieme has charts in it which helped me to organize and condense information about origin, action and insertion. I also liked the more stylized drawings than the hand drawing style of Netters. But this is entirely a matter of personal preference. What I would recommend is going to your school's library and looking at both of these atlases and determining which style you like best and will work best for your learning style.
I could not have survived however without my Rohen's. I used this to study the cadaver look at home when I could not physically be in lab. I feel like when I did this before we dissected I had a better idea of what to look for in the lab. Plus, I found that most tagged examples for practicals were based on the best cadaver example in class so looking at an idealized picture of a cadaver with how it would appear was exceedingly helpful.

2. the textbook to end all textbooks: grays anatomy for students
I tried the text recommended by our school which was essential clinical anatomy and I personally did not like it. It was too brief and I found the text to be very choppy. I did not use it much for my first exam and while I did well I felt like there was a lack of understanding on my part that I could not quite explain. So I researched on amazon and saw the great reviews of gray's anatomy for students and decided to try this book for my future studies. I used this book for the last three units of anatomy and really felt that the way it was laid out and the order of the text correlated well with my notes. I felt like when I used this text in conjunction with the notes that I gained a better understanding of the material and it eeked over into lab as well.

3. study for class and lab together, do not treat them as separate entities.
I made this mistake for the first exam. I tried to treat the written class portion and the practical lab portion as two separate yet equal entities. For all subsequent unit exams, I would study my lecture notes with an atlas open and my text open and integrate what I was reading into what I would see in the lab. Anatomy is such a highly visual subject and I am a highly visual learner so this worked really well for me. Again, what works for any person is highly personal and you will have to figure out what works best for you but I do recommend integrating the two portions of the class as it helps in both areas to make studying a little better.

4. time in teh lab, time in the laba nd time in the lab
there is no two ways about it, you need to spend a significant part of your time outside of class in the lab looking at cadavers. I personally was fond of Saturday mornings as I found that I was often by myself or with a few other people. I never found it helpful to be in groups as I needed to work through the material at my own pace with my own methodology.

I know these are all what worked best for me, so take what you feel you can use and eliminate what maynot work. But this is how I survived anatomy :)

