Delayed

   As many of you already know, I’m planning on a career as a Physician Assistant. Okay, that sounds really organized and thought-out, but really I sort of found this career last year that seems to fit everything I want in life and more, and since then I’ve been crazy excited to get started. I did all my applications over the summer, and have been spending the last few months waiting for replies for interviews. If you’ve ever applied to grad school, you know what this process is like. Tons of paperwork and supplemental fees and transcript fees and deadlines…. Then nothing. Just waiting to see what comes back at you. There’s a huge amount of time and money and effort invested already, I can’t wait to see what happens.

   In some ways, I guess I’m lucky. Three out of four schools that replied so far have asked me to interview with them. But then there’s this small detail (not sure if you’ve picked up on it by now) of me currently undergoing chemotherapy. It complicates things. Already one of my interviews has fallen through because they couldn’t accommodate a “tentative confirmation”. Fine, whatever, I don’t need you anyway school-that-rhymes-with-inapack. So I still have two interviews scheduled to attend next week that don’t interfere with my chemo schedule. That SEEMS awesome except now I must introduce the concept of…

I thought I had something here...

   CHEMO BRAIN. This is a seriously weird deal, guys. Most of the time, I feel like I am halfway dreaming. I am either kind of sleepy, or kind of jittery, or both, and never ever completely with it. I can read maybe one paragraph at a time before I lose my train of thought, and then I’ll decide to wander around my apartment a bit before laying down for a nap. It’s not JUST fatigue, although that certainly must be a factor, it’s a general fogginess of mind. So how on earth am I supposed to interview for graduate medical programs??? Okay, okay, I’m not freaking out. Each of these programs is well aware of my current circumstances and willing to see me anyway, so hopefully they just want to get a sense of who I am. Unfortunately, I feel that sense will be “generally doped up individual” and probably not what they’re looking for in prospective medical providers.

   There’s no good ending to this post, no neat little wrap-up (I’d be really impressed if my brain could do that right now, actually). Mostly I’m annoyed at how my current circumstances are impacting long-term plans. I worked really, really hard to get these interview opportunities, and now circumstances entirely out of my control are going to make it pretty impossible to follow through the way I know I can. I’m going to do all I can to be there, but I’m not going to be able to give it my best, and that’s a pretty hard pill to swallow.