MCAT: Check!!

MCAT is done! Woo-hoo!!!!!! Do I feel like I did really well? No. Do I feel like I knew a great deal of the information? Not totally. Do I feel like I will have to take it again? Perhaps no. My goal was not to get the highest score on the test, my goal was and is to get a score that does not require me to take that stupid test again. I did not go into the test thinking I was going to ace it, I've been studying while watching my daughter and taking care of my kids; I just know that I do not have the time or resources to take it again. If I absolutely have to then I will cross that bridge when I get to it, but I am at peace with whatever happens. I have to say that I felt good when I took the test, I prayed before starting and I did yoga during my breaks (not full out Ashtanga yoga, that would have been a bit much Lol!) and I felt good. No anxiety, no freak outs. I should probably add that I found out I had pneumonia the Sunday before the test. Yes, I'm for real, I got pneumonia MCAT week. While it sucked, like REALLY sucked, it was a blessing in disguise because I was simply too tired to stress all week and too tired to even force myself to study. I also have to say it was a learning experience because I have never had pneumonia. It will help me be sympathetic to a patient one day because pneumonia is serious business.

So now I'm getting ready for application time. And kind of doing nothing. I plan on working out now (Be gone baby weight!), reading more, watching a lot of nerdy documentaries and, of course, enjoying time with my munchkins and this tall, dark and handsome guy I kind like (and I'm kinda married to). They have all been amazing while I have been crazy the last 4 months so they definitely deserve that from me right now.

On a side note, but interesting: my 10 y.o. has always had a peanut allergy and mild lactose intolerance but about 7 months ago he developed acute lactose intolerance and allergic reactions to about 5 new food items. I took him to the doctor in December and was referred to an allergist. We finally got into the allergist this past week. A week before his appointment he had additionally developed problems with his stomach and was unable to eat anything without having stomach pain, indigestion and heartburn afterwards. My poor little guy was hurting and there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it. It really hurt my heart. Fortunately, the allergist is really amazing. He was knowledgeable and was able to definitively tell me what we needed to do to get him better. He has a morning regimen now with some new medications and we have to completely eliminate dairy from his diet rather than using lactase, but he feels better already and his skin is looking and feeling better (he has eczema too, because they are all connected). I look at every interaction with a physician that I observe or am part of as a learning experience for me. While I hate that my child has to deal with all of this so suddenly, I also am appreciative that we have a network of doctors that knows their s*#$. We are on Medicaid so I was expecting the allergist to not be the best quality (frankly speaking) but I researched the doctor after we saw him and he has been voted as one of Arizona's best the last 2 years. He has an amazing resume and I am just happy that we were blessed enough to have been referred to him. Fingers crossed, my little guy responds well to all of the recommendations the doctor gave and the worst case scenario does not apply (look up eosinophilic esophagitis; um, no thank you).

So now I work on my personal statement, getting some shadowing done with our pediatrician, taking care of myself and taking care of my family. Application opens May 1st, let the countdown begin!!!

9 More Days! (But Who's Counting?)

I take the MCAT in 9 days. I do not feel ready to take it but from what I have gathered from the physicians I work with, it's something you never feel prepared to take. The MCAT is tantamount to taking 2 semesters of OChem, Gen Chem, Physics, A&P and Psychology in one semester and your instructors saying, "At the end of the semester you're going to have a comprehensive final with all of your classes combined and it will not only determine your grade for the semester, it will determine your life!" CRAZY!!! I'm going to continue going over the subjects I feel are most pertinent, continue to do lots of practice questions and prepare as best as I possible can, especially mentally.

I'm trying to stay prayerful and not let my mind delve into everything that could happen and go into a negative mind space. I have a Plan B and a Plan C, I am preparing myself for the possibility of retaking it in July if needed or even taking it later in the year if I am not invited for an interview. I am again reminding myself that God has a plan for me and that I have to surrender to Him. It is hard most of the time for me because I am a worrier by nature but I know I have gotten to where I am because I have been able to surrender myself when it was most needed. I have been really lazy about doing yoga since my pregnancy but I think that this is probably the best time to start again (or 2 months ago but whose keeping track) so that I can stop the incessant chatter that so often fills my mind. I have reserved a room for the night before the test so that I can get a full night's sleep since my itty bitty person still wakes up during the night so I'm a little excited about that and I will certainly allow myself to indulge in a glass of wine before going to sleep. While that might seem counterintuitive to a lot of people, I know myself. I would have an anxiety ridden night, waking up intermittently because I would be dreaming about all of these words and processes I've been studying. No thank you! My goal is to take the MCAT with as little anxiety as possible and to just be able to get through the whole 7.5 hours with a clear mind. Ultimately, I do not want to take it again so if I can get a score that does not require me to take it again and get invited to interviews this cycle, I WILL BE ECSTATIC!