The family crisis: My granny and her miracle

2011-03-30T21:20:00.008-05:00

As many of my fellow nontraditional students are probably know, when we were younger daycare was not as commonplace and if there was one it was very expensive. Both of my parents worked, so I spent the majority of my childhood with my two grandmothers.
My life became less full when I lost my paternal grandmother to lung cancer in 1998.
My life almost came to a freezing halt this past November when my maternal grandmother ("granny"), the only grandparent I have left, told the family she had been having vaginal bleeding for sometime. Now for a woman in her early 80's, this is not a good thing, especially given the fact that she is on blood thinners for her atrial fibrillation. There have been various points in this whole ordeal when I have thought about taking a leave of absence and coming back next year and doing it all over again, but each time i even think about it I know how upset my granny would be because she knows how hard I worked to get here and the sacrifices I have made and she wants me to continue. Anyway, so after granny saw various specialists, they determined that the only thing they knew was that her lining of her uterus was thicker and they wanted to perform a D&C to see if that ended up halting the bleeding. January came and the D&C was scheduled. The doctor began doing the D&C, but stopped when he saw her cervix as he felt that something did not look right and he was very concerned about cervical cancer. This absolutely terrified me.....I do not know of anyone who ever likes to hear the "c" word but in this case it is particularly terrifying. You see, a few years ago my granny was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia (CLL) and she has been doing remarkably well, her white blood cell count has stayed under control and has not spiked as they were expecting it to after she was first diagnosed. So the prospect of cervical cancer, and of any treatment that may accompany it, was particularly scary. As it would turn out, this doctor by stopping the D&C and not continuing, most likely saved my granny's life. So when they stopped, they took a small biopsy to see if their suspicions were correct and they wanted to schedule her for a hysterectomy. So, one was scheduled for two weeks later. The biopsy came back shortly before they did the hysterectomy, and all it showed was blood and inflammatory cells but no cancerous cells, the gynecologic oncologist said he could not rule out cancer because of the fact that you would expect to see inflammatory cells in a cancerous area.
The day of the hysterectomy came. Since they suspected cervical cancer, there was a high desire to keep everything well contained and limit the possibility for spreading, leading to the decision to make the operation open vs laproscopic. Once they began the operation, the surgeons encountered a more difficult situation than they had imagined. A few years back, my granny was also diagnosed with diverticulitis but no one really knew how bad it was. Apparently it was worse than any of us could have ever possibly imagined. Granny had extensive scar tissue and adhesions in her pelvis as a result of the diverticulitis which made the removal of the uterus without damaging the colon a very tedious procedure. Afterward, the doctor said he was worried about the possibility of a colon perforation as diverticulitis weakens the wall of the colon and in the process of removing the adhesions/scar tissue they were worried that the wall would not be able to withstand the stress. So as a precaution, they kept her in the ICU over the weekend.
Even though she was running a fever, it broke and she was transferred to a regular bed on Monday. But Tuesday she began running a fever again and her chest x-ray showed she had pneumonia. Then Wednesday she was still running a fever but was very weak, barely keeping her eyes open and was in severe abdominal pain.
then Thursday morning, the Thursday before finals week, I get the call I have been dreading for the past week. My granny;s colon has perforated and they will be performing an emergency surgery to repair the damage later that day. I picked up all the kids and we went to the hospital to wait with everyone for word. The surgery took over 5 hours. There was also an abscess in the upper portion of her abdomen and one of her ureters was damaged, so all these things need to be fixed leading to a quite extensive surgery. Every person in that waiting room knew the moment we saw the surgeon that the news was not going to be good. He told us that my granny was in septic shock from the colon rupture and she was in acute renal failure and that she may not survive the weekend. My granny was back in the ICU, sedated and paralyzed and on a vent. Somehow, even though finals had started and I had one the next morning, I managed to hold things together. I still do not know how, I chalk it up to perhaps being in shock...of not really believing what I was hearing of not realizing the extent of what was ahead of me.
Then the next morning, I took my ICM exam and the weight of the previous night hit me like a ton of bricks. It was Friday...and Monday held the exam that stood between me and passing Anatomy. And I hit full freak out mode. Worse case scenarios started running through my head. Something happening over the weekend, me taking the time to spend with my family and not devoting the time to anatomy, and then as a result not being able to achieve the needed points to pass.
This is one of those cases where I was reminded again how lucky I am to be where I am and how incredibly supportive the university is of students.
I went and talked to one of our associate deans and she officially let me freak out, which I think at that point in time I needed to do. She reminded me of all the hard work I had put in to be here and she asked me what would my granny want me to do? Would she want me to risk all of that hard work and sacrifice for her or would she want me to try to continue on? I knew in my heart she would want me to continue on. She also told me that if something happened to call her immediately, even giving me her home and cell number, so that she could call our anatomy course director and we would figure out what we were going to do about the exam. Honestly, I was grateful for the distraction of studying over the weekend.....it kept me from obsessing over everything that was happening with my granny and kept me from freaking out all weekend. But knowing that even if everything went to heck in a handbasket, even if the worse case scenario happened, that everything would be okay.....the exams would be sorted out was a huge weight off my shoulders and enabled me to focus more.
The weekend came and went. Granny was producing urine with diuretics so we knew by the end of the weekend that at least her kidneys worked.
The anatomy written exam Monday morning went as good as the previous exams, leaving me with 6 points needed on the practical to pass the class. Again, a huge relief to know I only needed 3 of 50 questions correct. I knew it was within my reach at this point. The practical went equally well, at least for me who traditionally struggles with practical exams at least in anatomy. I knew going home that anatomy was done and passed and things while hectic and crazy were okay...not great but at least okay.
I found out shortly thereafter how incredibly lucky we were that the doctor who had done my granny's D&C stopped when he did. The biopsy results of her uterus came back and while they showed no evidence of cervical cancer (a huge relief), they did show that there was a fibroid which was slowly eating its way through her uterine wall and was the source of her bleeding. If the doctor had continued her D&C, it is quite possible her bleeding would have dramatically increased and they would have had to do an emergency hysterectomy which would have placed her life in dangerous peril.
Tuesday came and went....status quo.
Wednesday came and when my mom called me after my exam I knew something was terribly wrong. That morning my granny had some episodes of Toursades de Pointe which precedes ventricular fibrillation. Thankfully they were able to shock her and stop the rhythm but they were very concerned about her health and heart. So i left school and went straight to the hospital. The labs came back normal, the CAT scan showed no brain damage so it was okay...he heart and brain were still okay. However, she was running a fever.
Her liver bilirubin levels though were beginning to rise. So now we had to worry about the possibility of liver failure and granny is not a candidate for any sort of transplant. The antibiotics she was on for her sepsis were causing damage to her liver and the one left they could switch her to was penicillin based and my granny is allergic to penicillin. Sp we watched and waited.
Then the good news began to trickle in. Her blood cultures began coming back negative which meant the antibiotics she was on were finally working and she was beating the sepsis in her blood. There were no more arrythmias and even though her bilirubin levels continued to rise she was not showing any signs of liver damage. They eventually switched her antibiotics to one that was less liver toxic and her bilirubin levels began to come back down. They took her off of the paralytics and began turning down her sedatives. She began breathing over the vent but was not quite waking up.
Then came the day when everyone held their breath. It was a Wednesday, she had been on the vent for almost two weeks and they needed to take her off. We were all warned about the disctinct possibility of granny having to have a tracheotomy and that was everyones main concern....how that woudl affect her health and recovery. But then came another huge step forward. They took out the vent tube and somehow someway she did not need a trach. She was breathing on her own. Then slowly she began responding to us. She would smile and crack her eyes open when you came in the room. Then her eyes were fully open and she woudl smile at you when you came but we had not really heard her talk much and when she did her voice was very hoarse.
Slowly, things got better. She began taking liquids and her bilirubin levels came back to normal.
Granny was well enough to be transferred to and acute care rehab faciloity where she is now. Since she has been there, she is taking more food in and her NG tube has been removed. They are slowly working on building her muscles back up and continuing to get her well enough to finish her rehab at a regular rehab facility. But where we are todat compared to where we thought we would be is nothing short of a miracle.
I told someone the other day that I must get my fight from her, along with my stubborness. When the chips were stacked against her, my granny showed what an incredible fighter she is. And somehow through it all, I managed to complete my finals and finish my second quarter of medical school.
What does this prove.....it proves that life happens. We may never know when the next thing around the corner that may come and knock us off our feet, but it is those times that we find out how strong not only we are but how strong others are as well.
My granny continues to amaze me everyday. I know forevermore I will cherish the time I have with her, my family's miracle.

