Friday, August 25, 2017

Why don't you have children? -a rant


Look here…
I’m 27 years old. I’m single. I do not have kids.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want any, that just means right now is not the time. How could it be “the time”? I’m also a non-traditional pre-med student studying for the MCAT and finishing pre-requisites.
Now…is not…the time.
And while I very much love my very smart and funny nephew and niece, and the one that’s on the way that I don’t know the gender yet, I don’t think that is enough for me to have one or two of my own right now.
Earlier on in the summer, a young man asked me, “Mel, how old are you?”
and I said (at the time) “26”. He then asked, “well, when are you trying to have kids?”
I told him not right now. Because now is not the time. Another young man asked me yesterday if I had children and I said no and then he asked me “why not?”
Why don’t I, at 27 years old, have children? 
Well…

Why do I have to have a reason for not having any children at 27 years old? Don’t you know what it takes to have children? I’m not talking about sex and being pregnant for 9 months. I’m talking about life after the baby takes that first breath. 
Let’s turn the tables and ask you, at whatever age you are…? Why DO you have kids?
His response was that life happened and blah blah blah..
Okay, so “life” hasn’t happened to me yet. That’s it. Or “MY life” is happening and I have something that is more pressing for me to do right now than have a baby…
I want to become a DOCTOR. If I end up doing something else, whatever it is, I want to be successful in MY eyes and right now that does not include having a child.

ouch.

And while I have the time, while I don’t have anyone dependent on me, why not work to accomplish that? That is my baby. My education, my career goals…those are my babies. They are taxing, they require all of my strength, my courage, my will, my emotions, my beloved sleep, my sanity. My time. They will take some years to grow and become what I dreamed them to be. How about asking me that? What do I want to do with my life aside from have children? 
Very few men ask women my age that kind of question. Or maybe it’s…very few men ask me that kind of question…just so that I’m speaking for myself here.
And to all the mothers out there who accomplished their goals and took care of their children at the end of the day, you have all the applause from me. I can’t fathom doing it, I don’t know how you all did it and I suppose I’d figure out a way if it came down to it, but since that is not my case, then…*Kanye shrug*

I’m 27 years old. I’m single. I do not have kids.
Sure I’d like to have children of my own someday. But that is all my decision as far as when for the most part. There’s so much else I could say but this is a rant and I wrote everything as it came to mind so that it could be in its purest form…so that my sentiments could be felt. There’s nothing wrong with having children, everyone. But I shouldn’t have to justify why I don’t have any right now. 

Sunday, August 20, 2017

*blows dust*...

...*coughs*
This is becoming a trend and I'm sorry.
I post a new blog entry and then months pass before the next one comes.
The beginning of this year just wasn’t the time for blogging. Neither was the end of the last.
I’ll tell you why…
Instead of experiencing “life” and finding cool adult things to blog about as I was doing before, I was developing heavy anxiety and slight depression. School and work were no longer working out together. NOTHING was working out. I became a nervous wreck. I was so bent on being superwoman and making everything work that I couldn’t think straight. I cried often. I told my guy that I couldn’t see him because I was crying all the time. Why?

I didn’t want him to see me crying all day. I didn’t want anyone to see me crying, period.

Who wants to read sad blog posts? I couldn’t give that kind of material to those who actually read this thing. I debated it though…I wanted to document my feelings. I thought maybe if I shared what I was experiencing I’d reach somebody somewhere out there and…

I didn’t write a damn thing.

I couldn't write anything. Not much really. And then I'd see everything on paper and not want to see it anymore so I deleted them. My trash can is FULL of unfinished word documents. I was already feeling bad about work and school and then not being able to write like I used to...like this was worse than writer's block.
Late July I started to feel myself again. I had less crying spells. I realized I was significantly thinner than I was at the beginning of the summer. I went to see “him”. I read and finished Shonda Rhimes' Year of Yes! and one part stuck out to me...

