Zeros Galore!

With the Mega Millions estimated annuitized jackpot prize at $970,000,000 (zeros) and Powerball at $430,000,000 (zeros!), it is more than tempting to blow a few dozen bucks on tickets. Even knowing the cash values are a mere $548,000,000 (ZEROS!!) and $248,000,000 (SO MANY ZEROS!!!!) respectively, it's hard not to think of everything I could accomplish with all those zeros. Never have to work another day in my life. Get out of debt. Buy a house. Buy a house on an island. Buy an island. Try a different hobby every day for the rest of my life. I'd really like to get into sailing the world, but why stop there? I bet the Sea of Tranquility is lovely this time of year. I think of all these things fondly, with the subconscious belief that these things, and ultimately money itself, are a worthy goal unto themselves and will bring me fulfillment.

It is a big burden having to plan your steps in life with the practicalities of finances in mind, especially when you have a huge amount of debt. Add to that the nagging preconceived notion that you're sub-par and are destined to eke out an existence taking the crappy positions no one else wants, and it's hard to be optimistic about the future. But there's hope. In Psalm 50, God said he owns the cattle on a thousand hills.* While this was not said in the context of him being able to provide for our needs, it does highlight the fact that God is not wanting for anything. More to the point, in Luke 12 and Matthew 6, Jesus says we shouldn't focus on or worry about our physical needs. Instead, we should be focused on God's will. Wanting to win millions upon millions of dollars goes well beyond the desire to get out of debt and have financial stability. It gets into the realm of wanting to dictate the course of my life and be the master of my world.

Two guiding questions came to mind: Are my desires for my life in line with what God wants with my life? Do I trust him to provide the resources to accomplish these plans? If I can honestly answer "yes" to both of these, suddenly the lotto jackpots don't matter anymore. Even with all those zeros.



* This surely meant something to the ancient Israelites to whom this was initially said, but to help put this concept in terms we can understand today, I made some assumptions, did some measurements of the hills around Jerusalem on Google Maps, spent way more time researching cows than I thought I would have to, then ran some numbers. Estimating the average hill in Israel is at least a square mile, each hill would have 640 acres or more of grazing land. A thousand hills would thus provide 640,000 acres of grazing land. The USDA recommends 1.8 acres per cow (https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb1097070.pdf). For simplicity, I assumed modern US cows and ancient Israeli cows would have similar grazing area needs. This would put God's herd on a thousand hills at 355,555 head of cattle. The average US cow at slaughter prior to the advent of intensive selective breeding in the 1970s and later widespread use of growth hormones in the 1980s was 1,047 pounds (https://www.beefmagazine.com/genetics/0201-increased-beef-cows, https://www.fda.gov/animalveterinary/safetyhealth/productsafetyinformation/ucm055435.htm), which I'll use as an estimate of the average ancient Israeli cow. The current price of a bovine is about $111/cwt (http://www.agcenter.com/newcattlereport.aspx, https://beef.unl.edu/faq-2009beefprices). This translates to our average 1,047 pound cow being worth $1,162.17. We modern day folks could therefore think of God as saying he has $413,215,354.35. Kind of anti-climactic that this ended up being less than the current jackpot amounts, yet if we focus on the big picture, God created everything on which the value of money is based, which makes the concept of assigning value to cows or money rather silly and leaves God alone as having worth.

New Journey. Overdue update.

Long time no see.

I am winding down my first position as an attending physician, and as of my departure, I will have been in the position for just over a year. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that the way in which my employer wants me to practice and the way in which I'm comfortable practicing are not aligned. I have pretty strong mixed emotions about this whole situation. On the one hand, I was ready to settle down, grow roots, and be a part of a community for the rest of my life and career, and now I'm yet again moving on to something else. On the other hand, I am glad to be leaving an employment situation that is not to my liking and it's sort of exciting transitioning to something different. It gives me a sense that my life is going somewhere and I'm not just stuck in a rut. Additionally, I have learned a lot about the real world of being a physician and what my preferences are in practice. I still have unanswered questions about what I want to do long term, but I will soon be learning a lot about that.

My plan is to do locum tenens, which is basically travel doctoring. I will be filling open positions for 1-6 month stints around the country, potentially even around the world if I work at US military bases. Because it is standard for housing at the locations to be covered, I will be giving up my apartment and basically become a nomad. I'm going to keep an official address and a storage space in my home town, which will help me feel rooted somewhere, but I think I'm going to feel like a resident of everywhere and nowhere all at the same time. One of the reasons I'm doing this type of work is that it is highly flexible and I'm not locked into a contract for more than a few months at a time. I can pick and choose the positions that don't require seeing too many patients in a day so I don't have to feel pressured to churn through appointments too fast, which is my highest priority at this point.

With the flexibility, though, comes the fact that I'll soon be a nomadic 1099 contractor, so I'm figuring out how to finagle car insurance, driver's licensing, taxes, health insurance, retirement accounts, packing away most of the trappings of a modern household into storage since I can't feasibly move them with me, etc. Above, I alluded to the fact that I'm feeling stuck in a rut in my current life situation. This mindset is somewhat concerning, because there is still a large part of me that wants to settle down and grow roots, but if I start feeling stuck in a rut every time I try settling down, I'm going to run into serious contentment issues. Perhaps I just need to find the right setting to settle into; one of the things I'm hoping to gain from seeing so much of the country and so many practice settings and working with so many different people is a sense for what type of personal and professional life characteristics I want in the long term.

On that note, I'll sign off and wish you well until next time, which hopefully will not be another three years.