*Any luck, prayers or a combination of both that you would like to send my way is much appreciated.*

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

So I had somewhat of an epiphany a week and a half ago after being utterly exhausted after being up entirely too early in the morning with my daughter. I am standing in the way of my own success by creating obstacles and expectations that are completely not realistic. I had this idea in my head that I could and should be doing everything (taking care of my home, taking care of my kids, taking care of myself and preparing for the MCAT) by myself. In my head I not only thought I could do it but that I should be doing it and if I didn't, I was failing. And then, when I didn't meet my own ridiculous expectations, I became overwhelmed and just shut down, not making dinner, not cleaning the house, not studying, just doing (what I consider) the bare minimum of taking care of the kids and of myself. I have done this for 2 months! I've beating myself up because I've been unsuccessful at balancing a million things with my 2 hands. I didn't ask my husband for help, I didn't ask my mother-in-law for help, I didn't ask my dad for help and I didn't tell anyone that I felt like I was drowning. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I was almost delirious with exhaustion after getting 3 hours of sleep one night because my daughter (who is almost 9 months old) decided that waking up at 4:30 in the morning and playing for 3 hours was an amazing idea. Of course it was the night I decided to stay up a late as well. I have been tired for 8 months but that day just brought about the ultimate level of exhaustion. I began to rethink whether taking the MCAT and even applying to medical school this cycle was really what I should be doing. I had to really sit back and reevaluate EVERYTHING.

Sooooooo, what I have decided after talking to my family and asking for some help, I am going to take the next month and REALLY focus on studying so that I can take the April 17th MCAT. I figure even if I don't get the score I want, I will have experienced the environment of taking the exam, I have time to retake it before schools start setting up interviews and, in the case that I am ok with my score, IT WILL BE DONE AND I DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THAT DAMN TEST AGAIN! I have a lot of information to cover and thinking that I will do well the first time I'm taking it is pretty unrealistic but crazier things have happened to me; I mean look at what I'm trying to do at the age of 36 with 3 kids. I have to believe that I have been put on this path to complete it.

"If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it."

I've Got to Get This Together!

So it's official! I am scheduled to take the MCAT on April 17th! I am super freaked out!!!!!!! I have been struggling with studying consistently and fitting it all in. I took a practice test last week and I was very disappointed with my score. If I got that score on the real MCAT, I would never make it into medical school. Needless to say, I felt very deflated. I had to tell myself, and my husband helped, that I have only been studying for a month and that score is not indicative of what my final test score will be. It was still hard to swallow.

So I've been thinking about everything a lot lately and yesterday I had a "Come to Jesus moment." I did some yoga yesterday and was meditating/praying at the end. It was hard, but I had to allow myself to admit my fears, my anxiety and how little credit I give myself. I have come so far since I started school again 5 years ago. I had 3 goals then:

1. Get my Associates degree (Check!)
2. Get my Bachelor's degree (Check!)
3. Become a doctor (In progress)

I have accomplished 2 of my goals and I have done really well under the circumstances. I was able to juggle my monkeys, school and taking care of myself. This last goal feels so much bigger though. I think part of it is having this new little person who requires so much more of me and part of it is the overwhelming feeling that I can't do it, that it's just too much. But I digress, so realizing all that I have already accomplished and reminding myself that becoming a doctor is not only a choice I have made, it is my calling. I truly believe that God only asks certain people to live a life of service and he has asked that of me. Taking all of that in, I allowed myself to go through my fears, think about what would happen if I do not do well on the MCAT or if I don't get accepted to a medical school, and I let it go (mostly). I also had to remind myself of how I got to where I am now. I just did it! I did not make excuses, I kept myself accountable and I killed it! I have struggled with all of these things since having the baby. I know part of it is having a new baby and being the primary caregiver but part of it is figuring out how to juggle an additional item. I'll have to be creative, I'll have to be purposeful and I'll have to find new avenues to motivate myself. I know I can do it, I just have to figure out the best way for me to get there and be patient with myself. I have to be more prayerful and take everything as it come rather than becoming impatient and frustrated when my plans do not go as planned. I think part of that is also going to be me creating realistic goals in all aspects of my life: academic, family, and health. I can't say that I have it all figured out but I can say that I am working towards that direction.

"I am working for what my heart is saying."

"If it is both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it." ~ Erada

The Struggle Is Real!

Week 3 of MCAT studying and I'm struggling already! I think it's a combination of a few things though.

1) I feel so overwhelmed! I think I am trying to do too much. I have been doing Coursesaver videos AND Examcrackers with Audio Osmosis for all of my subjects. I don't know if that is the best way to go about it. My thought was that I would go through one and the 2nd would solidify the information but instead I got overwhelmed by how "behind" I was getting by not following my schedule because it was so much material to cover. Unfortunately my response to feeling overwhelmed is to occupy myself with other (non-productive) stuff.

