Fall

There are so many wonderful things about this time of year.  Pulling out the sweaters and Michigan hoodies, watching college football with good friends, leaves on the trees change colors, my DTE bill goes down (love that!) the list of this I love about fall just continues to grow.  The one thing that fall always reminds me of is school.  I have been out of college for 3 years now and I not doubt about it, I miss being a UofM student.  Such a diverse campus, just sitting in the diag on a fall day there is everything from students tossing a frisbee, the acting students rehearsing lines from a play, students reading text books, silent protesters, not so silent protesters, just thinking about that makes me long for the days I spent not worrying about bills, dry cleaning and groceries.  Last week, out of calculated impulse, I filled out my application for Wayne State's pediatric NP program.  After I filled out the application John and I talked about it and right now is not really the best time for me to plunge back into school.  Until he is at least in a residency program we are very reliant on my income, which is fine, but that does mean I do not have the ability to cut back my work hours.  Not that I am ready to go back to the days of dedicating my off time to papers and studying but I am sad that I am no longer a student.  I blame fall for this feeling of sadness.  As much as I love this time of year, summer never leaves me with the feeling of wanting to go back to school, oh summer please come back!

On another note, it just sucks when the wolverines play football like they did yesterday :(

Welcome back!

So, I guess must apologize for my unplanned hiatus. With all the excitement of the summer I just never seemed to take time to write a post.  John had 11 weeks off, during that time we moved, went on an anniversary weekend in Traverse City (a month late, but hey), wedding weekend in Grand Rapids, a trip to Seattle, and tons of cook outs.  I still worked all summer, in addition to overtime, while John did a 6 week cardiology internship, so to say we had a busy summer is a complete understatement. I would say John's cardiology internship was a success.  For the time being he feels very confident in his decision to pursue an internal medicine residency with the intent of being a interventional cardiologist.  He also felt as though the internship significantly helped increase his understanding of cardiology which will be important come step 1 (and I guess the rest of his career).

M2 officially started on Aug. 13th. and, don't tell DH this, but I am so thankful for life to get back to normal.  John has class Monday through Friday, studies a couple hours a night and over the weekend.  We still manage to go out with friends and visit family but for the most part during the school year our outside life just slows down.  We quickly figured out last year that there is just not enough time for us to make it to everything.  We love our family (yes my in-laws too) and so appreciate the fact that they understand, because of their understanding we have never felt pressured to balance more than we can handle.  I do have to say that M2 is 100x better than M1, and that is not at all from an academic standpoint as I have no idea, but going into M2 John and I knew the expectations on the other person...maybe this being our second year of marriage helps with that as well.  John helps with the home when he can, I have learned how to allow him the time he needs to study, we are just clicking so much better than last year.

I am still working at the Children's hospital in Detroit. Come Tuesday I will officially and permanently  be in the PICU, although I have spent a decent amount of the last couple months working there anyways.  John keeps talking to me about graduate school and I think we have decided to put those plans on hold until he enters a residency program.

That is all for now, hopefully now that life is back to normal I will be able to post more frequently.
Take Care!
Stephanie

 
    

Anniversary!!

John and I are quickly approaching our 1 year anniversary, perhaps a little too quickly with all the stuff we have going on, yet it's almost here. We had big plans to go on a repeat honeymoon trip, to celebrate our year of not killing each other, but with the demands of medical school..blah, blah...we are instead going for a weekend up to Traverse City the second weekend of June, postponed as it is I'll take it.  Don't feel too bad for me, we aren't going to skip the actual date all together, we will probably do dinner at home on our anniversary date, eat our year old wedding cake (yuck!), and flip through our wedding photos after John gets home from taking his respiratory final and anatomy practical.  But after a year like we just had one night to celebrate does not do justice to the joys and triumphs we have faced  So even though it will be almost a month delayed, we will celebrate right with a long weekend to Old Mission Peninsula.
Every time I hit some type of milestone I like to reflect on the good and bad over the year.  Sure, I work a minimum of 3 nights a week, and sure John is having an affair with his first aid book, and we have completely different ideas of what clean really means, but I am proud of the people John and I have become over this past year.  As independent as I was before we got married (haha, I know, just kidding) I have gotten significantly better at being alone for multiple days.  Even though we live in the same apartment, with my night schedule plus his studying, we have gone 3 consecutive days not seeing each other, relying on text messages to get the updates on our lives.  The biggest lesson I have learned over this past year it to just live in the moment and be excited for the little things.  To my core I am a planner, I have planned in detail every year of my life.  Bring it on Medical School!  Med school is determined to stress me out, to make any form of planning impossible.  Over this year I have learner to just take things as they come, enjoy the little things.  In a couple days we will be getting the keys to our new house, although it is just a rental, we will finally have a home.  We will have a place to live for three years before we move on to bigger at better things.  Three years of staying in one place is more than I could ask for right now and when residency comes we will be starting this process all over again.  Instead of looking at this journey as stressful uncertainty, I have been trying to view it as an exciting adventure that will take us places we would never have planned on going before.  Along those same lines I have realized the value in doing things that make me happy.  I have recently gotten into running again (not as much happy as healthy but its a start) and I have been going to spin classes.  With the combination of my job, John's school, not having family close enough to see regularly it is important that I find things I enjoy doing even if it means taking time away from John.  When we move to Royal Oak in just a couple weeks I am excited to find new opportunities to take time for myself.
 This year has been such an amazing journey, I am not sure what this next year will hold for us but I can not be more excited to find out! 

