Day 3294: THE MD!

I am no longer "On to an MD," friends. I HAVE IT!

The entire outfit -- tam, hood, and all

With the man who has supported me unconditionally these past four years

With all my loved ones who came out to support me on my big day!

With all the signs my sister and friends made

With the best sister ever and her favorite sign

Thank you to my friends and family who physically came out, who texted or called, who were there with me in spirit on the big day. An equal thank you to all of you who have supported me these past...gosh, six years? SIX YEARS! Through phone calls, visits, care packages -- it has all meant so much to me and I will never forget it. So...

Day 3075: Thank You

While looking for my passport today, I came across all these cards you all have sent me over the years. I can't thank each of you enough for all the support and love you have given me, but I'm sure going to try in the coming months. Here is just a tiny sample of all the love I have received in my 3+ years in Wisconsin.

Day 2961: It's all good.

Hey y'all,

Thank you to those who reached out to me regarding my previous post. I am fine. I'm sorry it made you all sad too. It's just strange to me that I have been able to make life-long friends in every aspect of my life (high school, college, post-baccalaureate studies) and yet I cannot seem to make a single G-D friend in medical school. I might have one -- the misogynist. But, as Danny pointed out, this is all up in the air. I may surprise myself with who I keep in touch with. I may actually keep in touch with people. Instead of getting down in the dumps about it (as is my M.O.), he recommends being more open-minded about it. I am trying, but it's much easier to be a Debbie Downer than it is to be Miss I-Love-Life.

I had my first real day of pediatric clinic today and I really enjoyed myself. I saw patients by myself, wrote notes, diagnosed some people. It was a good day. I told an anesthesiologist I met today that I wanted to do med-peds and he was very supportive. It made me feel good to know that in spite of the varied opinions I get from attendings regarding my decision to pursue med-peds, I think it's the right one for me. Now, to ensure that D and I end up in the same place. Battle numero dos.

Day 2323: I'm back!

Hello everyone!

Firstly, thank you all for being so patient, supportive and wonderful about this time away from the blog. I'm sure you were all itching for a post, and here it is. In all it's glory.

What I'm sure you are all wondering, if we haven't already spoken/texted/communicated, is that the exam was fine. It felt a lot like the question bank I had been doing, and in that regard, that was nice. There was familiarity. Otherwise, it sounds like whether you barely scrape by with a pass or get a rockstar-score, everyone feels like the exam was a complete sh!t-show, pardon my French. So. My exam score comes back in the next few weeks and I will let you know how it pans out for me. (Depending on the score I get, if it's competitive enough, I will still pursue urology. If it isn't very strong, I will enter family medicine and be 100% happy and confident in that decision.)

Anyway, enough snoozefest boards stuff. I am positive you are all bored out of your mind of my "I'm so stressed" "boo hoo Jess" blah blah blah. Me too.

Disney World was a ton of fun! Danny had come to the conclusion after Day 1 (of 4) that this was going to be a very different trip to Disney. Normally, he puts the pedal to the metal and wears himself out from a 12+ hour day, every day. With his parents getting older, and me having an "oh yeah sure, whatever you want" attitude, I think he realized that he wasn't going to hit everything he wanted and he was okay with that. We still had an awesome, fun, hot-and-humid time! Danny's parents were unbelievably generous on this trip. Not only did they pay for my flight and lodging, they paid for my food and even bought me some stuff (a rash guard and new swimsuit, both on sale!) just because they wanted to. I was incredibly humbled by their kindness.

Don't think I forgot how lame text blog posts are. Here are some pictorial manifestations of Disney!

I painted these Donald Duck nails the day of our flight.

The iconic Disney castle.

I painted these shirts for us!

I couldn't leave Danny's parents in the customized-shirts cold!

Our first Splash Mountain picture.

The rebel spy!

Our second Splash Mountain picture. The photo attendant
actually laughed when he saw it. Probably because my face of
sheer terror (all acted, by the way) was amusing as hell.

Day 2270: Sick, dying, and thank you

Hey all,

The quickest post to tell you I am sick. For the third time this year! Apparently it's true, when you are stressed out, you get sick much faster. I am never ever sick. And now I am on icky-feeling-number-three for the year 2013.

I am dying of stress. Not my sickness. My whatever-this-is involves a lot of clogged noses and nose-blowing and somewhat phlegm-y feeling throat. My cumulative final for pathology is on May 9th (!!!) and then my final exam of microbiology is on May 13th. Luckily micro is not cumulative, but still. I'm not terribly stressed about either exam, so much as busy going over the material (the previous seven blocks of path) and learning the new stuff (dermatology, breast, thyroid, etc). The true stress comes from the fact that my board exams are a little more than 5 or 6 weeks away! I'm still on the fence about moving my test date up, but everyone and their mother's brother's niece's dog says that I will either burn out by my current test date (June 17th) or stress myself out so much in that time (aka Jessica will become bald like Homer Simpson -- with three lone strands of hair left), so we'll see.

How sad is my life? I am straight-up excited for finals to be over, not because I have finished another somewhat-hellish year and am heading in to the hospital (!!), but rather my excitement is due to the fact that I can finally dedicate my desired 10-12 hours a day of solely boards studying. Very sad Jessica. Pitiful actually.

Thank you all for your texts and care packages (BEL-C)! I feel so lucky to have people who love and care about me so much. Especially when I have essentially turned my back on everyone to get through the last 5 weeks of pure hell. Thank you. From the bottom of my cold, dead heart. My heart will beat again soon and I will be the friend each of you so deserve.

There might be radio silence until then so I wanted to end it on a positive note. Honestly and truly. Thank you all.