Day 14

Sorry I have missed a few days, but I though I'd write about my Uganda trip like I had promised before.

I went to Africa during my spring break in March 2012.  I went for a week so it was a total whirlwind of a trip.  My welcome to Africa moment looked something like this, from the window of the plane:

We landed in Entebbe, although this was not even close to our final destination.  We drove a short distance to a hotel on Lake Victoria.  It was absolutely beautiful, and far beyond my expectations.  

The next day, we had a 6 hour drive to Gulu.  It was definitely not a monotonous ride.  We first stopped at an amazing school.  The primary purpose of the school was to lead strong, women leaders.  These girls were amazing and had such high ambitions.  They wanted to be doctors, lawyers, and politicians.  They had a hunger to change the world.  What amazed me most about these girls was how thankful they were for everything they had.  This turned out to be a theme in Uganda. I have never met anyone like the people of Uganda.  They have very little, and yet they are so thankful for everything they have.  They love God and Jesus.  They are always dancing and smiling.  It is amazing to see such happy people who have so little.  It really made me think of the way things are in America.  We are so blessed and have so much.  We need to be happier about what we actually have.

We still had a long way to go after that, but we later stumbled upon some baboons and the Nile River, which was very beautiful and much different than I expected.

After more driving, we finally arrive at St. Monica's, long past our estimated arrival time!  We were greeted by such an amazing site.  The girls there put on a dance for us to welcome us.  They were singing and dancing to show how grateful they were for us to come help!  I can honestly say I was just as happy to come a meet them.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Day 13

"There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." -Epictetus

This is something that I am working on.  I have a hard time with this.  I know that when it is things I cannot control, I should give them up to God and leave it at that.  But it is so difficult!  I struggle with it at all times.  I have been doing better, and this is why I think I have been happier.  I have gotten a much better grip at what I can control and what I can't.  I hope to get better and better at this!  Tomorrow, I will write about Africa.  Tonight, I am just much too tired.

Day 12

I absolutely love my school.  Honestly, I just do not think I could have went to a better school at all.  We have the best pathology professor in the country.  It is starting to finally dawn on me because of him that I am actually going to be a doctor!  I am starting to think like a clinician!  Which is way more exciting that memorizing hard science classes.  Then at lunch today, we were spoken to by Sister Rosemary from St. Monica's in Gulu, Uganda.  It was amazing for me because I had gone on the Pro's for Africa trip last year, which I think I will tell everyone about in my next post, which I can make super long tomorrow.  I really would love to do it justice.  It was so nice to see her and be reminded of what an amazing experience that was last year and how lucky I was to go.  Then, I went to clinical skills and observed another H&P.  While not as exciting, I know that this will put me way ahead of the game in the future when it comes to rounds and residency.  After that, I had a great talk with Lee, who I love and she just makes every day at school so much brighter.  I came home, got in a great core workout, showered, and then left for the ladies' night I organized between the first and second year class.  I am so happy that we go to do it!  Honestly, I do not think any other school could feel more like a family than our school.  It is such a great feeling to know that people have your back and that people have been where you are before.  It is also nice to know that people have felt the same exact way.  I hope that we were able to convey that to the first years and that they will be able to come to us and trust us in the future.

Day 11

I said that would explain why the quote from yesterday means so much to me.  Honestly, I believe that there are so many talented people in this world.  People God has blessed with ability people could only dream of.  However, many of these people do not want to work hard enough to achieve great success.  They become impatient.  They do not want success to take time.  When they fail, they do not want to get back up again.  When they struggle, they want to quit.  It is the people who push through this who really are the most successful in live.

I want to start out by talking about failure and struggle; two words no one ever wants to hear.  We fear failure and struggle.  We want nothing to do with them.  However, who would we be without failure and struggle in our life?  If we did not have them, we would not be trying to do great things.  We learn from our failures.  Through failure, we become better.  We become better at what we are doing and we become better people.  It is only through failure that we are able to appreciate achievement.  Without struggle, we would not be able to understand how good it feels to succeed.  Many people quit when they hit failure or struggle.  It is a true test of character how people act at these times.  I had many struggles when it came to gymnastics.  But I pushed through them, and I was able to achieve more than most people would ever believe.  My first year of medical school was definitely a struggle and included multiple failures.  However, I made it out and I am now a second year and absolutely loving it!