September update

I'm clearing the cobwebs off my blog again. Speaking of cobwebs, the brown widows are going crazy making webs out on my patio. I keep hoping the weather will cool faster and kill them off because, while it's exciting knowing that at any time I may get bitten and have hours of agony, I'm not too keen on the whole process of flipping out and doing a spastic jig every time I get stuck to spider silk.

Still single. Still a resident. Two current sources of frustration. Not a whole lot to elaborate on in this setting, but prayers on both fronts would be appreciated. In any case, life keeps moving on and I keep looking for ways to grow closer to God and grow as a person through all the frustrations. Learning yet again that life is a process of continual growth, not of "arriving" once and for all.

I just ate a Reuben at Subway (thanks for the gift card, Mom). It was quite tasty; I would recommend it.

May update

For my morning Bible study, I've been in Romans lately. Describing the actions of people who have turned from God, the apostle Paul says the following: "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." (Romans 1:25) It stuck out that while in the midst of denouncing all the terrible things these people are doing, Paul doesn't just skim over the concept of God receiving praise, but pauses to give his endorsement to God being blessed (held in reverence, honored in worship) by saying amen after that thought. After taking that time out, he continues on with describing the situation of these wicked people. While standing firm against all the anti-God sentiments an movements in our society, I pray that I don't lose sight of God being praised. We aren't fighting to win arguments. We are ultimately fighting to bring praise to God, which along the way includes winning people over for him.

In other news, I'm moving along in residency. I will be finishing up at my Family Medicine program in two years and two months (not that I'm counting) and then hopefully going on to a Hospice and Palliative care fellowship afterward, which focuses on care for patients with terminal conditions and the families of said patients. I never thought I would be interested in end-of-life care, thinking it would be too depressing, but I've lately had rewarding experiences in that area, and I think it would be a fulfilling specialty for me. It's interesting that I had several patients die in the months preceding my own grandfather's recent death, and I was able to give my mom insight along the way as she faced his declining health.

From a personal standpoint, I have actively started looking for someone to marry (no, that's not an invitation to set me up with every single woman you know, thanks for offering). I don't know if it was my recent attainment of a third decade or what, but it feels like it's about time. As part of this process, my focus has been drawn to personal issues I need to address so they don't hinder such a relationship, so I'm working to iron those out.

No promises, but hopefully I'll get back to blogging more regularly.

Scott

EM, Finances, and Relationship with God

We are on four-week blocks, doing a different rotation each block. This block is my Emergency Medicine rotation. Despite being a rather laid-back rotation and having some interesting cases come through the ER, I have had a tough time on this block. Actually, I think it's because it's so laid back that it's tough (remind me of this next month when I'm whinging about having too much to do). Since the ER documentation system is different from what the rest of the hospital uses and we residents aren't set up to use it, I don't have to/can't record anything on any of the patients. This also means that I basically have no official responsibilities while on this rotation, a situation that lends itself to feelings of uselessness. A good system has been to watch the board for new patients, then act like I have responsibilities to care for them. I do a history and physical, then report to the attending ER physician what I've found, what I think is wrong, and what I would like to do for the patient. We can then discuss what may be going on and I can get critiqued and learn from the case. This makes it feel like I'm actually doing something meaningful and definitely engages my mind more than just floating about doing half-hearted H&Ps and homing in on just the cool stuff.

Speaking of cool stuff, I have sewn up a machete cut and stapled up scalps split open by a 2x4 and a door edge. We have also had a patient actively seizing; a snake bite victim; myriad belly and chest pains; a mostly-resolved stroke; a possible medication ingestion; and a psychotic patient who taught me that psychotic people can have the full range of fears, anxiety, and childish immaturity that non-psychotic people have.

I am more or less following Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan for getting out of debt, and I am seeing some exciting progress on my highest-interest loan. It is really heartening to feel like I am getting a handle on my finances and I am really thankful that God has blessed me with this income. Some of my fellow residents have the mentality that they're doctors, so they can start spending like doctors, and it's an odd feeling to be in the same boat as them, yet living much more frugally. I'm living in an apartment that's not just cheap in regard to its cost, I'm driving a car that's pretty well lost its curb appeal but that I take pride in maintaining, and I'm not buying stuff left and right. Now and then I'll want to buy a new car or a bright, shiny toy, but for the most part I'm getting a good deal of satisfaction from living responsibly and paying off what I owe.

It has been made apparent that my relationship with God has been distant lately. I want to be a great husband, father, and physician, but above all of these, I want to be a devoted man of God. I keep relearning the fact that my relationship with God is an ongoing process of getting to know him better and not a one-time action after which you can just coast. I guess you could say I've thrown it back in gear and have stopped coasting. Back to the part about being a great husband, if I'm not interested in growing closer to God and try to start a spark of godliness just so I can be with a woman who is devotedly following God, that spells trouble. But if, already having the flame of desiring to grow in my walk with God, I find a woman who fans ablaze that flame, great! "How did you go from your walk with God to finding a godly woman," you ask? Well, it's a long story. In any case, the next paragraph is related.

The other day, while browsing a Christian dating site, I felt so weary of wanting and waiting to get married and worrying over how much to invest in a relationship each time an opportunity comes along and whether it's going to lead anywhere. I prayed that the next time I got involved with a woman would be the relationship that leads to marriage. Later on, I found the profile of a woman who, as far as I can tell, is devoted to living for God and growing closer to him. On her profile, she mentioned that since she isn't subscribed to the site's email service, one would basically have to Facebook stalk her to get in touch. Having become adept at this, Despite not having done this before, I was able to find her rather easily and sent her a friend request and an email. She accepted my friend request, but said in her reply email that her intent had been to reject this friend request from some random person, but accidentally hit the wrong button. Had she hit the right button, she wouldn't have seen my message. I believe her accidentally connecting with me on Facebook was a work of God, but my hope is not in assuming that we will get married, but rather in knowing that regardless of what pans out in my relationship with her, God is working "all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose." This is an unexpected bit of peace in a situation in which I typically would be champing at the bit to forge ahead in this relationship. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:7&8) Praise God.