The yin and the yang

2011-03-29T22:00:00.001-05:00

So it has been a while since I updated and there is so much to update about.

There is the good....passing anatomy, bruning scrubs, making closer friends, discovering the depth of my inner strength

And then there is the bad...the family crisis that happened right before finals week among other things.

The good is easy to write about...the good is happy to write about. It is easy to share the good. The good is what makes me glad I am here. The good is what marks the little steps along the way, the hard fought achievments and milestones that must be passed to cross the ultimate finish line.

The bad is what happens when you are looking elsewhere. The bad is harder to write about becuase the bad happens when you least expect it. The bad happens to you and turns your life upside down. The bad is hard to share because people will suprise you, and how do you share that? How do you expose yourself at your weakest, when you are most vunerable and show that you are indeed human? Do you dare shine a light on others, that they may think twice about their actions? But is that fair to do to someone, is it fair to do to yourself? It is the bad that perhaps needs to be talked about most, but at the same time once you put words to paper or print they are there. But then how do you vent about the bad, how do you express the frustrations of the bad, the sorrows of the bad, the hurt and betrayal of the bad without feeling bad yourself for having put it out there in the first place?

But this is what medical school is....ultimate triumphs followed by ultimate sorrows....sometimes occuring at the same time. My friend once told me some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue and some days you are the pigeon. I think that sums it up perfectly. There can be no good without bad, no triumph without sorrow, no hope without despair, They are sides of the same coin. The yin.....the yang....they are both part of one yet inseperable.

Perhaps in time I will blog more about the bad....but for now look for some future blogs about the good to come

What a difference a year makes

2011-01-26T22:16:00.003-06:00

1/25/2010 was a day I thought would never come, a day I had dreamed of and hoped for and wished for so long.....it was the day of my medical school interview.
I remember everything about getting ready. The debate over to wear a dress or a pantsuit, what color, do I try to look trendy or go with my style? In the end I opted for a classic black linen dress coupled with a cream and black blazer. Jake called it my mini-Hillary Clinton look as it did look like something perhaps she would wear. It was classic and timeless, not trendy or flashy or bright. I looked my age rather than trying to look young and I hope that it helped me come off as professional.
I remember all to well not getting much sleep the night before the interview. Of waking up numerous times during the night and panicking that I had overslept, never mind the fact that I had three alarms set, only to find I had hours left to go.
Of carefully fixing my hair, which is not normal for me the wash and go gal, so it looked styled and professional. And how grateful I was when the style came out looking half like it was supposed to when I had gotten it cut.
And how I agonized over makeup....me the gal who barely wears chapstick was carefully choosing muted colors for my eyes, for my lips, for my cheeks.
How I carefully put on the accessories....how I was so proud to wear my grandma's opal earrings which had been given to her by my grandfather when he was still alive. How I prayed that they would bring me luck.
How I placed the shoes on my feet and kept my fingers crossed I would not slip and fall in the snowy sidewalks, especially since I usually do not walk in heels. :)
How the butterflies in my stomach dramatically increased as I made the walk from the interview holding room to the interview room, a walk I had seen others before me make...a walk I myself had longed to make.

And now here I sit a year later, feeling so incredibly blessed to be here. So incredibly blessed to be surviving....just so incredibly blessed period.

Now it is not interview worries that keep me up at night or make me have trouble falling asleep but it is studying.
I can again go back to wash and wear for my hair...now if I could just find a hairstyle that would work with me and this baby fine hair I would be a happy gal.
Accessories and makeup are things of the past...discarded for simple things like handlotion and chapstick to keep the lips from chapping during these all to cold months.

This past year has brought so much, has asked so much and at times I feel like I have given so much in return. But it has been worth it.

I will forever be grateful to have that interview, to have made that walk, to be living my dream....may I never take it for granted.

Reflections on being 3/4 done with anatomy

2011-01-12T16:59:00.003-06:00

Well what can I say other than...thank goodness!!!
I honestly never thought I would be so happy to be 3/4 of the way done with a course.
I am just not a 3-d visual person. Very frustrating. When things are in one position and I do not have to rotate them in my mind I am fine. The minute the structure is turned in a different direction or a different orientation than what I am used to looking at it in lab in and guess what...word salad.
I am going to try some new strategies for the last unit practical exam but if any one has any tips on how to make 3-d deficient me more 3-d oriented I would forever be grateful.