Next is "the sweeter if long delayed".  I did not become a scholarship gymnast overnight...  That was definitely a success that was long delayed.  I started gymnastics at 2 1/2 and went to college at 18.  That is 15 1/2 year of being delayed!  But that moment I signed that letter of intent could not have felt any sweeter because of all that hard work and time that I put into it.  Furthermore, becoming a doctor, and the time of doctor I want to be will definitely be long delayed.  4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and then residency.  Right now the residencies I am looking at are between 5-7 years.  We are definitely talking about long delayed. However, I can only imagine how at each step the success will feel.  Treating my first patient as a residence.  Eventually treating my first patient as an attending.  I know in that moment, I will look back at all the time and hard work and again, be so happy I did.

I guess I feel the most important thing in life is to work hard and to never give up if you would like to do great things in this world.  I truly believe God put us on this earth to do great things.  He will most definitely reward our working through failures and struggles.

Day 10

Success is sweet: the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.
~ A. Branson Alcott

I really love this quote. I am not sure any truer words have been spoken. Again, I am absolutely exhausted. Tomorrow I will write about my life as it pertains to this quote. This sort of message in near and dear to my heart and I hope I can do it justice when I am less sleepy.

Day 9

I am so very tired tonight. Had a full day of class and started at 8am. Had a very hard workout. Then studied and completed work all night. Wanted to write something, but I will write more tomorrow. I am so happy though :)

Day 8

She knows what she wants,
She knows how she feels,
She knows what it means
To feel something so real.

She misses his touch,
The brush of his lips,
The fire in his eyes,
Enlightening her heart.

The fire went out,
Her heart went cold,
Winter came and went,
Summer drove on.

Days turned to weeks,
Weeks turned to months,
Until she realized,
She only needs love from The One.

Happy,
Fulfilled,
She is ready for
The next big thing life brings.

Day 7

I really am not sure what to write about tonight.  I actually just realized I only have 12 minutes before I miss the day!  I have nothing earth shattering or interesting.  However, I have had an amazing few days.  It has been nice to be back in Tulsa.  I have gotten something off my chest that I should have gotten off a while ago.  I feel more free now, even though that is how I should have felt in the first place.  It is a good feeling.  I have been really happy lately.  I am sure that will start to change since school is starting on Monday.  I can't believe I only have one day of freedom!  I hope second year is as good as people make it seem!

Yesterday and today were great days.  I got most of my apartment cleaned yesterday.  I finally got my hair done, and I am in absolute love with my hair color.  I went to a minor league baseball game with some great friends and some new ones as well.  I went to a bar for a little while to meet up with some more classmates, then went home and got some amazing sleep.  I slept in until 10, which is pretty much a record for me.  I worked on core, then went to Dr. Cyrus' pool party, which he should probably have more than once a year because I always have so much fun at them!  Plus, he is just a great guy.  I then went to church at LifeChurch, and the message was just amazing, as usual.  Fighting fair in my relationships is definitely something I need to work on, and I hope God can help me with that.  I could definitely be quicker to listen, slower to speak, and slower to anger.  I will definitely being working on that and praying for God's help with that when it comes to arguments.  I need to decide if next week I'll go to church, watch online, or hit up the Catholic Church.  Sometimes I do miss the tradition there.  It is hard because I haven't really found one I fit into here.  After finding one I loved so much in Denver, it has been quite difficult.  Anyways, after that, I came home and got in my first 4 mile run since spraining my ankle.  I really hope it stays strong and I can really start building my mileage up.  I can't wait to say I ran a half marathon.  I then cooked some tacos and watched the last night of the Olympics.  I am so so sad it is almost over.  But tonight was amazing.  I watched David Boudia kill dive after dive and get a gold in the 10m platform!  I watched the women's 4x400 kick some major ass.  And, I watched a super exciting men's 4x100.  Two teams tied or bested the world record.  How amazing is that?  Jamaica came out with the win, but the American tied the world record and set the American record.  The olympics make me really proud to be an America and really want to get back in to a gym and flip some, or find a diving board to do it on!