Scott

On Call

Call continues to be the most stress-inducing part of my job. I was just on call last night from 6-6, which actually translated to me being at the hospital from 5:30pm-7:00am. I'm on call again tomorrow night from 6pm to midnight, then again on Friday from 6pm to midnight. Definite growth experience for me. What really causes the anxiety leading up to and during call is the possibility of having admissions and codes to take care of, on top of handling any issues arising with the patients already in the hospital on our service. When those above my pay grade decide that a patient should be admitted to the hospital to the residency service, it's my responsibility to go see the patient, get their history, do an examination, come up with a list of what's likely going on with them, and a course of actions to take to get more clarification on their situation and/or treat them. I then run all this by the senior resident who's on call with me to make sure it sounds halfway decent, then report everything to the attending physician who's on call at the time. In a given night, you could get no calls about current patients and no admits, or you could get called every 5 minutes with complicated questions and have to do a dozen admissions. It's just the luck of the draw. Amidst all this, if anyone in the hospital decides to go into cardiac or respiratory arrest, you have to drop everything and run to take care of them. This will probably take at least an hour by the time you've run the actual code, then dealt with the necessary calls and documentation afterward. Time management becomes critical.

This all is so hard for me because I like to take the time to figure a problem out and totally wrap my mind around it before taking care of it. If I have a bunch of disorganized tasks that involve concepts I don't fully understand with additional tasks getting thrown at me, it is very difficult for me to function. With time constraints, there is no way I can fully wrap my mind around everything and complete all my tasks perfectly. As a perfectionist, this is a hard pill to swallow. Also, the more times I'm on call, the more things I realize I need to be doing during a shift, so it feels like the more experience I get, the farther I get from adequacy. This is quite disheartening, since everyone knows you're supposed to get better at something the more times you do it.

I'm working on thinking through my call duties in manageable chunks. I know how to round on patients. I know how to take a history. I know how to do a physical exam. I'm trying to think of the call night as a series of individual tasks I know how to do as opposed to a nebulous, monolithic impossibility. There are things I still don't know how to do, and I'm trying to have the perspective that I can learn and get better at each of these individual things, instead of seeing them all as a unified, insurmountable obstacle.

Tomorrow brings a new rotation for me. I'll be doing Emergency Medicine, so I'll be in the ER, seeing patients and working with the ER attending (full-fledged) physicians to get treatment initiated and either get the patients back home if they aren't too severe, or passing the patient's care on to another physician who will admit and care for the patient in the hospital. Word has it I'll be able to do a good amount of procedures while in the ER. This includes doing stitches, starting central lines, pelvic exams, chest tubes, etc. That part should be fun. Since we have clinic as an ongoing part of our training, I will actually spend tomorrow morning in clinic (typical primary care doctor's office) seeing my patients there. And, yes, call continues regardless of which rotation I'm on.

Fourth of July!

This is why I get misty-eyed whenever I hear the Star Spangled Banner (I did take a bit of license):

It's the war of 1812. Still a baby, the United States of America has just suffered devastating and demoralizing losses to England, their former ruler. Looking to cripple and finally crush the young US, England has now set its sights on the important seaport of Baltimore, whose harbor is protected by Fort McHenry. From his vantage point on a ship several miles distant, Francis Scott Key watched with bated breath as the British ships’ 25-hour bombardment of McHenry raged on. Imagine standing where he stood, watching for an entire day as THE military power focused its wrath on a vital link in your beloved country’s armor. As sunset approaches, you can just see the flag waving atop the walls of the fort. You can’t sleep, worried about the fate of your country and your own fate as a supporter of that rebellious collection of colonies. Each explosion, though heart-wrenching as it could herald the end of your nation, also causes your spirit to soar as the brief light shows the flag still flying high above the fort. Passing out with exhaustion in the pre-dawn hours, you are soon awakened by a commotion among the crew. You turn to them and ask, “In this early-morning light, can you still see what we were watching with such pride as the evening light faded? We watched as its broad stripes and bright stars flew strong above the fort’s walls throughout the vicious battle. The bombs and rockets only encouraged us more as their light showed our flag to still be there. So, tell me: does that star-spangled banner still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

 

The answer is, “Yes! It does!”

 

While this is an emotional song for me and I do consider myself patriotic, I don’t put my hope in this country, nor in the redemption of our nation’s widespread immorality, nor in the rise of some other nation that could stay focused on God better. I would love for the US to return to the God-centered principles on which it was founded, but my hope is not in that. My hope is instead placed on the fact that God is still in charge and has a plan that he is bringing to fruition in his own timing.

 

In personal news, I am settling in to my new life situation without too much trouble. I am meeting people and getting connected, which is so encouraging for me. As a natural loner, it is easy for me to isolate and get lonely and depressed. While there is still a component of that, it is less than in the past and I am able to deal with the loneliness in a much more healthy manner. I am much less anxious and have a much more positive outlook on the coming year than I expected. Again, that’s not to say everything is perfect, but I’m handling bumps in the road better than I could in the past.

