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.
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