Someone asked me recently when I study. I can honestly say I get home and study while the kids are doing their homework. I even study while I am working on dinner, even if it is just to read over notes or re-listen to a lecture or look at an atlas but I am always doing something. I take a break for dinner and I study after dinner until it is time for the kids to go to bed. Some nights I help get them to bed and others I do not, it depends on what is coming up the next day and how much work I have to do. Then after everyone is in bed, I am up studying. I am typically a 7-8 hour per night but I have learned to live on less, I typically go to bed between 11pm and 12am most nights and I am up between 5:30am-6:00 am in the morning.
Coffee is my friend :)
But then during lunch, I am studying. During any free down time at school (if a class ends early) I am studying.
This is all about making the most of every minute you have because the moments you do have are so rare. And of course, it has been very important to me to maintain some sense of normalcy with my family, we still do things together. This means I work harder during the week so that we can take Saturday afternoon for lunch together as a family, or we can celebrate my son's birthday this weekend with my family.
This whole journey is about choices. You can have your cake and eat it too but you just have to work harder to get to the cake. It is about balance. If you are all school all the time you will go insane.
Now there have been times when I have been ready to give up, when I have wanted to go into the Dean's office and see about deferring until next fall. There have been times when my plate has not only been full but overflowing, there have been times when everything has gone wrong, there have been so many challenges and so many chances to rise to the occasion.
I could not have made it this far without my family, bless them for being understanding, bless them for being there, bless them for listening when I am at my breaking point and bless them for letting me know it will be okay.

Almost 4 months left to the end of my first year, and I would not change a thing.

Quarter 1 is done...phew

2010-12-04T15:20:00.005-06:00

For those of you following me, I apologize for being so long without any entries but it appears the hurricane got the better of me. I am going to be better by trying to update at least once a week.

So the first quarter is over and I have only one thing to say about it....I am very glad it is over!!

So, since the hurricane, the tsunami or whatever it is you want to call it has hit there are some things that have changed and some things that have stayed the same....so lessons from the first quarter.

1. You can not fully prepare for the craziness that is medical school.
I have spent 2 years here at Midwestern, I thought I had gotten into a good groove and was somewhat prepared well for the transition to medical school.
I have only one thing to say about this....I was wrong!
I do not think anything can prepare you for the craziness that is medical school. Of course, I am trying to keep some semblance of a normal life. I still try to take time to have dinner with my family, we still do our family lunch together on the weekend on Saturdays or Sundays...I still help the kiddos with their homework...I still do all the things that a mommy does. Of course, our diet does not always consist of homemade food...pizza and takeout from some local restaurants are commonplace. Talk about mommy guilt...ugh. But I digress.
So, the craziness. I think the most craziness is imparted by anatomy. Oh boy anatomy. Now I am one of those people who took anatomy in undergrad, which was fairly exhaustive and rigorous. Yeah...all that knowledge lasted me about a week if that. Plus, I had never dissected before, my previous anatomy lab had a prosected cadaver (more on this topic later). You can not get behind in anatomy...plus we have weekly quizzes in OMM lab and in Biochem so you need to keep up in those classes as well...plus everything else. Sometimes I feel like there are not enough hours in the day...but I am managing.

2. You can not panic and you must be willing to change your study strategy.
Back to anatomy lab. So I admit I was one of the ones in the first day of class who when they said that half the class would fail the first anatomy practical thought that it would ever be me, there was no way that would happen.
Well, you can guess what happened......I failed. Not just barely but I am talking failed majorly. I think I could not have studied and done about the same...ugh.
So did I panic? Absolutely.
Did I cry? You bet.
Did I freak out? 1001% YES!!!
Did I dwell on it and make no changes to what I was doing? No way.
So what then did I do?
I immediately went to talk to two of the anatomy professors and told them how I had prepared for the practical and asked how I should study instead because it was painfully obvious that what I had done was not sufficient to prepare for the practical exam portion. Both of them gave me some excellent suggestions. I took all the suggestions they gave me, some of which overlapped, and I applied them to the second unit exam.
What was the end result of these changes?? Much to my surprise, I did better on the second unit practical than I did on the written exam. Yay me :)
The moral of the story.....you have to recognize that what you are doing may not work and be willing to change it.

3. Coffee and crock pots are your friends.
So I will admit my crock pot has not gotten as much use as I would have liked in the 1st quarter but I think this quarter I am going to ramp up the use of the crock pot. I just have to find some more good recipes for the crock pot that will be easy to make in the morning and be ready in the afternoon when I come home from school.
I was a semi-regular coffee drinker before med school. I would drink it on occasions but I would not drink it on a regular basis. Coffee is now my friend. I drink a cup in the morning on my way to school and a cup or two during the day.

4. Sleep...what sleep? Who needs sleep??
Okay, I get sleep. I do, really I do.
I just do not get as much sleep as I would like.
I am a 8-9 hour of sleep per night kind of gal.
That in med school is out the window. I get about 6-7 hours a night.
Thus the coffee.
And I get slightly more sleep on the weekends...but not by much. The munchkins are still on school schedule.

5. Living close to school is a must.
So I live 30 miles or so away, which amounts to about an 1 hr commute one way to school, not counting in any traffic from construction or weather or anything else that happens here in Chicago.
So we came up with a solution.
As of the middle of September, I have a dorm room on campus. It is used occasionally, I split my time with the main focus being before tests, will be on bad weather days/nights coming up here in the winter to avoid the extra commute time, and I have also been using it to crash in Friday night so that I can go into the anatomy lab to do cadaver work on Saturday mornings.
I am one of the few in my class who lives more than about a 20 minute drive from school and that is honestly too long. So if you have the option, please learn from my mistake and live close to school.

6. OMM is still awesome :)
I think OMM is one of those things you either love or tolerate. I happen to fall in the love category. I have used it on my family members to help them and they know it works, I know it works...and it is something I am kind of good at. Plus, it still feels great to get out of a lecture hall for a few hours a week and be active and do something....to feel useful rather than simply being lectured at.