 

Scott

Beginning FM Residency

I haven't posted since I was trucking. Since then, I quit trucking, attended an intensive therapy program, renewed my relationship with God, became a Home Depot associate, and moved to Georgia to start a Family Medicine residency. That's right! I've resumed medical training. Wow, a lot happens in a year.

Things I learned while trucking:
-Trucking is not the career for me
-The US is a stinkin' huge place full of great things to see and do
-I like knowing in advance when and where I'm going to sleep for the night (or day) and whether I will be able to do so legally
-More generally, I like having a home I can actually live in, instead of being on the road all the time
-A better sense of how to read the road while driving, especially when semi trucks are involved

Things I learned in the therapy program:
-I tend to stuff my emotions and the majority of my personality down deep lest anyone get a glimpse of them and judge me for them
-Emotions have a huge sway on how I see the world and the decisions I make unless I unpack them and sort through them
-God made me and redeemed me from sinfulness, and the disapproval of other people doesn't degrade my worth as a person

Things I learned working at Home Depot:
-While working in the parking lot, I rediscovered that manual labor is not my cup of tea
-Some people seem entitled to abuse people who are paid to help them
-Many unpleasant interactions between people can be traced back to poorly-communicated, pre-formed assumptions
-Many home-improvement skills

The latest development is being accepted to a Family Medicine residency in Georgia. I just moved into an apartment earlier this week and am getting settled in as well as possible while waiting for my belongings to arrive. The moving company misunderstood my request to move my container to Georgia and instead left it sitting in a facility in Colorado. It arrives at the end of next week, so I'll have the weekend to unpack and fully settle in before starting on Monday the 30th.

Tomorrow, I'm attending church in the morning and hosting a BBQ for the other first-year residents at my program in the afternoon. I think I have found the church I want to commit to for the duration of my time here, which is a big blessing. I was worried about finding a good Christian community. I'm looking forward to kicking off the year by getting to know the other residents because one issue I've had in the past is staying isolated, so getting to know the people I'll be working with in a more informal setting will be good.

I'm shooting for blogging weekly, with longer newsletter-style posts each month. We'll see whether my schedule and motivation level allow for that.

Scott

My aunt and uncle gave me this loveseat to help complete (actually, start) my furniture ensemble. It was made by another uncle.

Second Solo Stint

I finished my first solo stint last week, spent some time at home, and I've been back on the road for three days now. To start things off, I had a quick load from the terminal to a location just a few miles away, then I got a load to Spokane, Washington by way of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I'm excited to add some more Western states to my list. I've driven through 23 already and I'll hit 24 tomorrow when I cross into Washington. I delivered half my current load in Coeur d'Alene today and will finish off the trip tomorrow morning in Spokane. Though being less than an hour away, I can't deliver the rest of the load to the final stop because there are scheduled delivery times. While appointments can be stressful to make, they can also provide down time to do things like jog, shower for the first time in a few days, do laundry (which I may well have forgotten in the machine if I hadn't written this), and catch up on life stuff. I get more money when I lay down more miles, but a string of 10+ hour days gets pretty tiring.

The area of the Idaho panhandle I'm in made for a really pretty jog today. I've not run since I hit the road on Monday, so I pounded out a solid hour today under a sun that I swear didn't move all afternoon. I don't know if that's from the nine extra degrees of latitude or if I just wasn't paying attention. The Montana mountains along I-90 were also very pretty, and reminded me of the Colorado mountains with the terrain and types of trees. I didn't hit snow, but there was some left over higher on the mountains. The precipitation I really want is a good rain. My truck is dusty, covered in bug splat, and the days are starting to get warm. Nothing like a cleansing, cooling rain to make everything better.

I'm including some pictures from the last several weeks; I wish I could snap more pictures along the road to better represent my experiences, but there are obvious technical issues with that. This first one shows some goofy, bug-antenna-looking street lights over the interstate in southeastern Michigan.

I thought I'd forgo the gory ripped flesh photo and just show the post-op. Imagine a 3/8 inch wide metal band made of thick aluminum can material, used to seal a trailer to verify the load hasn't been tampered with. Now imagine not being able to tear the band off by tugging on it a few times with a solid metal tool. Stick with me, here's the punch line: further imagine being dumb enough to put your own (non-metallic) human flesh through the band and tugging until the loop breaks, sliding its sharp edges past and into said flesh. Thankfully, I had the foresight to have antibiotic ointment and bandages on the truck.

Pet-conscious rest area.

This last one shows the docking area of the Albuquerque Convention Center. If you're wondering, yes, it is a very poor design for full-sized semi trucks. I tried getting out around the truck on the right, but since grinding off my front end on the cement wall and ripping the other guy's front end off with my trailer didn't sound like my idea of a fun night, I had to wait almost an hour for him to get loaded and leave before I could fit out.

 

 

I just realized that, though a polo shirt makes me a bit more professional-looking than a lot of truckers, it also causes people to think I'm an employee at the businesses I patronize. I'm typing this in a Subway at a truck stop. A man just asked something about a restaurant and I, thinking he was wondering how to get a hold of the employees who were obscured in the back, told him to ring the bell. He clarified and asked if the restaurant was gone, not in the casual tone of one traveler talking to another, but more pointedly as if it were in my purview to know. Having never been here, I somewhat bemusedly answered that I thought the Subway was all that the truck stop had. I realized after he left that my dark polo resembles those of both the truck stop and Subway employees. This has happened before; apparently the lack of a name tag doesn't count for much.

