Nobody reads this. Of that, I am somewhat certain. But that's okay. I need an outlet, and it doesn't matter if anyone reads it or not.
Today, I held my buddy, my nine-year-old lab mix, Thunder, for the very last time. We're not sure what happened to him. Potentially cancer. How it happened isn't important. He's gone. That's what matters. It wasn't unexpected. He's been going downhill for a few weeks now, and we decided it was time to put him down before he suffered an undue amount. It wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, believe it or not. But it was heartbreaking. I even made the vet cry.
PT school has sort of improved recently. No, it isn't getting easier. I'm just getting more calloused to it. I survived midterms. Everyone did. But there were a lot of people freaking out. Including me. Until a text from a friend reminded me that God is still going to use me whether I make it through PT school or not. My attitude changed. I began doing everything I could to encourage those around me. People told me it helped. And I felt like I was answering my call. Despite the bright face, however, and the oft-repeated phrase "It's gonna be fine," I was suffering a bit. Thunder wasn't long for the world, and I knew it. And it was eating me alive. I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It seemed, and still seems, strange that dogs are so short-lived. I think that they are a very good example of unconditional love. I don't know how many better examples I have seen in life. Yet, they only last ten, fifteen years, often less. Maybe that's why they hurt so badly to lose- not because we love them, but because they love us. That's why it leaves a void when they're gone.
Between school and the impending loss of my best friend, what I needed more than anything was hope. And I could find it in music. Music serves as sort of a brace. Despite the pain or weakness I may be experiencing, I can stand up and walk through life. There are particular songs that have been especially important to me this summer. Danny Gokey's "Hope in Front of Me" is one. Shane Harper's "Hold You Up" is another, and Needtobreathe's "Multiplied." It's a reminder that my circumstances suck. I don't have any answers. I have a lot of disappointment, a lot of pain. But I have no bitterness. I have hope for better times. I just have to be reminded of it sometimes.
Today, I received word that a classmate has a strange bacterial infection- she could be back in a couple of days, or never. They don't know yet. I almost started crying in class today, feeling like I couldn't handle what I knew was coming sometime this week. I wanted to get up and leave. Just run away. But what I did instead was listen to Needtobreathe's Rivers in the Wasteland album. And I got up and prepared for class. Then, I got 100% on a pathophysiology test. And picked up my official name badge. And I felt pretty good about myself. Then, Dad called. And the whole day turned on its ear.
I won't go into any detail about the procedure. What I will say is that when I was 13, my family was looking for a computer desk. One morning, Dad came home and woke me up, saying he had found something that he needed help with. I assumed I would be helping him to carry a computer desk. What I found was a big, goofy, smiling face pressed up against the truck window- Thunder. I took him out of the truck and carried him back to the house. Today, after he took his last breath, I had a request for the vet. He granted it. I carried my best friend out of the clinic.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Eating Crow
Today is the first official Friday of PT school. I say this with a deep sigh of relief. A whole day with no class, and plenty of time to attack the large hill (because mountain is over-dramatizing it) of work sitting before me. I feel much better than I did Wednesday. I feel like I can do this. And I believe I can.
Yesterday, our first attempt at group study sort of... stood up. I can't really say it took flight. There were three of us. And we lasted about fifteen minutes. But it was a start. We're working on plans for the future, too, using study rooms at the library on Sundays after lunch.
Lab was amusing. When the class finds someone who has a positive test or sign, everyone in the room flocks to that person so that they can see or feel what a positive test is supposed to feel like. I had a positive Vertical Compression test, and I had a line of probably fifteen people out behind me waiting to take their turn making my back buckle off to the left. One girl in my class has epically winging scapulae. Everyone wanted to watch them wing or feel them wing. It was pretty amusing, actually.
What wasn't amusing, however, was eating crow later in the afternoon. One of my classmates and I made the poor decision to mess with a classmate's bluetooth mouse while he was out of the room. I directed her movements to open another screen from another table. I felt instantly sick when I realized what a violation of trust we had just committed. I would absolutely hate it if someone had messed with my computer while I was out of the room. As a group, we need to be able to trust each other, and if I am pulling crap like that, who can trust me? Of course, I apologized, after spending the entire class period for PT708 feeling sick to my stomach over the guilt. When I did talk to him, he said, "It's okay. But thank you for apologizing." I could tell he hadn't been happy about it. But, being a mature professional, unlike what I had just been, he was willing to let it go. My response to him was that the program was trying to build professionals, and I was behaving like a squirrel. He laughed and looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and said, "You do realize you're going to turn out fine, right?" It somehow made me feel a lot better. He is only a few years older than I am, but a great deal more experienced in life. I think I trust his assessment.
Yesterday, our first attempt at group study sort of... stood up. I can't really say it took flight. There were three of us. And we lasted about fifteen minutes. But it was a start. We're working on plans for the future, too, using study rooms at the library on Sundays after lunch.
Lab was amusing. When the class finds someone who has a positive test or sign, everyone in the room flocks to that person so that they can see or feel what a positive test is supposed to feel like. I had a positive Vertical Compression test, and I had a line of probably fifteen people out behind me waiting to take their turn making my back buckle off to the left. One girl in my class has epically winging scapulae. Everyone wanted to watch them wing or feel them wing. It was pretty amusing, actually.
