DELAYS...The story of my life

Pictures :(T ) Jess and the Snowman :- )

(T) Sheida studying anatomy after power outage from blizzard

(B) Margarita/Taco Night with the PA family :-)

Hello my fellow readers,

It has been awhile since I wrote a blog, and this is mainly do to being EXTREMELY BUSY. I had forgotten just what spring semester was like until I was thrown back into it and TADA its certainly a whirlwind that many term as "organized chaos". The most challenging thing about this semester is trying to manage your time. The spring semester is filled with 4 VERY IMPORTANT classes in which all the information from each is necessary for you to know like the back of your hand. Its not like in 1st semester where you may be thinking when will I use statistics in life? or Do I really have to know this much about ERISA in PA and healthcare? Now you are faced with the classes that contain the meat of your career. These classes teach you how to be a Physician Assistant.

You have Clinical medicine I in which you are learning different diseases & the etiologies, epidemiology, clinical presentations, complications, labs, & differential diagnoses that go with them. Luckily they have changed some really good things about this program, because they are finally introducing pharmacology early on instead of throwing it all at you in the summertime. Nice to know they really do listen to the students and change things accordingly :-) :-)

You also have Physical exam and history taking which shows you how to perform a physical exam based on the diseases that you learn about in Clinical medicine. Finally you have both anatomy 2 and neuroanatomy which shows you how to identify certain things in the body. It also shows you how to recognize if a person is suffering from a brain tumor, & where the tumor is most likely located based on presentation, along with other neurological diseases that range from Multiple Sclerosis to Broca's Aphasia.

You are probably reading this all and becoming overwhelmed with the descriptions alone, well try being thrown into this chaoticness ( I bet thats not even a word ha :-) ). Nevertheless, having my wonderful classmates makes this time go by so much faster and makes each day much more enjoyable than you would think it could ever be. You have to realize that every PA program has the duty to teach you BOOK knowledge in 15-17 months that medical students get in 4 years. Then you have another 12-15 months turning your book knowledge into actual clinical practice. No matter where you go, its always going to be hard and time consuming. It's really about how you make the best of it. Those Sushi nights, Martini nights, jewelry parties, those nights baking brownies or birthday cakes for different people in our class somehow brings a soothing feeling to this "organized chaos". It makes it a little more calm knowing that we are going to get through this semester together. The best part about the Spring and the summer is that everything goes so quickly that by the time you can really complain about it, its over and you're on your way to becoming a 2nd year :-)....A lot of "real" 1st years ask me if this is possible, can this be done? I usually reply with "If I passed with all the stuff that was going on in my life the first time I was enrolled at SU, then you brilliant minds can pass with flying colors." And they have been doing more than just passing. My new class is quite amazing & extremely intelligent to say the least.

In our prayer group we talked about how faith, dedication, priorities and recognizing that everything in life is a season will get you through anything. The sooner we recognize that, the more we will allow ourselves to take the wonderful moments away from the seasons in your life. Afterall the seasons of life, just like spring or summer , to shall pass & if you don't learn to appreciate many things about the current season that you are in, you will find yourself missing out on some really amazing things that it may have to offer you!...Right now I'm in the season called PA school. Stressful, but worth every minute if it means in the end I will be able to distribute healthcare to the people who need it the most. And let's be honest making $80,000-$100,000 a year isn't exactly a bad starting salary either :-)

So how am I even able to write to you all when I just stated 2-4 paragraphs ago, that I have a lot of work I need to be doing..HHMM well maybe because school is cancelled today due to this massive snow storm that we are supposed to be getting. I love these storms as it gives you a moment to catch up on life period. Not just studying and school life, but family and friends as well. Anytime you can get an unexpected "day to yourself" in PA school it's always a blessing.

So I titled this post Delays the story of my life because I used to think delays meant postponing what you have planned and making it harder to get back on track. Honestly though how can anything be planned when the only person who has control over your life is God. I realize delays like graduation from PA school, or missing a class that you really needed to go to, or not being able to be married just yet, or starting a family, or having fun with friends are actually not all bad. Delays just allow you to take a second and really appreciate everything you have in life....I think most delays ( including snow delays :-) ) are a blessing in disguise....

So here are my random thoughts of the day. I hope you enjoyed this one :-) I promise one of these days I'm going to figure out how to post pictures to this blog...All this excitement that I talk about would be better understood through pictures. Afterall they say pictures say 1000 words and Im sure I only typed 999 ha..ha :-)....Toodles guys & gals!

Time flies when you're having fun,

Taneisha

P.S. I have talked to just about everyone in the class of 2009 and they are ALL currently PA-C...Shenandoah definitely prepares you to pass the PANCE exam & to become a fabulous Physician Assistant....WOOHOO :-)