 

Scott

Life on the Road

I finished my on-the-road training with Swift, the company for which I drive, the weekend before last. I got my own truck on Wednesday and hit the road, taking a load of empty beer cans to Ohio, where they would get filled. That first day was stressful, what with running around the Swift terminal like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find an empty trailer. The way this can place works, we have to leave an acceptable empty trailer before hauling away the can-laden trailer. "Acceptable" is specifically defined, and hopping up in each trailer to check it for acceptability on a sunny day gets tiring, especially when you only have 15 minutes in which to find a trailer, get it inspected, and drive half an hour to pick up the load on time. I'm learning that I need to allow a lot more time for unexpected delays. Like, a lot.

I'm currently outside the Chicago Metro area, with my last message having informed me that there are very few loads in this area, so I should find a place to hang out. Thankfully, I am already parked at a Walmart near a few eateries. If I had to drive anywhere, my onboard GPS/computer would start counting down my daily 14-hour clock. Truckers have 14 hours from the start of our on-duty time in which to complete up to 11 hours of driving before having to take a rest period. "Fourteen hours is an eternity," you say? Well, it can feel like that at times, but when you consider that if my 14-hour clock started ticking at 9:00am and I got a load at, say, 8:00 this evening, I would be left with less than half of my daily driving time available, likely necessitating me to take an additional rest period on that run. Since the rest period must be at least ten hours, what could have been a leisurely trip with all the pit stops I could ask for easily turns into a harried butt-hauling session.

Speaking of butt-hauling, my second run was going to be leisurely. After taking forever dealing with the trailer's broken landing gear (retractable struts at the front), deciding to try adhering to my company's silly US highway route instead of my onboard GPS's faster interstate route, and getting a flat tire, I was really sweating it trying to get the load in on time. I kept having visions of having to sleep on the side of the road, getting a demerit for late delivery, not making it to Walmart to get groceries to put in my cooler (the horror). I like having the down time now, but I've never been good utilizing down time when I don't know how long it's going to be. So, I'm at a Dunkin' Donuts trying to find normal jobs back home and getting back in the swing of blogging.

A quick note regarding the tire blowout, the only clue I initially had was a weird noise. Apparently, 100+ PSI rupturing 3/8" of rubber makes quite the loud noise if I could hear it 60 feet away over the radio and engine. I thought it may have been cargo falling over, but I was on a glass-smooth road at the time (unpaid plug for the Indiana interstate system). A couple miles down the road, I noticed in the mirror one of my tires looked a little rough. If it hadn't been the obvious outside side wall of the outside tire, I may never have known I had a flat or what the noise was.


Below are some pictures of things I've seen along the way.

Scott

 You've heard of row houses. There are also row clouds above US 287 in Southern Colorado.

 

 

 Brilliant hands-free bathroom door handle in Toot 'n Totum north of Amarillo, TX. I guess you'd call it a footle.

 Parked back on the grass, you can see Mater. Tow Mater. Roughly near Alvord, TX.

That dark cloisonne truck, as Volvo calls it, is mine. I'm dropping off an empty trailer and picking up a load of empty cans in Golden, CO.

 

 Blown out tire, just East of the IL-IN state line on I-74.

March Newsletter

March consisted of driving training with my company, Swift. Yesterday, I finally finished my training and got to go home for the night. I'm very excited about this, since I get a couple more nights at home, and when I start driving again, I won't be sharing a tiny living space. I'm currently at the terminal, waiting to hear the results of a road test and take a written test that assure my company that I'm ready to be on my own.

Over the last month, I've had LOTS of time to think about how to utilize my driving time. I plan to continue using the Pimsleur Spanish learning CDs to get a useful language under my belt before moving on to learning others. I also plan to utilize iTunes U's free audio lectures to learn about history, recap anatomy, and learn about the cultures whose languages I want to learn. I'm thinking translation work would be fun to get into. For now, it's really good to have an income again.

I'm hoping to be able to take my home time throughout the country to visit family and friends in the coming months.

Scott

Just ok in OK

I've been pursuing a truck driving job since February. While in truck driving school, I was prehired at Swift Transportation, and officially signed on with them after graduating. Company orientation was three days, and I then started Swift's driver training with a mentor driver. This training period lasts 240 driving hours, and I currently have around 140 after three and a half weeks. It took a few days for me to build up my driving endurance before I really started racking up hours, and several days were spent not driving. Not driving is actually what I'm doing again now. My mentor has to sort out some driver's license technicalities, then get his wife to doctor appointments, and since he's from Oklahoma, that's where we've been for a couple days. We've stayed at his parents' house the last two nights while he sorts out the license, then he's going to put me up in a hotel for another two nights when we go up to where he and his life live. It's nice having a break from the road, but it would be nicer to be done with training and take my breaks at my own home instead of someone else's. One of the frustrations with training for anything is not being able to use my own methods, being on someone else's schedule, and in general not having control. This was one of  the issues I had with medical training, too. Thankfully, I'll be done with driving training by mid April. I'm kind of bitter that I'm sitting around instead of racking up hours and completing training, and that I'll likely be stuck on the road in a stupid truck with someone I barely know on my birthday this year. I'm pretty sure I could ask to have a day or two back home to celebrate, but that would just prolong training that much more. While we're holed up in Oklahoma, I'm trying not to focus exclusively on the negative aspect of prolonging my training, and instead look also at the life experience I'm gaining by getting to know new people in a new place.