What wasn't amusing, however, was eating crow later in the afternoon. One of my classmates and I made the poor decision to mess with a classmate's bluetooth mouse while he was out of the room. I directed her movements to open another screen from another table. I felt instantly sick when I realized what a violation of trust we had just committed. I would absolutely hate it if someone had messed with my computer while I was out of the room. As a group, we need to be able to trust each other, and if I am pulling crap like that, who can trust me? Of course, I apologized, after spending the entire class period for PT708 feeling sick to my stomach over the guilt. When I did talk to him, he said, "It's okay. But thank you for apologizing." I could tell he hadn't been happy about it. But, being a mature professional, unlike what I had just been, he was willing to let it go. My response to him was that the program was trying to build professionals, and I was behaving like a squirrel. He laughed and looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and said, "You do realize you're going to turn out fine, right?" It somehow made me feel a lot better. He is only a few years older than I am, but a great deal more experienced in life. I think I trust his assessment.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
My, it has been awhile, hasn't it? Yet, here I am, early on a stormy June morning, pounding away at this keyboard. Why now? Well, see, I have started a long, arduous journey known as physical therapy school. About two days in, I started wondering what I had done to myself. I'm a little more composed now, but I wanted to sort of journal the experience so that I can more accurately relate the experience to those who come later.
Orientation was the end of last week. While it was kind of long and dull, and most of the information won't matter for months, it was kind of neat to be in the middle of it, at long last, meeting my new classmates, officially being a student. It was exciting. The few preceding days had been full of panic, however, trying to get the clinical requirements addressed by the deadline (which was wrong on the email, to our relief). Orientation seemed like a nice break... even though most of the staff spent a significant portion of their speeches telling us about how horrible PT school is and how much harder we'll have to work towards success. I will admit, I didn't feel quite as enthusiastic about it as I began work on Dr. Pitetti's lectures, and the tests over HIPAA and BBP.
Then... real classes hit. Day one wasn't too bad- we had our most enjoyable class of the summer, TherEx, a long period off between classes, and then a very vague description of our pharmacology class from the new instructor. I left with a fairly high level of confidence, for at least the summer.
Day two robbed me of all of it. We had TherEx, Pathophysiology, and Intro to Professional Practice. Seeing the volume of work Intro would take (none of it difficult, just time consuming), the amount of information on the first Patho exam, and the difficulty of the Pharmacology course, I felt sick. I wondered if I had made the right career choice. I was seriously re-evaluating until Christian Challenge that night, when I received a reminder that I'm here to be a light, and if I go through my three years (or however long it takes to fail out, haha) glumly, I can't really benefit anyone. So, after that attitude adjustment, I took a crack at Day 3. It went much better. To my relief, some of us talked about the way we were feeling, and I found that I wasn't alone. We talked it out, and all felt better. The open afternoon yesterday (done with class at 2:30 on Wednesdays) made for a productive afternoon, that really helped me.
The hardest part, though, has been the fact that I haven't been able to sleep for a few days, because I lay awake thinking about everything I must do and learn. It's becoming very exhausting, mentally and physically.
The take home so far, for new students in the future, is that it is okay to freak out a little bit at the beginning. You're going to feel overwhelmed. But you'll adapt- and quickly. You'll probably be thinking, "What if I don't?" Well, I can't convince you that you will, if you're anything like me. But after a few days of deep breathing and living with you nose in the books, you'll be fine. Really.
Orientation was the end of last week. While it was kind of long and dull, and most of the information won't matter for months, it was kind of neat to be in the middle of it, at long last, meeting my new classmates, officially being a student. It was exciting. The few preceding days had been full of panic, however, trying to get the clinical requirements addressed by the deadline (which was wrong on the email, to our relief). Orientation seemed like a nice break... even though most of the staff spent a significant portion of their speeches telling us about how horrible PT school is and how much harder we'll have to work towards success. I will admit, I didn't feel quite as enthusiastic about it as I began work on Dr. Pitetti's lectures, and the tests over HIPAA and BBP.
Then... real classes hit. Day one wasn't too bad- we had our most enjoyable class of the summer, TherEx, a long period off between classes, and then a very vague description of our pharmacology class from the new instructor. I left with a fairly high level of confidence, for at least the summer.
Day two robbed me of all of it. We had TherEx, Pathophysiology, and Intro to Professional Practice. Seeing the volume of work Intro would take (none of it difficult, just time consuming), the amount of information on the first Patho exam, and the difficulty of the Pharmacology course, I felt sick. I wondered if I had made the right career choice. I was seriously re-evaluating until Christian Challenge that night, when I received a reminder that I'm here to be a light, and if I go through my three years (or however long it takes to fail out, haha) glumly, I can't really benefit anyone. So, after that attitude adjustment, I took a crack at Day 3. It went much better. To my relief, some of us talked about the way we were feeling, and I found that I wasn't alone. We talked it out, and all felt better. The open afternoon yesterday (done with class at 2:30 on Wednesdays) made for a productive afternoon, that really helped me.
The hardest part, though, has been the fact that I haven't been able to sleep for a few days, because I lay awake thinking about everything I must do and learn. It's becoming very exhausting, mentally and physically.
The take home so far, for new students in the future, is that it is okay to freak out a little bit at the beginning. You're going to feel overwhelmed. But you'll adapt- and quickly. You'll probably be thinking, "What if I don't?" Well, I can't convince you that you will, if you're anything like me. But after a few days of deep breathing and living with you nose in the books, you'll be fine. Really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)