Merry Christmas/Happy New Year

Merry belated Christmas to all! We had a wonderful Christmas, and it was so fun to watch Braylei open presents and enjoy the day! It was busy, though, as we went to have brunch at Meghan's parents, came home for Bray's nap, then had my parents over in the evening. Then we packed up and headed up to the White Mountains with our friends, the Sessions, to hang out at Chris's family's cabin. It was nice to just chill for a couple days. Braylei got to play in the snow for the first time and had a lot of fun! I actually rode a snowmobile for the first time and almost killed myself! Chris and his brother Mike told me to go off a jump, but I didn't realize how big it was until I was 2 feet away and going full speed. I got some sweet air, but nearly fell off. Luckily I landed it okay, but it scared the crud out of me! On the way home, we got caught in a snow storm that kept getting worse as we went. We hit a patch of ice and nearly slid off the rode, but through the grace of God, I was able to turn with the slide, and we spun a full circle but stayed on the rode and continued on. We were quite shaken up, though, and the storm continued, so we stayed the night in Payson.

I am excited to bring in 2007. 2006 was a great year, as the Lord blessed us so greatly. I am so grateful for my last minute acceptance into medical school, and the time I was able to spend prior to that adjusting to parenthood. I was able to spend a lot of time bonding with Braylei, and watch her grow and develop. I am so thankful for my beautiful wife Meghan and the patience she has with me. We are also very excited to announce that we are expecting our second child! Meghan is currently 15 weeks along and she is due on June 23rd! It has been a wonderful year, indeed, but I look forward for 2007 to be even better!

That said, my Christmas break will soon be over, as I resume school on the 2nd. The last few days before break was just as crazy as I expected, but it was loaded with great learning experiences and it is over with. I have really enjoyed how AZCOM gives us so much patient simulation exposure, so that we are a little more familiar with clinical exams when we start our preceptorships in the Spring. The rest of the quarter should prove to be very crazy, as there are many instances with 2 tests a week. So it will be challenging to balance my studies and stay up with everything. I do, however, look forward to the challenge!

Well I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and I wish everyone a happy and safe New Year!

On the Brink of Insanity!

I apologize in advance for the conciseness of this entry, but these next three days are unbelievable! I have already described my schedule in the last entry, but experiencing it has been something different altogether! I have been studying like crazy, and hopefully my efforts will be enough to receive good marks on my exams and that the information I have been studying will be applied to permanent memory. I must never lose focus that these classes aren't just for a degree, but for being able to provide quality, competent care to others. I absolutely love medical school, despite its immense difficulty, but I do look forward to Wednesday after my Physiology exam!

The Importance of Elvis' Pelvis

Another week has come and gone. A week and a half is what separates me from Christmas break. However, in that period of time I will face an onslaught of tasks! In Anatomy and Histology, we are fully immersed in the Pelvis and Perineum unit, which has been an excellent learning experience, as my athletic training background didn't hit a whole lot on urogenital systems, reproductive organs, and everyone's favorite, the rectum! We have both tests next Monday, the 18th at 6:30am!!!! It's unbelievable how early that is, but that afternoon, I two patient simulation clinical exams as well. I have a heart and lungs exam in the afternoon, then from 6:30-9pm I will conduct a female pelvic exam. Now this is a great opportunity to have real clinical experience so early on, but it is amazing to me that they can get people to sign up to be patients for this. I personally have never undergone a female pelvic exam (seeing that I'm a dude), but having 5 extremely nervous 1st year med students examining a very sensitive area is not exactly comparative to the excitement of standing in line for a PS3! So next Monday needless to say will be long and tiring, as I have no breaks throughout the morning, day or night! And I can't relax after that because we have our first and biggest Physiology test on Wednesday morning, which is worth 25% of our quarter grade! This week will be crazy because of all the preparation needed for the heinousness of what I have just described. I also have an Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, Neck and Throat (HEENNT) exam to conduct tomorrow, a quiz for osteopathic manual medicine (OMM) Wednesday, and a case presentation for our Physiology workshop on Friday.