7. You will find friends....and they will be your saving grace.
I was a bit worried at the beginning of the year. It seemed like I was so much older than my classmates, that I was the only one who had kids, that I had this long commute. What on earth would I have in common with them?
But in the sea of classmates, I have found the ones who I like, who I can talk to, who I can commiserate with and who I am honored to call my friend.
They were all there for me when I failed my first anatomy practical, they offered ears and support.
They were there for me when my family lost our 13 1/2 year old golden retriever last month. So many offered a kind word or a hug, I was truly honored to know that I was so thought of.

8. You need a support system...you absolutely NEED a support system especially if you are doing this with a family/fiancee/spouse/long term significant other etc.
My parents, my girlfriend and my spouse have been invaluable throughout this process. This is one of those where it truly does take a village.
It is not just you who goes through this process, it is your family. We prepared the best we could by making sure the kids were not involved in many extracurricular activities and letting everyone know I would need some advanced notice for any family gatherings.
And yes it can be tough at times, I have missed some family gatherings. I have not seen my grandmother as much as I would like to, I do not see my parents as much as I would like to. But I make time because family is important to me.
So this leads me to my last point......

9. You make time for what is important to you and you laugh.
You need to keep your sense of humor....it will keep you sane. Your family will keep you sane.
Medical school and studying does not take up all your time, you can make time for whatever is important to you.
For me, that is family. I make sure to make time for them. Without them I would not be here, without them I could not be here and without them I will not make it through here.
Bless them for putting up with me during this craziness.

Out of the harbor and into the hurricane.....

2010-09-06T09:53:00.007-05:00

When we were in orientation, we were told that this first month was the equivalent of the harbor. So then of course the question comes up as to why. Well we are not fully in all of our classes yet, we only started dissecting in gross anatomy last week and are not fully invested in that as of yet. We also have not really started Biochemistry, which when we begin this week will be more hours per week. And of course Intro to Clinical Medicine has also been off of our radar screen and that starts on Friday morning. The test schedule also ramps up, we will have a Biochem quiz/test every week on Friday starting next week along with the OMM weekly workshop quizzes. In addition to those, by the end of September I will also have the second Histology written exam, the second Histology practical exam, the first anatomy case quiz to do, the first anatomy quiz, the first anatomy mini practical, the first OMM written, the first OMM practical, a paper to work on for History of Medicine and of course the White Coat Ceremony to attend. Phew, I am tired just considering all of that, much less doing it.....lol. I guess that is why they told us to be prepared for the hurricane that is coming after Labor day....well ladies and gentlemen, I say bring it on!! I know I am crazy to do so, but having worked for such a long time to even get here to this point I am trying to relish everything and embrace these challenges.

So, what has my experience been and the lessons I have learned from this harbor period that I will have to incorporate going ahead into the infamous hurricane.....

1. A stand alone chest or upright freezer is going to be a must.
We have a side-by-side fridge/freezer combo in the kitchen, which unfortunately does not leave much room in the freezer portion. I wanted one of the fridge/freezer combos that has the fridge on top and the freezer beneath in a drawer but we could not find one that would fit underneath our cabinet above the area where it is in the kitchen when we were looking. On a complete aside, why put a cabinet there to begin with, it is not like anyone actually puts anything there much less can reach that unless you are using as tool. But I digress. So we used to have an extra fridge/freezer in our garage but after many years of loyal service it went kaput on us. We have to this point not yet replaced it, but we have reached the decision that we need to do so in fairly short order. The commute home has been not quite fun (more on this later), which is leaving me struggling to have dinner ready at a semi decent hour. So to not have to rely on take out and fast food so often, we are going to invest in a stand up freezer to stock up with various items from Market day and ready-to-make items from the store to easily be made in short order as well as to have stuff on hand that I can place in the crock pot in the morning that will be ready in the evening and also to store extra casseroles, etc that I can make on the weekends.

2. The commute sucks and I need to figure out how to make more productive time of the 10-12 hours a week I am spending in the car.
It is times like this, when roads are under heavy construction, that I wish I either lived closer to campus or I was attending a campus where taking public transportation. I will say one thing and one thing only...road construction sucks!!! I do not know that I will ever be as happy to hail cooler weather and snow as it means the end of this road construction and the reversion of my commute time to an hour rather than the hour twenty to an hour forty five it can be right now. I have tried going various side roads but the commute time is either the same due to the presence of stoplight or in many cases increased. I think for now the best thing I can do in the morning is get off a few exits earlier since the exit where I normally get off is really kind of crazy in the morning, especially with the new lane divisions into an "express" (one lane) and "local" (two lanes). Needless to say I will be very happy to see snow and hail the end of the construction season here in Chi-town. So I need to figure out how to maximize my commute time. I do record the lectures, but I am used to looking at the words on the page while I listen to them so I can follow along. I have found through the years that I am neither a strictly auditory or visual learner but rather a blend between the two...I not only need to hear but I also have to see at the same time for my brain to make the maximum number of connections between material. I think I may try to listen to them by themselves or perhaps recording myself reading the material or guidelines or something. I have to figure out a way to make this time not a waste. Although it is nice to relax and not think about school sometimes, I think I can put some of it to use.

