Chop Chop and other events and brave decisions.....

Life has been a little crazy since my lovely trip to Alaska. My rotation ended well, and though I was happy to coming home to my husband, I was also sad to be leaving Wes and that beautiful island. I can see why he loves it there.

I started a rotation in the ER right away. I was worried, before I started the rotation, that I would like the rotation so much that I would decided to change my residency applications from internal medicine to emergency medicine. I am happy to report that this change did not occur. After just a shift or two in the ER, it was apparent to me that I'm SO OVER the ER.
This realization should have solidified my decision to do IM. ER was sort of the last unsolved variable, and having it solved should have made the equation sort itself out. This, however, was not the case. I had my applications ready to go, my personal statement painstakingly composed, and I just couldn't bring myself to push the send button on the computer.
For those of you who have ever done a SuDoKu puzzle, this felt like getting down to two squares and realizing that somewhere in the 79 squares before now you must have made a mistake, because you need a 4 in your row across, but there's already a 4 in that column down. Something was wrong, and I didn't know what it was.
After some soul searching, I discovered that the problem was that I simply didn't want to go into IM at all. I have, therefore, chosen a different path--I am applying to Family Medicine residencies. There were a lot of factors that went into making this decision, and I won't bore you with the details, but I just want to say that I feel SO GOOD about the decision. I couldn't ever make myself completely commit to IM. If someone asked me, "What are you going into?" I would always say, "Well, I'm leaning towards internal medicine." Now that I've decided on family medicine, it's so easy to tell people that I'm doing family. I've had to change all of my applications and my personal statement, etc, but even with all of the extra work that it has caused, I cannot tell you how good I feel about this decision. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and that I had forgotten how easy it could be to breathe.

As if to signify that a great change had taken place, though this was not a conscious connection I made in my mind until just now, a few days after I made the big decision, I had an appointment to get my hair cut, and I decided it was time for a change!


Chop Chop!



This weekend, Steve and I were able to meet little Momma and Chelsee in Cedar City and see "The Tempest." It was very well done, as is usually the case with the shows the put on in Cedar City. For promotional pictures and a synopsis of the plot, see Chelsee's blog!
Here are some pictures of us on the campus and at our favorite discussion spot: Lighthouse Coffee.





We always have a great time in Cedar, and it's been really nice to have little Momma and Chelsee come meet us there the last 2 years.

After we got home from Cedar last night, I decided that it was time to screw my courage to the sticking place and send my residency applications. Steve sat down with me and we researched different programs. The residency match will determine his life as much as mine, so the decision was for us to make together. We ended up deciding to apply to 19 programs. We applied to all 4 FM residencies in Utah, and then also applied in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming.
The next decisions are out of our hands. Keep us in your good thoughts and prayers. Our desire is to stay close to home, and also for me to be in a residency that will be a good environment for me to continue to learn and grow. At this point, I just have to trust that we're going to end up in a place that is right/good for us.

Whew! I need a drink. =)
Cheers.