Tomorrow should be a pretty chill day.  I am going to sleep until I wake up.  Probably do a little bit of path reading.  Clean my apartment, and then watch the closing ceremonies.  Then is it back to school on Monday. Sigh...

Day 6

"It is better to cry than to be angry because anger hurts others while tears flow silently through the soul and cleanses the heart"-Pope John Paull II

I absolutely love this quote.  It speaks to me.  I hardly get angry.  It takes a whole lot to get me angry.  But crying, that is a different story.  I am most definitely a crier.  I cry for every emotion!  Happy, sad, pride, anger....  I cry during movies, even sappy commercials.  The tears just flow for me.  When I am sad, angry, or frustrated, nothing makes me feel better than a good cry.  It is cleansing.  I have read somewhere that it is impossible to cry too much.  That everyone will eventually fall asleep.  Think of how interesting that is.  We cry ourselves to sleep as babies, and then we we grow up, we cry ourselves to sleep when things get tough.  We cleanse ourselves so well, we can sleep like a baby.  I just think that is a pretty cool idea.  Think of how different the world would be if men handled anger the way most women do.  We cry... we let it out.  We hardly ever act on our anger violently.  Where as men, they get angry and hurt others.  This happens in bar fights.  This happens in terrorism.  This happens in wars.  What would happen if instead, all of these men cried?  Cleansed their souls.  I think only then could the world be peaceful.  Pope John Paul II knew a thing or two about that.  And always strived for peace.  I wouldn't be surprised if he was speaking about peace when he said that.  For me, the two ideas walk hand in hand.

Day 5

Okay I will write twice today...  Sorry thing have been super busy.

Today I am going to rant on how stupid orientation always is.  I am currently sitting in second year medical school orientation.  The day started at 8.  Pretty much, I have learned no useful information.  I do not know what to expect from classes.  I am more confused about rotations than I was before.  I have no interest in the rural health tract.  Mask fitting I did last year and will be doing again at the end of this year.  I am currently in a library orientation.... YES, a LIBRARY orientation.  Honestly, the could have sent us an email that had all of this information in it.  The most productive thing I have done all day was going home and getting my run in so I can catch up on the Olympics that I missed last night.  I am about to watch the women's soccer game.  Again, more productive than everything I have done all day.  There needs to be a better way to convey this information to us. Ugh!  I would much rather be doing actual learning than this.  Hopefully, this is the last of its kind.  Welcome to Second Year!

Day 4

Well I missed a day... So today I will write twice.  It is morning anyway, and I will also write tonight.  Yesterday I packed all day and spent the day flying back to Tulsa.  It sucked to leave my Mom, Dad, Brother and two dogs.  There were long lines at the airport.  I got slammed with a migraine on the first plane that last me all night.  All in all, not a great success.  But, I got picked up by my best friend Stephanie and we had a great time talking.  Then Maxalt worked like magic, although I have a little bit of a migraine hangover today.  I have to do a lot today, so I'll keep this short, and promise my post later will be more interesting.

Day 3

Tomorrow I am leaving New Jersey to move back to Tulsa, Oklahoma for my second year of med school.  Suddenly, I am reflecting on what a huge difference a year makes in some things, and how it doesn't really change other things at all.  I remember being so excited last year to start medical school, but also being super nervous.  I had no idea what to expect at all.  I was wondering if I could do it, if I would be home sick for New Jersey and Denver, if I would fit in at all.  I turns out that I could do it, even though it was the hardest thing in my life.  I was home sick for both my homes all the time.  And I did fit in!  This year is totally different.  I don't know exactly what to expect, but I know I can do it.  I know that I can do really well this year.  I am ready to do well this year.  I know I will feel home sick now and then, but I also have an amazing group of friend for support that I know for sure I can count on.  I am not nervous, but I am a little sad to leave home.  This summer has been absolutely amazing.  I had a great time not having to do school, hanging out with friends and family at home, going to vacation in North Carolina and spending time at the beach, and doing an externship in New York City at the Weill Cornell Judith Jaffe Multiple Sclerosis Center.  It really has been an amazing summer.

