Common issue among "professionals"

I've debated for over a year and a half mentioning the following in a post, however I feel the need to in light of Michael Jackson's death. I know from expereince that there are people who are silently dealing with this exact same issue and are afriad to speak to someone about it. Hopefully this post will encourage them to talk to someone.

For the past year and a half, I've been in the rather unfortunate situation of dealing regularly with a person with a few additions. And I'm not talking about addition to coffee or working out either. If someone had said to me when I finished high school that at 42, I would NOT be done with med school/practicing and personally know an addict, I would have laughed. Of course the idioticy of that statement is the fact that among professionals, Doctors have the highest rate of drug use and abuse. But I kinda have this savior thing going that I'm trying to get rid of, where I'll try to help people often to the point of not only not benefitting myself, but of hurting myself. And maybe that's part of why medicine is so appealing to me because you frequently get to help people who can't or don't want to help themselves. Unfortunately, the thing about addicts is that you NEVER know that they're going to do and often times the things they do are just down right mean and hurtful. Irronically, most people would be suprised to know that the most highly educated in society often have the deepest demons, which includes being able to carry on everyday as if everything is normal. And because they can carry on everyday like everything is normal, unless you personally know an addict or the signs, picking up on the "clues" isn't something everyone can do. Truth be told, looking back I probably missed a few.

It's interesting because the image most people have of an addict is some minority crack head, with their hair uncombed, track marks on their arms, in dirty clothes, smelling like trash. What I'm telling you is that many addicts and I'm not just talking about drug addicts, wear Versace or Brooks Brothers suits with Prada shoes, smell like Bvlgari, rarely miss a day from work, and wouldn't dare leave the house with their hair not "aqua netted" down.

Unfortunately, this is one of those pieces of information which I shared with 2 adcoms at the 5 year program I applied whom I considered very close "friends", and that I probably should have kept to myself because I'm sure this bit of info didn't help me worth a dam. They probably figured I had too much going on in my life and in retrospect, perhaps they were right. Still, I rest on the idea that everything happens for a reason and 99.99% of the time I'm cool with that especially in light of the fact that I was promoted on my job last week and will get publishing credits for experiments I design for PI's I assist with their histology/pathology lab work.

Speaking of the job, things are going extremely well with my recent pormotion to Lab Manager, so much so that I'm having fun reflecting on the fact that I'm not only at the same professional "level" as the person who fired me back in March, but I'll be paid more than they were paid too. Talk about sweet revenge!!!! And I have to be honest, at this point going to med school any time soon is slowly becoming a distant memory as I began to seriously consider trading my desire to become an MD Pathologist for a PhD Pathologist at least for now. Sure, I'm aware that PhD training in Pathology would never be as enjoyable for me or academically complete as MD/Resident training, and the fact is that there are TONS of unemployed and underemployed PhD's, but the beauty of my situation is that I'd already be in a very well paying job as I'm earning my PhD. And I don't think I mentioned that this would be a free PhD? I figure I'm spending the next few years getting my personal, health, and academic life lined up as perfectly as I can, I may as well get this PhD out of the way since 1) I've always wanted to earn one, 2) I have the opportunity to do it for free and 3) ALL of my recent graduate coursework would transfer into the program. Of course, none of this changes my current study program in preparation for the MCAT next year, but it's really nice given some of the stressors in my life to know that I'm preparing a golden parachute for myself and my family in case my plan "A" has to be changed or significantly altered.

So I guess this post stands as reminder that no matter what stressful or sad thing is going on in your life, there's a always going to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you know to look for and expect it, which is exactly how I think God designed it. I also hope this post stands as a shout of support to all the folks who are in the very unfortunate position of loving a person with addiction issues. My prayers are with you, with me, and the addicts we love and are trying desperately to help.

The passing of a legend

I'm known among people close to me as a bit of a cry baby and I have to admit that when I learned of Mj's passing, I did indeed cry. The first concernt I ever attend was seeing the Jaskcon Five in 1972 at what was called the Cow Palace in Northern Cali where I was living at the time. It's also the only concert I ever attended with my Father so it has very special meaning to me. I was six years old.

The picture above is the Michael Jackson I most think about because when I saw it, I decided that I wanted to marry him when I grew up. Of course, by the time I became an adult MJ had started to take a turn for the strange but I maintained a love of his music nonetheless.

Music from the Jackson family, MJ in particular, brings about very distinct memories from my past. My father sang "I'll be there" when my parents were divorcing and I asked him when I would see him again as a 10 year old. When I was a roller skater in middle school, I skated to "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" in competitions. I had my first french kiss to Human Nature and Thriller was my album of the year my senior year in high school. When I tried for 3 years straight to break the color barrior on the University of Florida's majorette squad and failed, and went on to co-found and became the first captian of the first dance squad at UF, Smooth Criminal was the audition piece. And I could go on and on and on......

