Company Coffee 11.20: What can I learn from Michell Obama?

Okay today's coffee special is a Mocha Chocolate latte supreme. So come on in, the coffee's hot and the atmosphere warm!

What can I learn from Michell Obama?
I don’t mean this question to imply that I don’t’ think that I have anything to learn from her. It’s just that because of something that happened this week I think that I have something specific to learn from her and I am trying to figure out exactly what that is. I started this week off not feeling well- I was achy and had that cotton-head feeling. But I went into work on Monday because the service that I am covering was already short and if I didn’t go in, they would have been left in the lurch. As a result, on Tuesday I was down for the count. On Tuesday morning, though I did help get the kids ready and went into my office to page everybody and let them know that I would be out. After I did that I was wiped but you have to have energy to move out of a chair to a bed or a couch and I had to muster that energy. While this was happening, I decided to peruse Facebook and some other sites that I hadn’t had a chance to look at on Monday. Well then couldn’t hold my head up any longer. Somehow I crawled back to bed but some of the pages that I read were blogs of women who stay at home, many of which who homeschool and I must say, I was jealous. I started thinking about what I was doing as a working mother and if I was doing the right thing but not staying home with my kids. This isn’t the first time that I have had these thoughts and every time I think of how I could make it work. How would my student loans get paid? Would I be wasting all of those years in medical school and training? Is it really a “waste” if I do what’s best for my families? Well obviously I was working my cotton-headed mind into a frenzy so I just started praying about it. Talking to the Lord is soothing and calming and so I did this on the way back to my bed and as you can imagine, I fell into a much needed sleep. While I slept I dreamt about Michelle Obama. All I remember is being at the white house with the boys. It was one of the Obama girls’ birthdays or something and the kids were playing while us mothers were talking, one eye on each other and one eye on the kids. You know how it is but where were those whitehouse aides when you need them? LOL! I don’t’ know exactly what was said but I woke up thinking, hmmm I can learn something about motherhood from Michelle Obama. I just didn’t know what it was. Then when my husband called to see how I was doing, I told him about the dream. He said, “Oh my God, you’re so sick that you’re hallucinating!” Then he cracked up. :-| Not funny! I googled Michelle Obama trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to glean from her. This was in between sessions with my pillow, when I could hold my head up! At first all I could find were things that yeah I would like to have- poise, confidence, success. But still I thought there may be more. Then I found the blueprint for working women and families that she unveiled least year. Before the election. I could not find anything more recent. Maybe it’s there and because I haven’t been able to find it. I’m going to keep looking though. Because that was a weird dream. I never think about her that much so why would I dream about her?

In other news, our church is participating in the Samaritan’s Purse “Operation Christmas Child” where we fill a shoebox with gifts for a child. We did this last year. The boys each fill one with toys and other goodies that they have chosen for another boy their own age. This was fun! I will have to uploaded the pictures later though.

Also, in between my sessions with the pillow, I followed Pricilla’s talk about “Good Hair”. I am grateful to her for bringing up this topic because the questions are out there. I have gotten if I have a weave (my hair is a max of 2” long all over- not even!) or a wig on mainly because there is a secretary here who comes with hair styles of varying lengths weekly (from 2” to a couple of feet long- no joking!) and I think they see me as the “go to person” on black hair because they don’t feel comfortable asking her. I will send them to Priscilla’s site next time…

I didn’t get to many of the small things this week. I cut my hair off about a year ago so no hair things to clean up – does cleaning the hair out of my brush count? I didn’t have the energy to get to the sock drawers. Besides since that would be the hundredth time that I have had to straighten them and then one hunt for my slipper socks or the perfect color match and everything I worked so hard for gets undone, I am a little discouraged and have decided to buy these nifty things for everybody’s sock drawer AND underwear drawer:

It looks like I can just make them but for $8.99 apiece, I think I’m going to have to get lazy. The materials plus my time would costs more than that in my opinion. Oh and I have MANY stacks to fix but the main one that bugs me is that stack of medical books next to my desk. I pick up one then dropped it halfway to the bookcase… umm yeah… I’ll have to be 100% well before I tackle that one. I got my phone without thinking about it though. My phone gets makeup on it and I swear I clean it off every time I use it. So honestly, I got that one accidentally. Today’s I can handle too!