I am looking forward to my second year of medical school though.  Finally, I will be learning things that I will use to be a doctor.  I will be studying for boards.  I will be learning pathology from an absolutely amazing professor.  I will be setting up my rotations and taking my boards.  It should be an exciting year!  I hope to train for a half marathon in November.  I hope to have fun and keep great care of myself.  I have a lot of goals this year, and I plan on doing my very best to achieve them all! 

Day 2

"There are dreamers and there are achievers.  The difference between the two is action!"


This is the fortune from the fortune cookie I ate yesterday.  I absolutely love it!  It has been a while since I have gotten a fortune cookie that I actually though was worth much of anything.  But this one is special.  I feel as though I fit well into both categories.  I am definitely a dreamer, but I am also an achiever.  I feel you need to be a dreamer to be an achiever, but you can be a dreamer without achieving much of anything.  In my life, I have worked hard for what I have achieved.  Here are two placers were my actions changed my dreams into achievements.


I began gymnastics classes when I was 2 years old.  My mom put me into mommy and me classes, since I learned to walk when I was just 7 months old.  I wanted nothing to do with the mommy part at all, so it wasn't long before I started regular classes.  I started competing when I was 7 years.  I quickly moved up the levels until at the age of 12, I was a level 10 gymnast, the highest level in the Junior Olympic program.  The gymnastics you see in the olympics is the international elite level, however many of the skills they compete, I also at one time trained or competed.  When I was 17 years old, I was offered a full scholarship to the University of Denver.  Legitimately, my dreams had come true.  Most of my life had been dedicated to gymnastics.  I trained 25-30 hours a week during the school year, and pretty close to 40 hours a week during the summer.  I sacrificed a lot of my childhood, but I never regretted a minute of it.  There was nothing I loved more than doing gymnastics and being a gymnast.  My road was not easy though, and I wish the ending of my gymnastics career was happy; it was not.  I had small injuries when I was younger.  They were common in growing athletes.  I had some heal issues and some stress fractures.  I had a problem with a bone in my foot when it filled with fluid, that at first the doctors though may be cancer, but turned out to be an overuse injury.  I had aches and pains as many gymnasts do, but at 14 years old, I tore my ACL, MCL, and medial meniscus in my right knee doing a half in, half out off of bars.  It was horrible!  The impact was so hard that I bruised my tibia and femur half way up and down my legs.  Walking was extremely painful.  I had full reconstructive surgery and many people told me that I should quit.  I was so young and this wasn't worth it.  I would never be where I was before.  I took this to heart and came back much better than I ever was before, adding much harder elements in all of my routines.  Skill wise, the injury helped me.  I was competing at a much higher level than ever before.  However, I still had pain in my knee, and it wasn't the most stable.  I had a disastrous regional meet that year and did not make nations.  The next year, I was having an amazing season and was being recruited all over.  My skill level was very difficult.  I went into a meet called the Niagara Cup and hit a hole in the floor taking off for my full in, landing extremely short and badly spraining my ankle.  I remember laying on the floor having no idea what I hurt.  At first I thought it was my achilles, since I took off and legitimately went no where.  Then I was afraid it was my knee.  Finally I realized it was my ankle, and I was sure it was broken.  It was not, but the doctor said it was amazing it wasn't.  Again, I missed out on nationals because my ankle would not recover in time for regionals.  My senior year was amazing.  I had already committed and signed my letter of intent for Denver.  I had a great season.  My regional meet wasn't my best, but it was enough to make nationals.  I had the meet of my life at nationals.  I remember that feeling.  I was so happy, my future coaches were there to watch me perform so well, and my club career was over.  I was so excited for the next chapter of my life.  Well... I started at Denver and it took a while to adjust.  I had issues adjusting to college life, as well as college gymnastics.  To make things worse, I had a weird knee injury happen when I did a front tuck on beam, landed a little low, and tore a piece of cartilage off that jammed in my joint.  Another surgery, a couple of weeks off and back to training.  I trained hard, and it was painful.  My knee never really felt close to normal again after that surgery.  I trained mostly floor, because that was where I was needed.  I was the first person EVER to compete a full in on floor at Denver.  That is something I was always have, something that can never be taken away from me.  However, my knee never really healed and the season was rough on it.  I was in constant pain which made training hard.  When I did compete, I was great and consistent.  However, the pain was awful.  I was hoping that if I gave it a few weeks after season to heal, and focused on bars during that time, I could have an incredible sophomore year.  With that drive, I decided to spend extra time in the gym with my coach.  Nothing was going to stop me from being the best possible gymnast I could be the following year.  However, it was not meant to be.  At one of those extra practices, with only my coach and I in the gym, I tore my left ACL, MCL, and lateral meniscus.  This time I knew what I did and I screamed.  I remember calling my dad and telling him the news.  He told me I was done; I told him no way.  I was going to have surgery and heal up and get back to training as soon as possible.  And I did!  I came back so fast.  It was looking like I would be able to compete in the beginning of that year!  I had so many goals written down.  I had a goal for the exact moment I wanted to be fully back, doing full routines.  I still remember the date.  That is how much I had ingrained it into my mind.  11/21/08.  That was the date I was going to have everyone of my skills back.  And it was looking like I was going to beat it!  I remember being so excited.  I wanted to be apart of this amazing team.  I wanted to do what I knew I could do as long as my body would allow me.  Mentally, I was ready to conquer the world.  Physically, my body failed me.  I remember the day I did back handspring back layout, working up on to the beam and I felt a horrible tweak of pain.  I ignored it, and did one more.  This time, I knew something was off.  I could not ignore it.  An MRI later, more of my meniscus would need to be cut out.  It was at this time I needed to make a decision.  My coach gave me two options, I could keep training and hoping to compete, but she could not guarantee me a scholarship, or I could take her advice as well as my doctor's and be medically disqualified and put on medical scholarship.  I would be able to stay at my school and keep my scholarship, but I would never be able to compete again.  It was a horrible decision for me to make.  I knew what everyone thought I should do, and I knew the right answer, but it was absolutely agonizing.  I couldn't imagine my life without being a gymnast.  I did not want to end this way!  I wanted to end on my own terms, however I knew what I needed to do.  I medically retired in November of 2008.