Needless to say, MJ's music has been a big and consistent part of my life for as long as I can remember and the fact that this talented dancer, writer, singer, and overall entertainer is gone is a complete shock. So much so that I couldn't fall asleep until 4:00AM this morning. But when my alarm clock went off at 6:45AM, I awakened as if I had gotten a full night's sleep and I did so because as tragic as MJ's death is, life still goes on. So I decided to think about all the ways my life is blessed and focus on living the best life I can..........while keeping MJ's music blaring from my car, home, and iTouch for many years to come.

May the King of ALL music, FINALLY find some peace in death.

Mommy, can you do the stanky leg???

First, Happy Father's Day to all the dads reading my blog!

Now, there's a lot of really cool aspects of being the mother of a 12 year old, and one of the things that I like is that she's my source for staying hip. But this stanky leg thing? No Mommy doesn't know how to do the stanky leg and the title of the song is a bit off putting to say the least, LOL!! But I guess that song title is better than some of these other ones out here now like Birthday Sex, LOL!! THAT song she can NOT sing in my presence, EVER!!! Another borderline annoying thing about having a kid this age is that my daughter is now as tall as I am, as in I'm almost 5'8" tall and SHE is almost 5'8" which would be great except she's only 12!!!!! So I notice that now grown ass men are starting to look at her and that is unnerving and I find myself giving people that "Mama eye", a look that says you'd better find another cub to salivate over!! And this clothes thing? My issue isn't she that wants to walk around wearing shorts up her arse like so many of the kids at her school, it's that our clothes are getting mixed up, and I'm not sure what that says about me that my 12 year old and I wear some of the same clothes!!! So this week we implemented a new clothes washing program, as in you wash your own clothes. Great, less work for me and she gets to learn one of the many skills she's going to need when she becomes an adult!!

On to work happenings, I go to work on Friday to learn that the guy who got me the gig and whom was training me, decided to quit. Without ANY notice. Now he emailed me earlier in the week to let me know he was quitting but because he had done that before as a form on weak manipulation of the folks he was working for, I didn't believe him. And in an effort to be politically correct, I was sure not to mention anything to my supervisors because quite frankly it wasn't my business.

Now, there's a TON of pressure on me to keep things moving when I haven't been trained in all the equipment which under normal circumstances wouldn't be a problem. But the one thing the guying training me told me was that some of these folks are tight with money and my current contract only allots 10 hours/week not nearly enough hours to get things done. So in the spirit of being new and wanting to make a good impression so I can be the one picked for this position when it becomes permanent, I'm gonna have to break out my dancing shoes meaning that I'll be working a little bit for free. Not a problem, it's not like I have a lot of other things going on in my life right now. Plus I may have mentioned on a few previous posts how much I enjoy doing pathology related work anyway.

Other news, I've been dealing with some serious personal life stuff that has left my brain fried and in no place to absorb ANY work. In other words, I didn't study much this week for my Chemistry course. OTOH, my health is now finally starting to get back to normal and for the second month, I feel like the surgery I had in terms of alleviating certain symptoms has worked (ladies you know what I'm talking about). I'm still dealing with fatigue but hopefully in time, that will subside as well.

Ok, I'm off to cook breakfast on this special day followed by a stint at the library!!!

Army Docs, Hooah!!!!

I begin this post with a shout out to ALL military personell, with a special shout to those who are in the medical profession as well. If I had my way, I would have been an Army Pathologist, trained at the AFIP and from what I've been told it's not too late, although my time to get into action is quickly running out.

This also describes my first day working in the pathology department of a military installation which was pretty much spent only doing paperwork. I did get a little work done but because my hours are only part-time the guy training me wants to take his time getting me up to speed. No problemo, I'm just happy to have something to do other than study during my daytime hours. So the first thing I noticed was how polite military people are so much so if another young man says ma'am to me, I'm gonna scream, LOL!! Of course both the highlight and lowlight of my day was spent in the library the only place I could use a computer because mine hasn't been set up yet. The library was fine, modern, clean, ect, it was seeing all the medical students hitting the books that almost made me storm out in frustration. Then I reminded myself, that I have ONLY been delayed and that within the next 5 years, I too will be studying for my boards!!

Speaking of that, let me get to the books right now before my desire to take a nap takes over, LOL!!!

So exactly why are you putting yourself thorough this again?

This has been the question to myself for the past few days, why in the hell am I putting myself through taking the MCAT again when I have a perfectly decent, albiet not a very competitive (30+) score?