2) Studying and taking care of a 7 month old is hard, REALLY hard! Some days she takes a couple of really good naps that allow me to really dive into my studying and other days she takes a series of 20-30 minute naps all day. At 4 I have to pick up my little monkeys from school and then I'm helping with homework and getting dinner ready. I can sometimes get some studying done after dinner but my itty bitty one usually stays awake for a while before going to sleep for the night. By that time, I'm usually almost ready for bed myself. And she still wakes up in the middle of the night. That being said........

3) I'm sleep deprived and I do not function well without sleep. Everyday I tell myself I'm going to go to sleep at an appropriate time, I end up staying up late to spend time with the hubby or waiting for my itty bitty one to wake up for her 1st nightly feeding. At the same time, I'm usually tired by 10 and I can no longer study when I am tired because my brain just stops functioning properly.

Sooooooo, I'm taking a couple of days to re-center myself and reevaluate how I am studying. I know I can do it, I just have to figure out how to do it best for me and my situation and not allow myself to get overwhelmed by the material or consumed by keeping to my schedule. I need to make myself go to sleep at a decent time everyday so I can feel rested in the morning when I wake up. I also need to become more prayerful. Sometimes what you want or how you want to do something isn't what you need. It's time to surrender myself to His will because He will make sure everything gets done when it needs to get done. That's how I got to this point but I seemed to have forgotten that. I got this!

I'm Baa-aaaack!!!

What an eventful 7 months it has been. My little munchkin made her entrance on the day that my c-section was scheduled June 12, 2014. She wasn't even trying to come early, not even a little. She was 9lbs 10oz of awesomeness though!

She was a few weeks old here

While having her has been amazing and I definitely see how different it is parenting a girl considering I have 2 boys, getting back into the swing of things has been really challenging. I found that I was able to move around with her much sooner than I did with my boys, but I have seriously struggled with getting back to where I want to be mentally and physically. As determined as I was to take the MCAT shortly after having her, it was impossible to find the time, energy and focus to study. I was very against taking the 2015 MCAT but I found that it was the only solution for my current life so I will be taking it in April 2015.

I have genuinely enjoyed spending time with my baby girl and my boys but around October I started to go a little stir crazy. The whole stay-at-home thing is really difficult for my personality because I thrive on having time to myself and having an identity outside of "Mommy." I definitely commend those mommies who are able to do that and enjoy it. I started getting emails about scribe positions that were near me and decided to do a search for open positions. The first search result happened to be for 2 hospitals that are very near my home and were looking for people to work 2 shifts a week. My husband has an extremely flexible schedule that would allow me to work one weekday and one weekend day so I decided to apply. I interviewed and got the position. So far, I have loved it! It allows me to be immersed in the medical field on the days that I work but still allows me to be the primary person at home with my little people. It also allows me to continue moving forward, towards my goal of becoming a doctor and gives me motivation to continue on my journey. I will also be able to get some really kick ass references from physicians, specifically from DOs.

January 5th I will begin studying for the April MCAT. For the next couple of weeks I will organizing my house and figuring out how to organize my life so that I can study effectively for the 3.5 months I have to study. My goal is to get a strong score and not have to retake it. I am feeling a little overwhelmed when I consider the MCAT in it's entirety so I find that I have to think about it in pieces and parts, scheduling EVERYTHING I have to study and keeping track of it all. I know I know it will be challenging but I feel like I have the support and the drive to get it done. I'd be lying if I said I'm not a little terrified though. I am very type A when it comes to my studying so I have created a daily checklist for my study days, a set of calendar sheets for January-April that will allow me to schedule entire months, a detailed list of all of the topics covered in the books and videos I have access to and I'm about to create a binder to organize all of those things together. Once I find all of my colored markers, I have my study calendar set and I organize all of my topics in the way that I like, my anxiety level will go from a 10 to a 7, which I can deal with. Lol!

In the meantime, I will enjoy my little people, especially the itty bitty one who I can finally make laugh and I will enjoy the days my husband has off for the holidays. It's about time to start baking and planning the upcoming holiday meals. Happy Holidays friends!

My 3 monkeys!

My itty bitty person

So Much Completed and So Much More to Go But First an Intermission

Where has the time gone?! I have been super lazy about updating my blog. I suppose pregnancy will do that to you. Since March life has been tired and busy and really tired. So I had 2 major things to complete in order to graduate. The first one being my honors thesis project. I had created the nutrition curriculum for the research project I had been working on for 2 years and it was implemented by another person in a 10 week efficacy trial. I feel like it was pretty successful and both my director and 2nd reader were happy with the curriculum and the results following the conclusion of the trial. So much so, that they want to continue using my curriculum when the trial is expanded and my second reader, who is a nutrition professor, said she may consider using it in other projects she is working on. Yay me! I was really excited about this because it is a project that really came from my heart and that I am very passionate about and I plan to continue to develop and grow it into something that other parents can use. I'm hoping to eventually create a website and a YouTube channel for the curriculum and include some additional data that I have found to educate parents so that they are able to educate their children.