My parents are coming into town tomorrow and I am so happy to see them. They live far away and we only get to see them about once or twice a year. So after working a whopping 2.5 days this week because of my illness, I will be on vacation next week spending time with them. It can be stressful having to take care of everybody because they are older and infirm but still it will be fun. My 7yo woke up this morning and bounced out of bed saying that it was one more day until nana and papa arrive! ANYTHING that gets him out of bed is worth its weight in gold. I wish I could use that tactic more often…

Anyway have a great weekend! I will hopefully have more time to do the small things and hang out with you all next week!

Company Girl Coffee 11.3

The Storm is almost over

This is my first Company Girl Coffee Day! I have had a wonderful first week and have actually been able to get every small thing done!!!! And it was fun too! Thanks for the warm welcome, Rachel Anne!

This week was a stormy one. Hurricane Ida or her offspring blew in and wreaked havoc. One day a normally 30 minute drive home took me 1.5h! Accidents abounded mainly because of poor visibility and nervous drivers. I was able to stay calm by playing Gospel and praise music in the car and praying for the drivers around me. I had to chuckle though when some storm related songs came on. One of my favorites is “Rain of your presence” by Bishop Clarence McClendon:

Let the rain of your presence fall on me
Every day that I live with every breath I breathe
Let the rain of your presence fall on me
Every where that I go Lord let your presence flow
Rain on me

Love Divine Joy unspeakable
Overflowing in my soul
This heart of mine is refreshed and at rest
In your presence, in your presence

So I knew that the storm would soon be over and the landscape would look scrubbed clean. As soon as that song went off, another song by Yolanda Adams came on:

I have to see myself at the finish lineI have to visualize that everything will fall in line
I have to visualize the land while riding through the storm
I have to trust in my father and open up my heart
I know that I can do this I know that I can win
Just as long as I have his love within

So while driving through this vile storm and getting sent through detour after detour (I had to take a detour from a detour because of accidents). I had church in my car!

It is still raining here for the 3rd or 4th day but it has slowed down and I can’t wait to see the refreshment of the landscape that comes after. However, I am grateful for the continual refreshment that I received by spending unplanned time in the car.

Thousand Words Thursday- Ready for moving day!

Den decided to play in a box that we were packing his toys in. Diesel wanted to join in so Den put him in also!

How do I do it? Medical School- Matrix Reloaded

It seems as if I have been asked this question almost constantly since starting medical school. It comes with many different tones. There's the "wow, how do you do it?" tone of genuine awe, and the "how on earth do you do it?" tone of judgment that really means "WHY do you do it?" in my opinion. The people that I am the most interested in are the ones that seriously want to know how I manage a family and medical school/ residency and are trying to figure out what to do or what NOT to do (they could probably take a little bit of each of those from my life). Most of these people, of course are also in medical school/ residency or aspiring to go to medical school. Some are mommies who just want to go back to school. ANY school. This post and posts to come are for THOSE people because I really don't know how on earth I do it and WHY I do it- well I ask myself that every day and sometimes when I am really tired, it is difficult to come up with an answer- but on most days I know medicine and pathology what is what I love so I am going to try to fit it in with things that I love.

So today I am going to start with my experience in medical school.

Medical school was much easier than residency. I struggled first year. After being out of school for several years and being with classmates who had biomedical masters degrees and who had basically already done the entire first year already, I had a lot of catching up to do. My older son was 18m when I started medical shcool and he went to bed so early that he didn't notice the times I stayed up studying. Plus my mom stayed with us during exam times.

Second year, the playing field seemed a bit more leveled. Many people had not taken those courses before and we hit the ground running. Quite a few people were not prepared for this. I also started to do something that really was key to my academic medical school career- I homeschooled. Not my son, MYSELF! At the end of 2nd year I worked out that there was an inverse relationship with how many times I went to class and my grades. The ones I went to the LEAST where the ones where I received honors grades. Go figure... I went to labs and practical stuff but not lectures. Firstly, I got to study my heart out during the day and spend time with my family at night. Secondly, we had digital lectures and powerpoints so I feel as if I didn't miss anything except that which I wanted to miss. Thirdly, I figured out that in order for me to do well with the lecture format, I had to prepare by reading the chapter before class and then review after class. I never had enough time to do this properly!  Fourthly, when I went to shcool, I wasted alot of time, chatting, commuting, etc.etc. Not to mention, it was easy to get laundry and other errands when at home during study breaks. I am not advising this by any means, you have to do what you're comfortable with. This was the main way for ME to get through it. When people have asked me about this, I told them about homeschooling myself, again not for advice but simply to state the facts- this is what I did. I DO know of a couple of people who tried it after they let their fears of not going to class go, and had the same results. In addition, I have met a few people since who homeschool and again had the same results. Again, not advising, just saying...