Well part of it is the simple fact that the past 4 times I've taken the test I wasn't as prepared as I should have been because I was too f$#@&^ stubborn to retake the preqs required for the test. And strangely, not one of my mentor/advisors suggested it, not one! So the fact that my score didn't change very much (and even went down one of those times) simply isn't a suprise. Second, I have very somewhat illogically limited myself geographically for family reasons so that means I have to present the absolute best application package I can. Third, in the most unexpected situation of all, most of my grad pharma courses are NOT averaged in with my BCPM, resulting in an overall BCPM being 3.3, no where near the 3.75 I finished my MS in Chemistry with or the 3.8 average I have in my Pharmacology program. Now I admit fault in earning 5 grades below "B" in 2 different graduate programs I started but didn't finish one in 1995 and the other in 2004, including a 4 credit "I" that became an "F" ( a course I thought I dropped when I started having problems with my pregnancy 12 years ago). Once again, it's 100% my fault and I have to take responsibility for it but more than that, I have to take responsibility for the fact that this makes my goal that much harder to obtain. I also have to deal with how bad it looks to start programs and not finish them. It was different 10 years ago when I transfered from the program I started in 1995 to a program at Chapel Hill, because UNC has a top notch Chemistry program and I received a scholarship and fellowship. But to do that again in 2004, looks like I'm running around chasing my tail, a sentiment that wasn't lost on the psot bacc program I was recently rejected from.

Moving on, it's been quite a challenge to start from scratch, re-learning basic chemistry a subject I've mastered a few times in my life previously. But like most skills, if you don't use them regularly, you will loose them. So today, the goal is to remember to make sure I for example, have all my numbers in the right units so I can calculate the right answers. And THIS has been far more of a challange that I thought it would be, ie gotta check that ego and get to work. OTOH, I'm really enjoying this process perhaps because the course at MIT takes a physics/calculus based approach to general chemistry which makes it far more difficult but will obviously pay off later when I retake Physics 1 and 2 later. For example a question about density will lead to a question about the free energy generated from a specific mass. More than that, this chemistry book is structured wiht real life examples interwoven in the lessons, making them far more interesting to learn. And given this approach, which I'd certainly want to use should I return to teach college chemistry, it's no wonder kids from MIT do so dam well on the MCAT (and I previously thought most of them were simply smarter than the "rest of us" which is simply not the case).

So with that said, I return to doing my chemistry homework problems while remembering that if I want to calculate the energy in Joules correctly every time, I MUST rememeber to convert my given mass in grams to kilograms, LOL!! :)

Finally, a start date!!

FINALLY, I got word late Thursday afternoon that my start date is June 15th!!! So my next post will undoubtedly be about the workings of a Pathology department run by the feds/military, and I'm certain it won't be anything like those found in industry!!!

Other things going on this Spring are that my niece is visiting and let's just say that's her visitis are always interesting. She a very pretty girl who for lack of a bettr way to put it, uses her looks to manipulate other adults. The consensus about her in the family is that most of my adult relatives can't stand her which I think is a bit harsh because she's just a kid (10 years old). She also extremely smart, probably the smartest kid in the family but she has a habit of letting you know just how smart she is. Funny thing that happens in my family is that every generation has two kids that others close to those two kids create kinda of a competition between them. So for my generation, it was me and my cousin Jennifer the triflin', fat cousin of mine that sits on her fat ass all day while her poor husband works his arse off. The thing is that Jennifer was gifted in school and I was not, so there really was no competition academically. She, with the significant help of her parents, graduated college as an Engineer in 5 years including internship year, whereas it took me 7 to get a degree in Religion and a minor in Microbiology (of course, I did flunk out and had to pay for my education after I loss my scholarship in my freshman year). While she was vacationing in Cancun during Spring break, I was working to make sure I had my expenses covered. In other words, it was a bit pathetic that folks in the family created this "competition" because the playing field wasn't anywhere equal.

Such is the case between my niece and my daughter, a competition created by my mother and my niece's grandmother (the 2 grandmothers are sisters). The thing is that my daughter couldn't care less about being better than anybody in anything, she's just cool and laid back like that (making her NOTHING like me in this regard, and very much like my husband). And in my mind, a "competition" between them is ridiculous because my niece while extremely gifted, she's attending a sub par middle school in the South, where as my gifted and talented kid is attending one of the best public middle schools in the state of Maryland. My nieces' parents are both addicts and unemployed, never been to college, live in neighborhood I don't visit in the daytime, so my niece is being raised by her grandmother.

But the biggest reason I'm so down on these "family competitions" is because in a lot of ways it set me up for failure. While folks in my family were going on and on about me and all my accomplishments at white colleges, another cousin of mine was quietly doing her thing at an HBCU, graduating with a double major, a 4.0 GPA, and Summa Cum Laude. She was making 6 figures before she turned 25 and was a homeowner by age 27. And this was a kid who wasn't on the families radar because she was such an under achiever in high school. In fact, I'd say that she was the biggest success story under 30 in my family (though I'd like her to have someone special to share it with).

