Blowing it, before crunch time

Tomorrow begins official crunch time.  I figure it should start on Monday even though April 1st is technically Tuesday.  Tomorrow marks 3 weeks from Boston and 4 and a half weeks until boards.  Time to get serious!

This weekend I went home to Charleston for the last time until I am going back FOR GOOD!  Driving back tonight the only thing that made me feel better was knowing that it was the last time I would do that drive in this direction.  I am so ready to have my life back (in so many ways) I can’t even explain it.  I want to sit on my couch and make dinner with Casey and not measure our time together in hours.  Plus I want to start a day at 8 and actually be done at 5 or 6 (not 10:30 when I am finally done studying and running).  I am just so freaking close I can almost taste it.

Sadly, the weather man kept threatening thunderstorms with damaging winds and hail yesterday so I didn’t head out to do my 2 hour 3:1 run and then today I just couldn’t muster up the ability to leave Casey and Scar for 2 hours when I only have 8 left.  Call me pathetic, but hey, maybe I am.  In 15 weeks of training 6 days/week, this is the first run I missed so I am going to go ahead and say I’ll be alright.  Plus, I did get my push up challenge (with squats and abs) in yesterday, so I wasn’t a total bum all weekend.

After an amazing weekend, I am ready for this sprint to the finish.  It is finally the real deal y’all!  Keep your fingers crossed that I don’t lose my mind in the next 30 days!

Bad Leaver

I have never been good at leaving places whether it is for a week, a month, a year it doesn’t matter.  Even when I would come home for Christmas for a week I would get choked up pulling out of the drive way in Charleston.  So whatever part of my brain decided that moving away for 4 months (2 of those months without Casey and Scarlett) it officially broken.

Don’t get me wrong, it is good to be home but no matter where I am going the leaving is always the worst.  I will go through this whole thing again leaving Philadelphia to go to Atlanta; it is just my nature.  But as a friend told me yesterday, if it was easy to leave that would mean wherever I was leaving didn’t mean that much to me.  So I can say with confidence my home in Charleston and all of my friend there mean the world to me!

Now that I am home I am enjoying running my old roads (5 miler today in the beautiful weather) eating at some of my favorite places ever.  I am having a wonderful time hanging out with my mom doing ordinary things and just hanging around in the house I grew up in.

Last night when I got in I was also able to surprise my brother for his 15th birthday.  My mom and I had planned it so that they would go to dinner and I would just walk in and sit down with them.  He was shocked, it was pretty priceless and I was glad I got to make it there for his day.

So while I try to enjoy all the time I have here and the experiences I am having, in the back of my head I have the count down to return to Charleston already clicking…55 days and counting!

Last Charleston Weekend

Well I can’t believe I am actually saying this but this was my last weekend in Charleston until at least late February and I won’t be living here again until early May!  I won’t be leaving until Friday but with Christmas this was my last time to see most of our friends for quite a while.  We made the absolute most of it though I have to say.

Side Note: I forgot to share my picture that I found from the Angel Tree at the pet store the other day.  Totally blew it, but better late than never.  I couldn’t believe how much the dog looked like Scarlett and I really just wanted to take her home with me!

Friday we did a BYOB painting class and I had a ball.  It was so much fun and the place we went was fantastic.  I can’t believe this woman had the ability to teach me to paint as well as I did because I am really, really, terribly, god awful at these kind of things.  My picture turned out amazing and we had such a great time.  We went to For the Love of Art in West Ashley.  They ran a groupon a few months ago and I bought it for the 4 of us and would do it again in a heart beat!

Me painting

Finished product

I loved Nicole’s snowman!

My picture all done!

Saturday Casey and I went for a run in the 80 degree weather on the first day of winter (seriously, I hate to whine to any of you having snow, but I can’t listen to Christmas music with my windows down and its bumming me out).  I am sure I will be eating these words when I am in Philly and am in head to toe under armor every day.  After that we bummed around, went to the Early Bird Diner for dinner, where I had shrimp and grits (needing to stuff as much of the south in me as I can the next few days).  Then we met Lindsey and Clay to see American Hustle which was so great.  I have a ridiculous girl crush on Jennifer Lawrence and she had me in stitches the whole time.  My only complaint was that there wasn’t more of her.  The movie was much longer than I though but it was really good and entertaining!

We capped off the night at our friends house just hanging out, watching the dogs play and I was savoring my last night with friends for a while.  I am trying so hard to just enjoy my time and not get the oh-my-gosh-I’m-leaving-in-four-days panic that I often get but its hard.  I find that time is like sand, the harder you grab onto it, the faster it slips out of your hands.

So for now I will sit with Casey, watch the Eagles hopefully to keep playing the best I have ever seen them play and enjoy the time I have right now!!

The Future is Known: My Next Year in Pictures

Today was a long run day and I had the most delightful 16 mile run I can ever remember  (after hitting the farmers market first of course).  I had been planning to go with a friend so I was waiting until 2 to go with her which I was very skeptical about but she ended up not being able to come so I headed out solo around 1:30 and I feel that I hit the weather jackpot.  It could have been miserably hot, but I seriously have no complaints.  AND nothing on my body hurts even a little bit, I’m not even sore, AT ALL, I can’t believe it!

Anywho, Thursday I got to look into the crystal ball of the next year.  I was assigned to my third clinical allowing me to know the course of the end of my life as a professional student!

Now until Mid-October: Finishing up class, taking comps, taking OSCE

College of Health Professions

October-December: Clinical II Outpatient Orthopedics; Charleston, SC

This one should be pretty interesting because we see walk in patients who are very acute.  It will be nice to be able to see a patient right as they are injured instead of waiting for them to make it too the doc, get a referral and then finally make it to us.

January- Mid February: Clinical III Long Term Acute Care; The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Good Shepherd; Philadelphia, PA

Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Good Shepherd

It will be great to be so close to home after being gone so long.  Plus my best friend lives there so it will be great to be in the same city as her after such a long separation!  I will likely head up for Christmas and then hang out until going up to Philadelphia.  However, I am going to freeze my little southern tuchus off back at home in January and February.  I guess I will finally get good use of all the Under Armor I have again.  This clinical will be a great experience with cardiac, stroke, spinal cord injury  (SCI), prosthesis, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and many other patients.  This is an interesting setting to see people after leaving the hospital but very early in their rehab “career”.  This will be a great way to prep me for my grand finale at:

February-May: Clinical IV Inpatient Rehabilitation; Shepherd Center; Atlanta, GA

Shepherd Center

I already had an entire post about this because I was lucky enough to get placed there early.  I am so, so, so excited about this one I can barely stand it!

To say this coming year is going to be a whirlwind is the understatement of the decade.  The move up to Philadelphia shouldn’t be too bad, but I have to get my butt from there to Atlanta in a weekend which I’m sure is going to be less than pleasant!  It will all be worth it and I’m sure it will all fly by.

Before I know it I’ll be walking across that stage, finally becoming a DPT and then the future will be completely unknown once again!!