3. I can do this.
This, I think, is the most important lesson of the past 4 weeks. Of the tests and quizzes I have had so far, my absolute lowest score was an 84% and that was in the first Histology writtem (multiple choice) exam. Other than that, every test I have taken has been in the A range so I have to say I am pretty satisfied with myself. Whatever doubt I have left gets slightly smaller with each grade, with each success.

So while I know I have some adjustments to make, and I am slightly glad that I have had this introductory period to determine what those adjustments may be, I have to say that overall the first month has been an overwhelming success.
I love where I am....I know that I am where I am destined to be, doing what I am destined to do. That word gets thrown out a lot....destiny. But I know that I am now doing what I am supposed to be doing.

So here is to surviving the harbor....and facing the hurricane head on.

Little old me

2010-08-16T21:39:00.003-05:00

Ever since I got into school, and since then, I have had various people I do not really know telling me congrats and what an inspiration my story has been to them.
And it amazes me.
It is amazing to think that little old me, sitting here taking a break from the biochem that is not really biochem, could serve as an inspiration to anyone.
And it is awe inspiring to think that someone out there looks to me as a beacon of hope, of light....that someone looks at me and sees the possibilities.
I am in awe and speechless and dumbfounded.
So thank you.....thank you to everyone who has believed in me, thank you to those who have hoped with me, who have cried with me and thank you to those who now look to me as a source of inspiration. I promise with all my heart I will do my best and prove that this can be done.

As my t-shirt says today....
"Your impossible dream can become a reality"

Here is to my impossible dream becoming one and hoping that anyone reading this for inspiration has their impossible dream come true as well.

Reflections on the first week

2010-08-14T10:19:00.009-05:00

I think this week has been one which has brought many unknowns and new experiences as well as being one which has proved to me at least that you should never take anything for granted. So here is an overview of my first week....

Monday:
Started the morning with History of Medicine. The professor of this class is genuinely engaging and funny. Even though we only have a paper and technically do not have to attend this class, I will be going since I enjoy his lectures so much.
Then we had two hours of psychiatry. Call me jaded, but being a psychology major this class so far has absolutely nothing to do with psychiatry. So I am now referring to it as the "Holy Roman Empire" class. Yes this is based on the old Saturday Night Live skit. "The Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire...discuss."
An hour break for lunch.
Then another hour of the Holy Roman Empire class.
Then the class I think makes me the most anxious. 2 hours of anatomy. *gulp* The first hour they scared us by showing us some test stats from last years class...*double eek*. Then we did the intro lecture which was basically all the terms we would be using over the course of the next few quarters.
Overall it was not too bad of a first day.

Tuesday:
started nice and early (8:10am) with Biochem. Now this is not really biochem but an intro to evidence based medicine so for the next four weeks my biochem has nothing to do with biochem and is more of a second Holy Roman empire class. And the paperwork. I guess this is where having worked in the corporate world comes in handy and being used to paperwork and team building activities comes into play.
Then it was two more hours of the other Holy Roman Empire class..aka psychiatry.
An hour break for lunch.
Then 2 hours of histology. we covered all the cell structure stuff in an hour and a half.

Wednesday:
Another early morning, but today I got to wear scrubs!!! Today was the first day of OMM. The class was interesting as we learned about the history more in depth and then it was off to lab and learn about anatomical landmarks. It felt good after sitting in lectures all week to get up and do something active and use my hands. It was fun and I think I am really going to enjoy this class a ton!!!.
After lunch we had a 2 hour lecture in Anatomy on embryology. I love embryology so I enjoyed this lecture. I am grateful I have had more in depth embryology classes before though as I think if i was missing this I would have been a little overwhelmed with the sheer amount of material presented. I am sure within the next few weeks I will be not loving anatomy but so far it has not been as bad as I expected it to be.

Thursday:
This is the day where everything went to heck in a handbasket.
I have known for some time that my iron ran on the low side of normal and that I was mildy anemic in part most likely due to my gastric bypass. My doctor had moved and I had decided to find someone closer to go to. My new doctor had decided to test my transferrin saturation to determine how my body's iron reserves were doing. The results were shocking to say the least. My transferrin saturation was 4%, anything below 20% is considered really bad. So basically my body has been using my own iron stores for some time now and I needed an IV iron infusion since I was no longer absorbing iron orally. So that was set up for this morning. The plan was to get the iron infusion and then go to class.
I did fine through most of my iron infusion. Then they disconnected me and I was ready to go. When I went to the lobby to go to the bathroom before I left I noticed that my legs started feeling funny, like they were being pricked with a million pins and my cheeks were feeling really warm and flush. I looked down at my legs and noticed they were reddish and mottled looking and appeared to have hives. When I looked in the mirror I noticed that my cheeks were really red and were also starting to get some hives. So I went back to the center where I had my infusion and they told me that I was indeed having an allergic reaction to the infusion. So I needed a dose of corticosteroids, benadryl and then some IV fluids. They also gave me reglan and pepcid since my stomach was not feeling so good.
Needless to say, I did not make it to histology lecture today.
In talking with my doctor later, we will never know what I reacted to. I could be reacting to the chemicals that the iron was complexed with which are supposed to help it go into the tissues or I could have been having a reaction to having that much iron in my system since it takes a while for the body to take up the iron from the bloodstream. We will be looking for a less toxic alternative, but I will still do preventative measures of corticosteroids and benadryl before I receive my next infusion to help stave off any adverse reactions.