Sprint to the finish

Oh boy, what a month it has been.  John and I just went a 6 day stretch with only seeing each other for a total of 2 hours, funny considering we do still live in the same apartment.  I have been working a butt load of OT over these last couple weeks and John, who thought his exam was in one week instead of two, has been putting in double duty with the books.  I have to keep reminding myself that all this hard work will pay off one day but when we are in the thick of things it is hard to remember.  In the past month we have gone looking at a bunch of houses (one sounds very promising), I ran my first 5K in 6 years, working all the fun OT, John had a cardio exam, prepping for a respiratory final, tons of silly papers, Easter with both families, but there is a light at the end of a long tunnel.  In just 4 more weeks we will hopefully have a new place to live, our first anniversary, John has his respiratory final, synthesis final (no clue what that is).  But after all this craziness John will be off until June 18th!!

So I did it, I ran in my first 5k in 6 years.  There was a time, I call it before John, when I actually ran pretty regularly.  When we started dating we would frequently try to run together, what a good joke.  John, having a quality 12 inches on me was running way a head of me, frequently leaving me behind, and sometimes, running circles around me.  Fun I know.  Not to place blame on anyone, but subsequently I stopped running.  I signed up for the race with a goal to just finish but through my couple weeks of training my goal went from just to finish to running the whole thing, to running it under 30.  I am not sure what my time was yet but either way I am proud of myself.  I set a goal, pushed myself, and have a new found desire to keep challenging myself.
I was talking to my older sister about this and somehow we started talking about the awesome topic of work.  She had asked me what profession I would work in if education and money were not an issue.  We went back and forth discussing various options, event coordinating, PR, accountant, coffee shop owner.  I realized through our conversation that none of those would have any effect on who I am as a person, I would not feel any better about myself, I would not enjoy waking up for work any more.  I have always set a goal for myself of going back to school, doing something different with my life.  Part of me is afraid I would be selling myself short if I don't.  But I like my job, I feel needed when I am there and love being home when I am not.  I only work 3 days a week so even with a family it is one of the least intrusive hours you could ask for.  Yes, I hate working holiday's and weekends and I look forward to a time when I can say goodbye to night shift, but its only 3 days.  I know that if I did set a goal for myself I would accomplish it but for now I am happy and looking forward to the challenge of another race.

being a nurse

I love my job, weird to actually hear someone say that, I know, but yes, I love my job.  I only work 3 days a week, my commute isn't too bad, and I love my little cardiac babies.  I did not always like nursing, though the majority of nursing school I would frequently remind my mother (who told me to purse a career in nursing) that this is what she told me to do with my life, especially when we spent an entire day in school learning how to give a bed bath, change beds with a person in its, and make a lovely mitt out of a washcloth.  Thanks Mom! My mother, who has loved her career as a nurse and all the various challenges and variety you can find, frequently reminded me that it gets better.  My first job, in adult med/surg was miserable to say the least, there were many days that it took everything in me just to get up and go to work.  My mom was right though, it gets better. All it took for me was applying for a different position.  Although I love my job I often wonder what I would have done had it not been nursing.  I am 25 years old, I have been working as a nurse for almost 3 years.  From the time I was a freshman in college my plan in life was already set.  Yes, with my BSN I have a job that pays our bills and I still have many options still open to change from bedside nursing to education, or management before even having to go back to school.  I am sure there are a lot of people who would love to be in my position but because of my always following a plan I have taken a lot of mystery out of life.  There is a large part of me that would love to start over with college, maybe do nursing, maybe something else.  I have always had a desire to go back to school but with John in medical school it is really easy for me to just sit back forget about all my previous goals.  I know that "life happens" there is no predicting what will be right at every point in life.  For now, I am happy with my job, happy with my life, although I have a desire to do something else there is no rush right now.

Spring Break!!

Wooohoo!! Counting down the hours until John is out for spring break.  This week off is a much deserved break from all the stress of the classroom for all of the medical students.  Not that they wont still study but there will not be the same pressure that they are currently under, plus, spring break marks half way through their final semester as M1s at OUWB.  Enjoy this week, it is well deserved.  Now I need to figure out a way for nurses to get a spring break.