Speaking of medical training, I've been toying with the idea of getting back into it. I don't like having this unfinished thing hanging over my head. I also don't like the idea of not living up to my potential. At the same time, I need only think about the details of medical training and I can feel my anxiety rising, increasing my pulse and breathing rate. I want to get counselling in any case, but if I do get back into medicine, it will be a necessity. The anxiety caused by medicine, combined with the fact that I can utilize my intelligence and desire to help people in non-medical careers, make me think I should keep searching for another career. I never planned to stay in trucking more than a few years, since there aren't opportunities for the type of advancement I would want, and it doesn't help people as directly as I want to do. It's irritating that most careers I could get into would take me out of the hands-on realm and back into training for a while, which makes me hesitant to pursue anything else too soon. Actually having an income is nice, too, but at the same time I could do a lot better for myself than a trucker's income.

So as not to give too negative an impression of how I'm doing, I do feel better off now that I was six months ago. I'm hopeful about the future, and even the aspects of the future causing trepidation are not preventing me from wanting a future, but rather causing me to plan more thoroughly. Aside from figuring out my next career, my big focus now is paying off my debt. It should only be a couple more weeks before my smallest loan is paid in full, which will feel like a big accomplishment. When I finish training and my income stabilizes, I'm going to more fully implement Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and I'm very excited about getting on top of my finances.

Lots to sort through, but it's good to know I'm not stagnating in life. Have a good one.

Scott

February Newsletter

I'm posting my newsletter early this month because I may be busy for the next seven weeks. Backing up a bit, I've been in truck driving training for the past three weeks and just finished, earning my Commercial Driver's License, on Friday. I have been in touch with Swift, a trucking carrier company, and have a pre-hire, meaning that I should get officially hired as long as my background check clears and I can show them that I didn't earn my CDL with my good looks. I start orientation with them tomorrow, and my recruiter just got me the orientation info early this morning. Per that info, I need to check into the hotel in which they're housing us at three this afternoon. Orientation is three days long, and I need to be ready to hit the road with my mentor driver for a six-week stretch starting at the conclusion of orientation. While it is tough packing on shorter notice than I had planned, I think the real hard part has been copying and organizing all the paperwork.

I'm excited that an employment opportunity is finally coming along. It was so frustrating applying to so many places and hearing nothing back. I'm also excited about all the travel I'll be doing, but I also have some trepidation about whether germophobia and homesickness will kick into high gear if I'm away from home for so long and exclusively using public bathroom and laundry facilities while adhering to my mentor driver's time frame. I plan to rely heavily on shower shoes, hand sanitizer, and staying in contact with family and friends.

Keep on truckin'.

Scott

January Newsletter

Getting this one in just under the wire. January has seen a redoubled effort to get a job, along with increased frustration at not getting one. I would like a teaching position, but everywhere I have looked doesn't seem to be interested in hiring for this semester. I have been tutoring math and science to a few middle school and high school students. It's been a challenge relearning everything well enough to teach it, but it has been really fun and rewarding at the same time. I only get a few hours of work each week, if that, and since the formal teaching positions have not come through, a couple days ago I finally locked in the decision to pursue a career I've always found intriguing. I signed up for truck driving school and just today I got my driver's permit and earned many of the CDL endorsements. I'm excited about the truck driving opportunity because it's a pretty sure thing that I can get a job; it's solitary, fitting well with my introverted nature; and it involves a lot of travel. Plus, it involves new, different experiences, and I value that in life.

My girlfriend is leaving for a trip with her family tomorrow. She lives out of town anyway, but it's odd knowing she'll be out of state. We're able to work around the distance, which is good.

Life keeps rolling otherwise.

Scott

2012 Year-End Newsletter

It has been quite the year. I was ready to quit med school near the beginning of the year, but decided to stick it out and graduate. In February, soon-to-graduate DOs go through the Match, in which applicants are matched to residency programs based on applicants' and programs' ranking of each other. If the student doesn't match, he enters the scramble, in which applicants scramble to get into any open residency positions. I scrambled into a traditional internship year in Florida. An internship year takes the trainee through rotations in the main specialties, plus a lot of general medicine.

Finishing up med school gave me a bit of a boost, making me feel that I could muster the strength to get through a year of general medicine, which I have never liked, and apply to an orthopedic surgery residency, which had always been my goal. After starting internship, though, I resumed disliking what I was doing, this time to the point of becoming more and more suicidal. This came to a head, and after reevaluating my life and career, I made the hard decision to stop pursuing a medical career.

Mom was kind enough to offer to put me up until I could figure out where to go from here, so I am back home. Part of my hardship was living out of state for the first time, far from the support of any family or friends. It's good being back around loved ones and in a familiar place. I really enjoyed tutoring in the past, so I am currently picking up tutoring jobs, looking for a more formal teaching position for more stability. I am also making a pointed effort to stay in touch with friends to maintain support so I don't get so depressed again.

I am also studying topics of interest. For example, I'm looking into human trafficking and what I can do to help end it, y aprendo Español. Once I get a handle on Spanish, I would like to tackle Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic so I am proficient in the five most popular world languages. Russian and the major Western European languages are also in my list.

Very exciting recent news is that I and a friend from college have been reconnecting recently and are headed toward starting to go out (or going steady, seeing each other, etc., if you prefer). She lives about two and a half hours north, but she regularly visits her family an hour south, so we'll have plenty of opportunities to see each other.

With the major change that's happened, it may seem like I'm going through a rough patch, which to an extent is true, but I do feel predominantly good about where my life is now. My main concern now is finding a job so I can make loan payments when they go into repayment, and eventually become financially self-sufficient.

To accommodate everyones' schedule, we moved our traditional Christmas celebration to the 28th, so Santa hasn't quite arrived here yet. For those of you who observed the typical Christmas date, I wish you a Happy New Year. For everyone coming over here on Friday, Merry early Christmas and Happy New Year.