Friday:
We only had biochem today. for this I was glad since I was still not quite feeling up to doing much. We were done by noon and then I went to have my second step of my TB test done as well as a titer drawn at the wellness center. I had a doctors appointment on my way home since he wanted to see me due to the reaction I had yesterday as well as get a B12 shot. And finally, my maintenance light was on in my car so I took it to the car dealership and got the oil changed.

I also decided to undertake a photo project known as Project 365, This is a project where you take a picture a day for a year. The hopes is to document the things around you as they change and the changes in you as well. From time to time, I will share some of the photos from this here. So here are some photos from the first week of med school :)

a picture of the much awaited id complete with the title "Medical Student":

The first day of OMM, rocking the Tinkerbelle scrubs!!!!

Halfway through orientation....

2010-08-03T23:32:00.003-05:00

A list of random things I have learned through the first few days of orientation......

1. There is a hurricane coming at me so I should be prepared
2. I am going to learn how to drink from a firehose willingly
3. If you need me I will be studying, studying or studying ;)
4. A fair number of my classmates, possibly me, will have academic difficulties during the course of the year.
5. My ID card which worked 2 weeks ago on every door at campus now no longer works on the doors but does however still let me in the front gate...very confusing.
6. I have about a month, maybe month and a half, before the geese invade and I am dogding goose poop on the sidewalk again
7. I will get to use the brand new OMM lab next year....YAY!!!
8. I will *not* get to use the brand new anatomy lab *sigh* (it too opens next year)
9. Pretty heels are not good for long days
10. Parking while garage construction is going on is going to be a pain in the behind
11. More people on campus know me than I knew did....still trying to figure out if this is a good thing or a bad thing. So much for keeping ones head down...lol.
12. Presentations really can be that long.

And the most important two........

13. There is no place I would rather be than where I am right now!!!
and
14. My classmates are some pretty cool people :)

Twas the night before orientation.......

2010-08-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

And all through the house the kiddos were stirring.....
the excitement was in the air and their motors are still whirring.
There were the clicks of teh keyboard as the final paragraph of the thesis was written.
There was aloe placed on sunburn, of course only after baths have been given.
The dinner was cereal...too much junk eaten at the day at the lake...
and yes we did eat cake :)
The clothes were laid out on the bed, prepped with much care
Now only if I could do something with this oh too short hair!!!
There will be coffee in the morning, of that I am sure
For the first early morning in weeks it is bound to be the only cure.
The lunches of pb&j will be packed for the munchkins,
and my bag is filled to the brim with all sorts of gumptions.
The nerves are a buzzing, and so will be the alarm...
I guess I should be glad I do not work on a farm ;)
In the hopes for a relaxing evening, the nerves won the war
And I am left hoping that all the sessions we must attend tomorro are not a bore.
I will have some old friends and new friends and a new group too....
If we all work together I am sure we will all get through.
And so I say as I lay my head down for the night....
"Happy orientation day to all and to all a good night!!!"

The best laid plans...(aka - that's life)

2010-07-21T10:35:00.002-05:00

So my plan for the next few weeks seemed relatively simple.
Purge the house.
The purpose of purging the house is also simple...need to get rid of all this excess clutter in our lives before things get crazy and we do not get a chance to do so.
Also, I want a chest freezer in my garage. Why? Well, I will need access to simple ready to make meals and frankly my side by side does not hold enough to do anything of the sort.
So Monday:
I was waiting for a dumpster and waiting for the water softener guy to come. Needless to say, I did not get much done.
And then Tuesday:
I got a call in the morning about Scarlett who was at girl scout camp. She was running a fever and I went and picked her up as well as took her to the pediatrician to rule out strep. Needless to say I did not get much done yesterday either.
And here we are today:
Scarlett and Declan are both home today with whatever bug they have and I have a feeling there is not much getting done today either.....

sigh

Such is life.

The beginning

2010-07-13T21:41:00.005-05:00

So I have often toyed with starting a blog and documenting this amazing journey but I am often left wondering where to start.
As good of a place to start is the beginning...how I got here. So pull up a chair, grab a bowl of popcorn and settle in for a heck of a story.