I understand it's in a parents/family nature to brag a bit about how their kids are doing but I rarely get involved in these conversations. Over the years, I've found it too easy to watch the famly pump up a kid only to be disappointed, while ingoring another one who could have cured cancer on day. In other words, ALL kids in a family should be celebrated because they all have something special about them and with the right support, they can ALL do great things in their lives.

It's Here!!

So after weeks of waiting, my much anticipated Chemistry book is finally here! In fact I'm so excited about it that I don't feel the need to take my regularily scheduled afternoon nap. And the one recurrent thought I keep playing over again and again in my head is why in the hell did I not do very well in this class 23 years ago? I mean I LOVE chemistry and love the fact that there are things you have to figure out to get solutions! URGH!!!! And the picture shown isn't my actual book I just think it's a cute book!

Other thoughts playing in my mind are about what I'm going to be doing 1 year from now. Will I be awaiting verification of my AMCAS application for the class entering in 2011? Recovering from having taken the MCAT which I'm tentatively planning to take in May 2010? Or will I have resolved myself to take the 6 figure salary while finishing my PhD in Pathology/Infectious Diseases?

Honestly, with the economy the way it is, I'm inclined not to incur any more debt because the future of so many things seems to be changing every minute. For example, I understand that interest on loans for Ris no longer deferred so if you want to be a Surgeon and you went to Harvard undergrad and Yale Med, you're gonna have some serious debt unless you can start paying some things back ASAP. OTOH, I'm aware the docs make a decent amount of money, but 400K debt? That's a bit hard to swallow even though I'm planning to be a Fed from residency and beyond, taking advantage of the loan repayment plan. But suppose that plan disappears? YIKES!!!

I may have previously mentioned that I was selected to be on the advisory board of a major breast cancer organization at the state level and I have to say I'm pretty excited about that. It really helps me know that no longer doing breast cancer research was a good decision while at the same time allowing me to address this issue in minority and disadvantaged communities. I've also never held such a position in my professional life so I have no idea what to expect. Still, I feel like my personal and professional experiences over the next couple years are going to take me in a direction that I never even imagined. And that to a person who was once an over planner, sounds very exciting!!!

Extended study vacation

So I'm still waiting to get the official OK to start working and having this much time on my hand is driving me nuts. No sitting around my neighborhood starbucks chit chatting with the other stay at home Moms, this Mama needs to earn some of her keep.

Speaking of my neighborhood starbucks, one of the things friends of mine notice when they visit me is the lack of black folks that live in my neighborhood. Honestly, I knew that was the case but I guess I never really gave it much thought. Still, I felt like a two year old finding a lollipop in their crib when I literaly bumped into another Black woman leaving a local store. She had on a UNC Chapel Hill teeshirt, another rather rare sighting, so in the spirit of being a fellow Tarheel, I struck up a conversation with her. Turns out her sister was an MD/PhD student at Chapel Hil, but had left after getting her PhD and having her second baby (and yes I can't wait to meet her to get her story). In the biggest irony of all, she had worked late last year at the same company that fired me and had quit. More than that, she was aware of a Black Harvard educated PhD who are also fired under suspicious circumstances. So all of this adds needed fuel to the legal fire I already have going with my beloved ex company.


Moving on, this is the first week I hadn't studied for the MCAT and its basically because I'm STILL waiting on my book. Getting too far ahead on the lectures seems like a waste of time without doing the the specific problems with each chapter. The study guide was OK for a while but just isn't cuting it anymore. Still, taking the entire summer to do 3 semesters of Chemistry is a challenge I look forward to and I'm hoping to brush up enough to perhaps teach a class at a local university in the Fall or Spring.

I may have mentioned that one of my sister-friends moved to the DC area last year and it's been so much fun to have her around again. Unfortunately, I realized that I had let the stress of my personal life affect me to the point where I had somewhat isolated myself socially. For example, when my daughter would go on sleepovers, instead doing things outside the home with friends and family, I'd just rent movies and stay inside. Last night in a complete change, I participated in a girls night out and we had a blast, so much so that I didn't get in until 3 AM!!!! We went to lcoal DC hangout called the National Harbor, had dinner, walked around talking about the men in our lives, then headed to a bar which had live piano players that would play requests from the audience. As a former musician myself, I could really appreciate the live music and some of the songs they sang like Jump by Van Halen were excuted very well. Other songs they attempted, like Prince's Kiss, were so lame they were laughable! The food was good and I assume the drinks were too and I can't confirm that because I was the designated driver. Bottom line I'm going to make a piont to at least once every six weeks or so, have a girls night out!