Scott

November Newsletter

I’m trying to get back on track with newsletter writing. Since arriving back in Colorado, I have settled in pretty well at Mom’s place. My employment is still in flux. I have a profile on a tutoring website that connects students and tutors, but I have had only one tutoring session so far. I hope to hear back today about whether I was granted a teaching certificate for a course at a local college. At this point, becoming an educator in some form is my goal. I always liked tutoring, and would like to continue it, but I need steady income, and am therefore pursuing teaching positions at the local schools.

I have also started writing a novel, which will be the first of a two-book series. Motivation and inspiration wax and wane. I’m trying to write through the book from beginning to end, and I’m currently at a point of the story in which dialogue is going to have to carry the plot for a little while and I’m stumped on how to proceed naturally. Writing and thinking of new ideas for the book are a fun pastime.

In general, my mood also waxes and wanes. I am currently doing well, but when I realize that my loans will enter repayment before too long, I get stressed. It’s good motivation to get off my duff and look for a job, but life would be a lot easier without debt. I imagine that’s a good blanket statement that remains true regardless of circumstances.

I have had time to reassess the decisions I’ve made that have led to this point in my life, and have been able to figure out a better way I could have made life decisions in the past - and was even able to share some of that with an old acquaintance. What I’d like to do now is figure out how to apply the same principles to my current decision-making process. I need to figure out where to go in life from here, and I don’t want to make the same mistake of locking myself into a big decision without weighing the costs and benefits, and without allowing myself room to reevaluate when necessary.

Scott

You Can't Go Home. Unless You're Me

Before my moving trip is too far in the past, I wanted to chronicle some of my experiences along the way. A friend from high school who now lives in Dallas with his wife, another friend from high school, asked if I'd be able to swing by on my way back to Mom's house, and it wasn't really much farther, so I planned on that detour. Wednesday, October 17th was my move-out date, and everything was boxed up except for some cleaning supplies and odds and ends I wanted to have available during the drive. I planned to get up early, cut my mattress in half so I could fit it in the dumpster, and have a relaxed morning as I dropped off my internet router and picked up the truck. Instead, I ended up skewering my finger on a coil inside my mattress and having to bandage the crap out of my finger so it didn't bleed like stink.

Knowing tetanus is a concern for penetrating wounds like that, I checked my shot record and reluctantly decided I should get a tetanus booster, so I worked that into my morning, too. There's an entire story about my tetanus shot, but I'll spare you. Picking up the truck went smoothly and I was able to use my trailer backing skills to get it, my car, and the car trailer in the parking spaces around my apartment. Armed with a wounded finger, sore shoulder (from the shot), and a dolly, I packed up the truck, then cleaned my apartment. I was irritated that the cleaning supplies and road trip supplies took so many trips to pack into the truck and my car because it had started to rain as I was doing this. I rethought the situation and was thankful it had not been raining while I packed the truck in the morning.

After handing over my keys, I hit the road for home at 5pm. I made it a good five or six hours before pulling into a rest stop to sleep. I noticed Florida has a very well-developed rest stop system, with nighttime security at the stops and good road signage indicating each rest stop and how far to the next one. That night was pretty chilly. I slept in the back seat of my car and neglected to bring my sweater back from the truck cab, so I spent the night in shorts and a t-shirt, shivering. I turned on the car long enough for the heater to kick in at one point, but it was still a difficult night of sleep.

On Thursday the 18th, I slept in a little, then of course brushed my teeth and changed my shirt, socks, and underwear. I hit the road around 9am. My meals and snacks along the way consisted of the emergency food stores I had bought at the beginning of hurricane season plus a few extras for fresher fare. Fruit cocktail, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, dried fruit, beef jerky, lots of water, and various snacks gave me decently balanced meals each day. That evening, I was flipping through radio channels around the Alabama-Mississippi border and came across Swap Shop. This was basically a radio version of Craigslist (if you're a baby boomer or older, it's like the newspaper classifieds). People would call in, give a quick spiel about what they had to sell, trade, or what they wanted to buy. The announcer then repeated the person's phone number and took the next caller. Later that night, I drove through the town of Monroe, LA, and, without intending any offense to the inhabitants, I kept thinking a port-a-potty had exploded. Shortly thereafter, I found a truck stop to pull into and sleep. That night was looking to be even colder, so I put on my sweater, remembered the blanket I always keep in my trunk, and bundled up in that. It was still too cold, so I turned the car on again for the heater, but fell asleep for I don't know how long before waking up to a roasting hot car.

Friday morning, after an otherwise uneventful night, I awoke just after 6am to a cartoon giraffe smiling down at me. If he hadn't looked so friendly, I would have been totally creeped out. As I walked into the truck stop to brush my teeth and change, I noticed a nearby semi was getting hooked up with jumper cables. When I came back out, a skinny older guy asked if my rental was a diesel because they needed a diesel engine to give them a jump. I told him it wasn't. A younger fat guy got out and started trying to push the whole rig backwards down a slight slope. Thing didn't budge. I asked him if you could roll start a semi and he distractedly said yes. The skinny guy got out again and asked if I could nose up to their truck and push them backwards just enough to start the engine. I checked the bumper, decided it was solid enough, and gave it a shot. The point on their truck where my bumper contacted was unsupported plastic, so nothing happened, but it was almost an exciting moment. Throughout Louisiana, I noticed signs reminding me I was in Cajun country, advertising Get-N-Geaux, which I assume is a store. An hour into that day's drive, I saw an orange sign warning of "road work next 38.1 miles." Alas, I did not verify this measurement.