"If I am succeeding at one, I am inevitably failing at the other."
and then something else stuck out to me...
"...ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU THEY ARE DOING IT ALL PERFECTLY IS A LIAR."
Because its true. We can't do it ALL. I can attest to that. I tried, and this time everything failed.

And so I've finally come to terms with that. It stings a little bit here and there but I surely don't cry randomly anymore. I'm much more at ease these days. I learned that because things don't work out, its not the end of the world BUT that doesn't mean you won't feel it. If you do feel it, give yourself enough time to let the feelings pass. They will pass but you have to be patient. I didn't know when that time would come for me but I just celebrated a birthday on the 15th and it was great. I wasn't worried about anything; just spent quality time with friends.

So that concludes it, I guess. I can see my progress and it's encouraging. I plan to keep this blogging thing going too; next, I’ll have to blog about my stay in Seattle.

But until then…that’s all folks!

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Checking in!

Never have I ever thought that switching jobs would be this HARD.
I chose to apply to become a medical scribe because my current job was frustrating in a lot of ways, and it wasn't medical related. I wanted something I could build my previous medical skills on, learn new things, and be of some help to people. So I got a call back and scheduled an interview.
Interview was scheduled for a Tuesday. Killed the interview. Interviewer was impressed. He asked me when I could start training and I foolishly said, "Thursday"...

Okay...I will say this. Now that I'm through with what I went through for training, I can see I'll enjoy my job. But for any of you wanting to become a medical scribe...beware of WHEN you choose to apply and start training. There is so much required of you and if you're taking heavy courses you will hurt yourself in the long run. Who knows...some of you may be able to handle the pressure. But I couldn't for the most part. I forfeited an enjoyable spring break to make sure I didn't fail my daily quizzes (I failed one miserably...like I got a 9/30) and ultimately the final exam that I had to get 80% on or else I'd be terminated.

Folding my paper in half helped memorize a lot of the terms I needed to know.
Some of the pathophysiology info I had to learn
 I was basically cramming medical terminology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology in seven days. Then, if and only if we passed the final exam, we had what they call "T-sheet training where you learn how to document patient encounters on paper.

Add that to Organic Chem. II, Physics I, and an actual Medical Terminology course online for school. To be honest, I couldn't prioritize anything. Everything was important. I missed my first three assignments for medical terminology and its by God's grace that my professor didn't drop me for not "showing up". I became so scatter brained that even though I was writing things in my planner...I eventually stopped because I was overwhelmed (which was a bad thing to do), which in turn made me more overwhelmed because I forgot things I needed to do and wouldn't remember until the day before it was due...

So I've had a rough three weeks or so at the very least. Being a scribe gives you all kinds of exposure in the medical field that you can't get anywhere else, but it comes at a cost. You have to work for it. I actually can only speak for my company, which I'll keep nameless for now...forever really. Some people in my training class didn't pass the exam and they had more days than I did to train. My manager called me personally to congratulate me for overcoming that and I still haven't taken that to heart because, to me, I'm not fully cleared at the moment. I still need to do well for floor training starting tomorrow night (right before a physics exam btw...but no pressure, right?).

But thank God for bringing me through so far. Thank God for friends and family who let me gripe about things. The whole struggle was doable because I have people who let me know that I was not alone, even though I felt that way very often. I felt that people really don't understand what I go through and think I'm being momentarily weak, but I'm not. Part of it is due to not taking care of myself properly. If I told you how I've been feeling lately you'd be quite concerned. I say this all the time, I only want you to understand how I feel, not tell me how to fix it or fix it for me. Not everyone understands that, but those that do are the ones you hold on to. "Let me know what I can do to help you" is a very well appreciated thing to say to someone who's dealing with a lot. Just listening is appreciated too!

So that's all I've got for you. That's why I haven't blogged in so long, and resorted to writing little things on my IG captions! Once everything slows down I can hopefully do more with this thing. I don't want to give it up!