As I mentioned earlier, studying a topic day and night really sets the subject in your subconscious. Mix that with a lack of sleep and trying to maintain sanity and you will find yourself in my position. I swear, I had a dream about a mutant uterus that was chasing me, not unlike those scenes from war of the worlds, only the ovaries were firing flesh-eating oocytes at me! I may be going crazy, but the female reproductive system is a "hostile environment," biologically at least. Also, after seeing so many illustrations of the uterus, a particular coronal section (cut in half view) looks scarily like the logo for the Chicago Bulls! Hmm. The more I say, the more I think I'm going mad!!

On a less traumatic note, we started manipulation techniques in OMM on Wednesday. I was pleased to find a good deal of success even on my first tries! Now that we have done so much diagnosis and theory, it makes sense of what we are trying to do, as well as the detriment that can be caused by those "who know not what they do." I look forward to practicing these techniques a lot, and will be a great tool for me as a physician.

On the home front, Meghan and Braylei give me the strength to keep going day in and day out. They light up my life and I am so thankful for them and their beautiful spirits. Braylei just cracks me up! She is such a funny little girl! She has been talking non-stop and is everywhere. She always has a smile on her face and is very affectionate. Meghan, meanwhile, is one whom I am in absolute awe. She amazes me. She is such an incredible mother and wife. In addition, she is making a fabulous Young Women's President in our church ward. She has been so understanding of the demands of my education and is very supportive. In what time we do have with each other I absolutely cherish. We occasionally get to watch a Phoenix Suns game or maybe a movie, but her support means everything to me.

Well, hopefully I will survive this week and I will post again then!

Back to School!/White Coat Ceremony

Well, my break came and went, so now I am back in school and have completed my first week of my 2nd quarter! It was challenging going from going on walks, trips to the park and zoo, along with watching Playhouse Disney to getting up at 4am, sitting in class for hours on end, smelling like formaldehyde, not seeing much of Meghan or Braylei, and pulling 18-20 hour days! It's been hard really focusing and getting down into the study groove. I am sure it'll come back, though. My transition wasn't made any easier as my car broke down on the freeway Monday night and had to get it towed. I found myself attempting to study Physiology on the side of the road! And it was a chilly night, too (well, for Phoenix)! So I've been driving Meghan's car to school and we are looking to buy a new car (well, new to us, at least!) Also, I started reading (and by reading I mean listening to the audiobook on my iPod during my commute) the book, Eragon, in anticipation for the movie coming out soon, and have quickly gotten hooked to it! I don't know if I'd go as far as saying it's as good as Harry Potter, but I am really enjoying it!

On Friday, AZCOM held its White Coat Ceremony, where 1st year medical students were presented with our professional white coats as a rite of passage into our clinical training! It was a very cool little ceremony. Many of my classmates were excited to finally meet Braylei, whom I talk about all the time! This ceremony was not only symbolic, as we begin patient simulated exams in the next coming weeks, including male and female pelvic exams and head, ears, eyes, nose, neck and throat (HEENNT) exams. We are also getting more into our osteopathic training, as we have been learning alot of soft tissue treatment techniques, and next week we will introduce joint manipulations! I'm very excited about it! Well, I better check out as Meghan has fallen asleep on the couch and I need to make my lunch for tomorrow!

Back at the Park!

Today we met at the park with my parents, along with my sister Suzi, her husband John, and their daughter Elizabeth (who live in California)! We had a good visit! Braylei has been really starting to walk more and more over the past few days! For the past few months, she would take a couple steps here or there, but she preferred crawling. The past couple days has been a different story! She has been walking across the living room, back and forth between Meghan and I, and she'll just stand up on her own and walk somewhere! It's really fun to watch! But it was good to visit with my parents and Suzi & John. Elizabeth has grown a lot since I last saw her. Braylei was perfectly content playing in the sand most of the time, and enjoyed grabbing a handful of sand and dumping into her Grandpa Schroeder's hands!

Trip to the Zoo!