I got to Dallas in the early afternoon and spent the day with my friends, catching up. They asked if I wanted to stay longer than one night, and the sense of freedom I had felt since hitting the open road was actualized as I decided to stay another night. She had to attend a three-times-per-semester class that night and most of Saturday, so I spent a lot of time with him that night and the next day, seeing Dallas and getting to know each other better. I feel like I connected with him better in those two days than in all of high school. I'm hoping to be able to connect with people on a deeper level more quickly and adeptly in the future. I was well-fed and actually got to shower during my stay, and hit the road again the morning of Sunday the 21st. I found it confusing trying to get to I-35 East North to get out of town.

It was a long drive to get back to Colorado, but I had become a driving machine by that point, and I made it back that night. I first started feeling at home about 45 miles north of the Colorado border, when I noticed that all the license plates were from CO. I have a habit of looking at plates, and had grown accustomed to the slight disappointment and sense of foreignness upon seeing all the Florida plates. At that point when I realized all the cars were from CO, I felt a relief from that sense of disappointment and being out of place, and realized I was actually coming home.

My dad and I had downloaded an app that lets you track your friends' locations, so he was following my progress, "vicariously taking a vacation" with me. I let my sister know when I'd get in, so they were my welcoming committee and guided me in parking the truck and trailer. For that night, I only unpacked the bare essentials to sleep through the night. Now, to appreciate my first night home, you have to understand that my mother is EXTREMELY frugal with her heater usage. This being my mindset, and not wanting to drive up her utilities too much, I left the thermostat where it was, not realizing she had turned it down while she was out of town on business. Needless to say, sleeping with only thin blankets in my sub-54 degree room left me absolutely frigid the next morning. Not to give you the wrong idea, this was actually almost pleasant after not being truly cold for five months.

I have settled in well and am now pursuing employment, cooking, reading, and in general trying to make good use of time. Thinking back on my time in Florida, I wanted to remember the bad and the good, so I made lists of things I'll be glad to be rid of and things I'm sorry to leave. I'm glad to be away from all the face-stretched, dermabrasioned, over-tanned, breast-augmented, tummy-tucked, car-pimped superficiality of Southern Florida. It is odd to me that an area can have a "feel" to it, but I think the people in Colorado are more down-to-Earth and less concerned about appearance. I'm also glad to be away from the constant, oppressive heat and humidity. Those reflector bumps on the roads are a nuisance, too; we don't have them in snow-plowed Colorado. Access to the beach is one thing I'll miss, along with Okeeheelee Park and Nature Center. I had some very calming walks and learned about the local flora and fauna on the trails through the nature center. There were several good biking and running options from my apartment that took me on looped routes, which are a lot more stimulating than taking the same path out and back. I also never had to worry about lotion or eye drops. When all is said and done, though, I'm glad to be in familiar surroundings near family. Maybe some day I'll want to live elsewhere, but for now, Colorado is home.

Scott

Ouch. The coil went in under my nail and came out where that drop of blood is on the side.

 

That long silver one is the evil culprit. It still had my blood on it. I always imagined that was the source of the phrase "caught red-coiled."

Toys-R-Us giraffe looking in my window.

Long Night

Tomorrow's the big day when I get the truck and start my move. It's going to be tough to sleep tonight. I have tomorrow planned out and everything packed up, waiting to be loaded in the truck. A friend just got in touch and asked if I could swing by their place in Dallas on my way home, and I figured it'd be worth the two extra hours and $40 in gas to see a couple old friends (he, his wife, and I knew each other in high school). So, if Paul and Rachel are reading this, I guess our friendship is >= $40 or two hours...

Scott

Life Change

I have recently decided to change my career path. It has been a difficult process, but after a couple months, I decided to leave my internship program and move back home. My first month on duty was in the hardest rotation, but also the one that gave me the best idea of what the rest of my medical training would mostly be like. Several times during that month, I felt close to having panic attacks and a few times I almost just walked away from the hospital during a duty shift. Over the subsequent weeks, my depression and anxiety reached peak levels as I would approach nights or weekends on call. I became suicidal and one morning in particular I lay awake for an hour before getting up for a 24 hour call shift. The whole hour I was thinking I could kill myself and not have to deal with the pressure anymore. I was able to talk myself out of suicide, but then I was going to call in and take the day off. I got up, slowly got ready for work, but walking out the door, closing and locking it, then finally setting off toward the hospital each felt like trying to push through a physical barrier.

Later that day, a senior resident asked how I was doing and I opened up to him about my struggles. That was the impetus for getting me some help. The Reader's Digest version of the seven weeks between then and now is that I and the program director agreed that I would take some time off to get some psychiatric treatment and therapy. I vascillated on whether I could go back to work, but after starting therapy, I was starting to think that with continued therapy and psychiatric medications, I could get back to duties and at least finish the internship year. Ultimately I decided, however, that my desire to get back to the program was based mostly on what I thought other people would expect of me and on what seemed like the most financially sound decision. I realized that what I had for so long planned on doing in medicine and wanted to get out of medicine could never happen. I felt like I was working extremely hard for something that would never pay off in the long run. There is more depth to the situation, but that's the gist.

My plan at this point is to move home and become a tutor. The most fulfilled I have ever felt in life was when I was a tutor, figuring out on the fly how best to explain concepts to students so they will understand. I may look into formal teaching as well, but that is a decision for a later day. My mom has been gracious enough to open her spare room to me, which will help a lot with finances in the short term. I'll figure out something to do for work if tutoring doesn't pay the bills at first. I would like some assurance that I could make student loan payments while living comfortably on my own, but despite that uncertainty about the future, I feel a sense of freedom and lightness. I am more hopeful about the future now, even if I have no clue what it holds.

Scott