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Friday, October 23, 2015

Gotta Keep Moving Forward

Soooooo, it' been a minute. I feel like the last 3 months have been crazy busy and have gone by entirely too fast. Well, I am still working on my applications, clearly still dragging my feet a little, but I am committed to finishing by the end of next week. I have 1 LOR completed and submitted, and 1 more to work on. I was able to go to a pre-health conference at UC Davis a few weeks ago which was pretty amazing. I was able to make a few connections, find out about some new programs at my top school of interest and really regain my confidence in myself because my worth as a non-traditional student was validated by many of the admissions advisors for several medical schools. Listening to what many of the people who are part of admissions committee said about the importance of life experience and being authentic in interviews made me realize that I am absolutely what schools are looking for in an applicant. Also, going to that conference made me realized that I am way too old to sit in a car for hours and be able to physically recoup quickly. Can we say swollen feet and sore back and ridiculous tiredness? Yup, all of it. And on top of that, my friend and I probably were 2 of the oldest people there, probably close to the age of some of the parents who were there with their child. Mmmm-hmmmm....

**I often talk about personal things on my blog, but I try to keep some level of "space" so that I am primarily talking about my path to medical school, but sometimes life just gets in the way and I feel compelled to share those parts at times too.**

There are a couple of things that have really impacted me finishing my application. I have talked about my son in previous posts and how we have been trying to figure out his health situation. Long story short, he has always had a peanut allergy but last year in September he suddenly developed multiple allergies to different foods (tree nuts, tomatoes, carrots, pineapple, and, recently strawberries) and severe lactose intolerance. He previously had very mild lactose intolerance but it became severe very rapidly. In April of this year he began having severe abdominal pain after eating and started taking Omeprazole, which helped minimally. Over the summer we had several doctor visits and a few ER visits. He has developed reactions to some new foods, has become more sensitive to the ones he already had, and has developed chronic constipation along with it. In August, just as school started, he went through a period of 3 weeks where he was vomiting daily, had a couple of syncopal/near syncopal episodes and felt really horrible every single day. After a visit to the children's hospital, we got him on a medication for his stomach that actually makes everything bearable and stopped the daily vomiting. He still has chronic abdominal pain but he has an appetite and is gaining weight. Two weeks ago we finally got an official diagnosis from his allergist of Oral Allergy Syndrome (OAS). He is in the 2% of people with OAS who has severe reactions to foods. (If this interests you, I encourage you to look it up. It is not well known and even some of the physicians I have talked to have never heard of it. There is a lot of literature out there on it.) Unfortunately, it also seems to be getting worse so there is trepidation every time he eats fruits or vegetables, even ones he has not had a reaction to before, because it seems to be ever changing. He had started immunotherapy for his pollen allergies, which are tied to his OAS, but the higher the dosage was, the less he was able to tolerate the dosages and we are currently taking a break from them. I say all of this because this has been my focus for the past few months and it has felt impossible to put any focus on anything else. While we are in a good place right now with his health, I want more answers than we are receiving right now and he is definitely a work in progress. He's getting there though. :-)

So the other thing that I have been dealing with is trying to get help with the depression I have been dealing with since having my daughter. I have not spoken about this to anyone other than my family but I feel like it is having a bigger impact than I had thought and it is something that so many women deal with after having a baby. I do not recall feeling this way after my first 2 pregnancies, but then again, I did not stay home after my first 2 pregnancies because I was working full-time in managerial positions so if I did have those feelings, I did not bother to acknowledge them. It is really hard and I am trying to find help with my depression because I need to learn how to deal with it before I am able to move forward.

That is where I am right now but I know that I still need to continue moving forward because despite all of these obstacles, I am still determined to start osteopathic school in the fall of 2016 and I feel very confident that there is a good possibility that I will be able to do that. If you pray, I welcome your prayers, if you believe in the transfer of energy, I welcome your positive energy.

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