On Wednesday, we took Braylei to the Zoo! She, as usual, loved it, and we tried to see some different exhibits this time around. She absolutely loved the tortoises! She also really liked seeing the babbons, especially as we were there at feeding time! We also saw the largest rodent in the world, the capybara! The Phoenix Zoo is a great place with not only great exhibits, but it is very interactive, great for kids, and features great themed areas like the jungle! On the trip home, both Meghan and Braylei were out! While my girls were napping, I was able to visit my former co-workers at Mezona Orthopaedic Physical & Hand Therapy. It was great to get to see everyone again. I learned so much while working there and a wonderful work to be in. I miss them all a lot.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the largest living rodent, the capybara, please visit the Smithsonian National Zoological Park at this link!

Feeding the Ducks!

On Tuesday afternoon we took Braylei to Freestone park to feed the ducks! It was so much fun! There were many different varieties of waterfowl, and there were a lot of duck around us! Braylei enjoyed watching Meghan and I throw the bread to the ducks, but she wasn't quite so charitable with the bread we gave her to throw, she would eat every piece we gave to her! We also were able to play on the playground for a little while, which she loved tremendously!

2LT Schroeder!

On Monday, I was officially commissioned (sworn in) into the United States Army as a 2nd Lieutenant! I was selected as a Health Professions Scholar, and this program will pay for my entire medical education along with all associated costs! I will be inactive throughout med school, residency and fellowship. Upon completion of my medical training, I will enter into active duty for four years as a military physician. I then will have the option of doing a military career, or enter civilian service. I am really excited about the opportunities that the Army will provide and for the opportunity I have to serve my country. I will have my officer basic course (basic training) in June in San Antonio!

The Coolest Med School Waitlist Story EVER!!!!

So Medical School wasn't exactly the easiest process I've ever gone through. My first year applying resulted in two interviews and one waitlist spot at LECOM, D.O. school in Pennsylvania. I was hoping to get accepted, but it wasn't meant to be. In the grand scheme of things, I am incredibly grateful that I didn't get in, as my wife gave birth to our first child, Braylei. I'm so happy that I didn't have the stresses of med school, and that I could focus on being a father and trying to adjust to a new lifestyle. I worked at a physical therapy clinic during that time, and learned a great deal. I reapplied for med school, which result in three interviews and three waiting lists. TUCOM, a school in San Francisco, Midwestern University-CCOM in Chicago, and LECOM in Pennsylvania. I felt pretty good about being accepted off of one of the waiting lists, but that faded as the summer wore on. As it became pretty evident that I wasn't going to get in for a second time, I began looking at other options to advance myself to put me in a better position to get into medical school. I ended up accepted the Assistant Athletic Trainer position at Southern Utah University, and we were in fact all set to move! We had the U-Haul loaded and we were actually on the road to Cedar City when I get the call. I received a call from the Director of Admissions from Midwestern University-AZCOM (the Arizona campus)! He said that they weren't comfortable with the individuals on their waiting list, so they borrowed the list from their sister campus in Chicago (where I interviewed at), and saw that I was in Arizona! He offered a spot in the upcoming class and orientation began four days later!! We pulled off in Prescott to talk about it, and then turned around and headed back! The funny thing was that I had my primary applications in for the following year, but I was having a really hard time writing the secondaries! It turned out to be a great blessing! I ended up getting into my first choice school without even interviewing there! And what an awesome school! They have a 100% board pass rate over the past 3 years! Being a med student and a father has been a huge adjustment, but I wouldn't trade my family for anything! But that just goes to show that we all just need to keep working hard and always be prepared for the next great opportunity that the Lord provides!

Why a blog?

I have wanted to start a blog for quite some time, but made countless excuses to myself that have kept it from fruition. My inspiration is derived from my beautiful wife, who started a blog as an easy and convenient method of journal writing, and also as a way to keep everyone up to date of what's happening in our lives. So there you have it.
I have just completed my first semester at Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine (AZCOM)! Medical school has been a huge adjustment for me, especially in trying to balance a wife and daughter! But it has been such an amazing blessing for me, and I am incredibly grateful that I have been afforded this wonderful opportunity.
I hope that I can stay active in keeping this blog. I have made a goal to write an entry at least once a week, so we'll see how that goes!