Okay but the THIRD year was a kicker. Okay so  it may have been a little bit harder than some people for me to get used to having to go in every day especially when I had made my own schedule for the most part for at least a year before AND I was right back to having to study in the evenings. WHEN I was home in the evenings. And this reinforced what I was saying about second year, at night I was tired after getting up at 4am and basically fell asleep on my book. My grades would go from a honors or high pass on the oral and general clinical performance to a pass after I took the exam. Except for surgery. I got a high pass there. Never figured that out...

FOURTH year I had my son and did waaaay too little... but that's next weeks topic: Having a Baby in medical school and beyond. I am going to try to get some of my friends who have babies in this process also comment. Now I think THAT is the most common question that I hear from other women- when to have a baby in medical school.


Finally, to me Medical school was like the scene from Matrix Reloaded where the sentinels attack Zion. The people of Zion try to fight back and sometimes it seems as if they might be making headway but then more and more sentinels come. Medical school and residency are the matrix, medical students and residents are the people of Zion and the Sentinels represent the amount of knowledge we have to acquire. It just keeps coming and coming. I don't think that we will ever leave the matrix but it doesn't have to kill us either...

Tune in next week for my experience with having a baby in medical school...

Thousand Words Thursday!!!- Curiosity Killed the Cat!

He was only 7 or 8 months here. This should have been a clue to us that he was going to get into alot of mischief like- oh i don't know- coloring on his headboard and walls! (see last week)

Pincushion Mommy

An attending advised me to go to employee health today and say that I work in apheresis and need the H1N1 vaccine. I did and it worked!!! And since I hadn't received the seasonal flu vaccination I got that in the other arm. I have to say the seasonal vaccine hurts more than the H1N1 but that may be because it's in the right arm, my dominant arm. The kids got their shots yesterday and so now 3/4 of the family is taken care of. My husband feels left out...

Mummy Mommies

Wow yesterday was busy. Soccer, then haircuts for everybody then Halloween party then trick-or-treat. Because i know that some people are reading this from a perspective of how I am handling residency as a mother, please note that I did NO READING. Pathology is very academic and one must read quite a bit. So maybe today, you say? Well after church, I worked on a presentation for tomorrow and then my personal statement for my fellowship application. Maybe THEN after the boys are in bed I will get to go over those dismal tests from the slide unknown conference. Anyway back to Halloween. So the neighborhood party was great. Kids wrapped their mommies with toilet tissue and made them into mummies, played games, ate and had a good time in general.
So Halloween is over and today Den decided to work on his Amazon wish list and racked up a whopping 93 items on the list. I thought that he was too quiet for too long! And he is also in pursuit of a more noble goal of trying to figure out when Jesus was really born. I think that i am going to discuss a lecture that i heard at "The Holy Land Experience" in Orlando FL. VERY interesting but no matter when He was born we can celebrate that glorious day. THAT's what I want him to remember...

Our neighbor gets mummified:

I won a Blog award!

It doesn't happen very often, which makes it extra special when it does. I just got started blogging last week  and probably should have chronicled my adventure as a medschool mommy and a Mom MD all along. However, I recently started a journal. Plus my friend Rusheika's page inspired me to start one. I am not homeschool but I wish that I could so I'll live vicariously through her. I am flattered and inspired that she awarded me with this friend award !

Rusheika, I have happy memories of our childhood. I continue to learn so much from you. It make me sad to think that our children aren't growing up together like we did.

Now I pass the Friend award on to Path 201X . I have known Path 201X since before I entered medical school. I don't think that she knows how much she has motivated me to a) continue when times get rough and b)choose Pathology. She is also a medical mommy and has been blogging for a long while. Not to mention,s he is one of the people I can most count on to help edit my personal statements. Check out her journey pursuing medical school here !