Busy week ahead :)

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

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........

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

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

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

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

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 :)