The journey really started in high school. I struggled in Advanced Biology and my guidance counselor did not think it was a wise idea for me to take general chemistry my sophomore year like the remainder of my classmates. However, still needing more science credits to graduate, I elected to take a genetics course as that was the only portion of biology I found I had a love for and understood. Towards the end of the semester, we discussed careers in genetics. It was then that I heard about what I thought was my career to be...genetic counselor. It seemed like a perfect combination...the genetics I loved and the chance to be with people (and I am nothing if not a people person). So I finished high school with this idea brewing in my head of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be as well as what I thought a career would be like.
I did not go away to college immediately, as I had struggled with high school, instead I opted to go to community college and take classes there to start. I was surprised to find that college suited me much better than high school. I attended some of the college fair nights and asked the representatives in attendance what I would have to do to begin a career as a genetic counselor. I was surprised and dismayed when no one appeared to know what I was talking about and could not tell me how to get from point A to point B. I began to give up on being able to follow my dream and started to consider other career options.
My second love has always been writing. Somehow I figured I would combine writing with sports and I ended up At Southern Illinois University in Carbondale to pursue a major ion radio-television. It was a perfect storm of things that happened which lead to my ultimate failure. There were a lot of personal things that happened in my life, including my grandmother being diagnosed with lung cancer and receiving death threats at school. However, there were also other factors, the school did not follow their policy for intervening with failing students. But none of that matters because I was not pursuing what I really in my heart thought I wanted to do.
I began looking into becoming a genetic counselor again and using the web to figure out how to get from point A to point B. It was at this time that I figured out I would need to get degree in Biology and that it was a Masters degree I was looking at pursuing. After going back to community college once again and wondering where I would end up I finally found a home at University of Wisconsin-Parkside. My wonderful advisor here believed in me when I did not believe in myself, had faith in me when I lacked it and had complete confidence in me that I could accomplish anything I could set my mind to. While I was here, I took part in a shadowing experience when I was pregnant with my son in the summer of 2003 with a genetic counselor to meet the requirements of applying to the programs. I had this wonderful picture in my mind of what this profession would be like, this thing I had worked and wanted for so long.....and then I saw it in person and I was shocked. What I saw in person was not even close to what I had envisioned in my mind....I knew that the path I was on was not the one I was suppose to be on. At the end of the summer the wonderful group I was with met with me briefly to see if there was anything they could do to aid my application process, how I enjoyed my experience, etc. I told them that I tremendously enjoyed the experience (which I did) but that it was not quite the career I had envisioned. When they asked me what I wanted and I told them, that is when they dropped the "d" word on me. "Doctor". And that is also when I did my best impression of a 2 yr old and threw the temper tantrum of all temper tantrums and refusing to believe that I would be a doctor....I could not be a doctor I could not ask my family to sacrifice *that*. There just had to be another way and I was determined to find it. So I looked...I looked under every rock, turned over every stone, explored every possible other option and found myself lacking. everything required me to sacrifice something I wanted, everything asked me to change what I wanted...and I began to realize maybe just maybe I would be a doctor. So my final year at Parkside I became the thing I had worked so hard to avoid...the thing I had dreaded not even a year prior....I became a premed!! And of course I had t o do all the lovely premed things...like take the MCAT. Yeah, I recommend studying longer than 4 months for that beast :) I could not apply until the summer after my senior year however and my life was about to get uprooted.
We got transferred to New York....so I applied to east coast schools. I quickly discovered they had very little love for a nontraditional student with some questionable marks on her record and a less than stellar MCAT. Just as I began talking to admissions reps out there, we had made the decision we wanted to come back to the Midwest if we could...no one was happy on the east coast. The schools there placed the idea of a Master's program in my head...as my one and only shot at getting in to med school. So I began exploring programs on the east coast as well as back in the midwest and had my life changing surgery (my gastric bypass on tax day - April 15 2005). shortly after, we found out we would indeed have the chance to move back to Illinois and I applied to Loyola and Rosalind Franklin.
I never heard back from Loyola but was wait listed at Franklin. Then I got the call, two days before orientation was scheduled to begin, that I was in. I was thrilled and excited and happy. Here we went. Then life throws another curve ball at me....I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. It was an exceedingly risky pregnancy as I was still in the part of my weight loss journey where I was losing a lot of weight. I also began to have gallbladder issues. During one midterm week I became exceedingly ill, to the point of dehydration and some early contractions and had to be hospitalized and missed my biochem midterm making my final worth an extraordinarily large percentage of my grade. I was focused on trying to survive and get ready to add to our family, and ended up missing the gpa cutoff to continue by one question. The one question I had the right answer to but changed.....proof positive you should always trust your instincts and never change your answer! I also felt the confidence I finally found slipping away....I was floundering again, I was underwater again.
I looked for advice and was told I was done. I had my chance and I had blown it. I would be forever blacklisted...I would never get into med school...I would never be able to pursue my dreams.
I talked with an admission rep from the local state med school and he told me there was a chance, if I did good on my MCAT, got in my app early and got my grad gpa up to a 3.0. So I spent a year taking classes at NIU as a grad student at large and brought my gpa up as well as got my confidence back.
I took a year off, went to the local community college, got my first responder certification and applied one last time..I swore it was the last. I got the email from Midwestern offering to transfer my application to the Biomedical sciences program and I did. And I was placed on the wait list...again. But I would get off....again...this time about a week prior to orientation.
This is where I found myself...this is where I have thrived. I have approached everything differently I have been a different student and person and family member...I have had to be.
And I applied to CCOM...I knew Midwestern was where I wanted to be. I was placed on the alternate list for admissions...again. And somehow, someway, they found me deserving and I was called on June 30th...a full month and a few odd days before orientation.
Through all of this I have worked with doctors in the ER, I have shadowed, I have gained an understanding that this is truly what I am meant to do.
People talk about a calling, people talk about destiny, people talk about the thing that you know you were meant to do........well my thing, my destiny, my path begins in a few weeks.
Will it be challenging??
Heck yes.
Will it be manageable?
I know so....I think we as a family can handle anything.
Will it bring me to tears?
I am sure there will be tears...happy and sad and frustrated and angry and mad.
But they will be worth it...the dream is worth it....my destiny is worth it.

In the words of Robert Frost:
"two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference."

And of course the ever present Grateful Dead:
"What a long, strange trip it has been."