I was very lost for a while.  I threw myself into schoolwork and suddenly my grades came up from my first year and a half.  My grades were awesome and I even started doing research in a lab.  My misfortune in gymnastics, gave me the grades and time I needed to prove to myself and to others that I would make a great doctor.  I worked my ass off and was accepted to Oklahoma State College of Osteopathic Medicine in the beginning of my senior year.  Again, another dream come true through action. 


By action I do not only mean hard work, physical, and mental action.  But I also mean by prayer.  I prayed to God throughout all of this.  It is amazing how I could not see his path for me.  I questioned him.  I was even bitter at times.  But looking back, everything lead me right to where I am supposed to be :)

Day 1

I have decided that I am going to write every day for a year.  I know that this will be extremely difficult.  I am sure there will be days that I forget, days that I feel too busy, days where the world has me down and I may not feel like sharing my feelings here.  However, I am going to do my very best to do so.  I have always felt better when I write, and for some reason, I have fallen away from it.  I used to write everything!  Short stories, articles, song lyrics, poetry.... You name it, I wrote it.  It has been a while since I have written anything non-school related.  You see, I am a 23-year old medical student about to start my second year.  I am about to dive head first into studying for boards on top of all that studying I'll have to do for my classes.  However, I just finished reading a book called Point of Retreat.  In it, Will, the male antagonist, decides to write something every day for a year.  No matter what it is, it doesn't matter.  Some days he writes just the dates.  Other days it may only be a word or two, but it seems like an amazing exercise and I definitely want to try to do it.  Hopefully at the end of this blog, I will have Day 365 on my title line :)  Wish me luck in this venture, and I do hope anyone that bothers to read this enjoys!