The other project that I had to complete in order to graduate was the completion of my internship at A.T. Still University in the virtual anatomy lab. I had really hoped to maximize the "free-time" I had to really focus on completing my research but with the difficulty of this pregnancy, I found that to be really difficult. With my 2 previous pregnancies I worked until at least a week before giving birth and I did not have any physical or mental issues that kept me from working. THIS TIME, I was constantly feeling as though my brain could not function properly. I couldn't remember anything, my normal school schedule, in terms of studying and organizing my work, was completely thrown out the window and after a certain time of day, FORGET ABOUT IT!, my brain ceased to work in any type of coherent manner. But I digress, having said all of that, I found it incredibly difficult to focus on the research I had to complete for that research project and was a total slacker. I completed all of the necessary projects for the class portion of the course but I really feel like I let the site supervisor I was working with down. I also feel like I might have blown a really great opportunity to prove myself at an institution that I want so badly to attend. He was really understanding about my pregnancy, but I felt like I was making excuses. My only saving grace with this is that he has agreed to allow me to continue working on this project going forward, even as long as an additional year. The research really is something I am really interested in (How cadaveric dissection in medical schools may be impacting the number of Native Americans applying to medical school and how it can be and has been dealt with currently at medical schools; also how virtual anatomy may play a part in increasing the number of Native American applicants by decreasing cadaver contact) and the potential to be published is pretty great because there is no current literature that addresses this particular topic, that I have found anyway. I'm going to leave it to God and hope that my site supervisor (who is a doctor I could get a letter of recommendation from!) is still willing to work with me once my brain begins to work appropriately, assuming that happens after new baby exhaustion. Lol! Let go and let God, right?

With those two things complete, I was able to breath a sigh of relief and my only other concern was my last nutrition class which I did enjoy. I am very proud to say that I completed my degree graduating with honors and magna cum laude (3.68 GPA). One of the proudest days of my life. It took me 4.5 years to get here but I have been able to check off 2 of my goals, getting my A.A. and getting my B.S. and I did both spectacularly.

I have made the decision to postpone my medical school application until next year for 2 reasons: 1) there is no way my brain would be able to put together the personal statement and subsequent essays necessary in order to make myself a strong candidate; nor would I have the letter I really want from the doctor I have been working with 2) there is NO WAY I would be able to take the MCAT by August and get a decent score so that I might be invited for an interview this fall. What this means is instead of 1 mommy year, I'll get 2 mommy years. In reality, I think this is much better for me and for my family. I think that it is important to allow your brain to run free for a while so as to not overload myself and get back to doing the things that make me happy with out the stress of expectations. Also, I think that I owe it to my little people to spend some time focusing only on them, especially this new little munchkin that will be coming (hopefully VERY soon). Most of all, I think my super awesome husband especially deserves the opportunity to explore what he wants for the next 2 years. He is making major life changes as well and as supportive as he has been for me and my goals/dreams, I know he needs that time as well. He is transitioning into becoming a basketball coach and coaching is a time consuming profession. It requires long hours that do not necessarily pay in terms of currency but allow for networking and producing results by seeing kids grow in skill, maturity and knowledge, about basketball and life. In order to be able to do what he needs to do and be prepared for the time when I have to put my full focus on medical school, I know he needs to be able to do what he needs to do now and put in the time so that it is easier for our family in the long run, wherever we end up due to my schooling. It is going to be challenging, it is going to be hard because I am not the SAHM type but most of all I know it will be fun to be able to engage at my boys' school, to spend time with my little girl and to be at everyone of my husband's functions. No matter what, family comes before all else.

I have so many things I want to do for myself over the next 2 years as well. Aside from the research and development of my nutrition education, I also plan on keeping myself well-read, getting into better shape than I was before I got pregnant (possibly even playing basketball again; I was a collegiate basketball player BTW and I am definitely seeing a half marathon and marathon in my future) and starting a new blog about my life, an autobiography of sorts. The last thing, in particular, is something I have always wanted to do. I have lived an interesting and eventful life that I have always felt may resonate with others if not for the experiences, for the way in which I allowed myself to grow from my experiences. I'll be taking time off from blogging for a while as I wait for my newest bundle of joy to make her grand entrance but never fear, as soon as studying for the MCAT begins, hopefully in August, I'LL BE BACK!!!