My Top 5 Moments of 2017

I can't believe that 2017 has already come and gone. It is crazy to think that a year ago I was so afraid of what this year would entail and how I would be able to handle it. Well, I've made it through. It was a difficult, I struggled at times, and I worked really hard. However, it was a pretty great year that was full of growth and newfound joys of life. Without further ado, here are my top 5 moments of 2017, in no particular order.

NUMBER 1: Obtaining a PhD and having my manuscript accepted in Gastroenterology

I can't believe that this is now a reality. It has been six years in the making. There has been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears put into getting my PhD and it feels so great to have accomplished this extremely difficult task. I remember starting out worried that I wouldn't be able to find a good lab with a good mentor that would allow me to grow and develop the way that I wanted to, but I found him and I was extremely lucky to have him as my mentor. I couldn't have done it with him, his wife, and the lab--all of their support helped me develop into the scientist and man that I am today. After achieving the PhD, I worked hard to get my manuscript published after reviews and many revisions, it finally got accepted into Gastroenterology! I'm not sure when it will be officially published in their journal, but it should be sometime this next year.

NUMBER 2: Helping my mom through her cancer treatment regimen

This was probably the most difficult thing that I have ever done in my entire life. To see someone you love so sick and not being able to function for over a week was disheartening and depressing. Then add being the only one who was really taking care of her, trying to finish my PhD and prepare for medical school, and flying home every couple of weeks and you've got a perfect storm of sacrificing your whole self in order to make sure that you mom is taken care of. It was so hard and I felt so alone during this period. I was doing everything in my power to be the strong one, the one to take care of mom, the one to keep the family together, and the one to bear the burden of everyone. It was too much for me to handle, but I made it through. I was very happy that my mom trusted me and basically nobody else to take care of her--she knew that I would be able to do so. It says a lot of what she thinks of me. I'm grateful that I could be there for her in her time of need, because she has been there for me many times when I really needed her. The great news is that she is in remission and almost completely done with reconstruction and everything! She'll hopefully be completely back to normal in 2018!

NUMBER 3: Returning to medical school

This was six years in the making as well. During that time, I learned and forgot a lot of medicine. I went into medicine, underprepared. There was a return to medicine course that I took, which helped me gain back some of my clinical skills, but there was a HUGE knowledge gap. I had to work extremely hard to get back to the level that I was once at four years ago. I don't think that I ever got there fully, but I accomplished a lot. My first shelf exam I completely bombed it, but got amazing reviews from my resident and attending. My second shelf exam I did much better one and got amazing reviews from my residents and attending. My third/fourth shelves... MEDICINE. Medicine was a beast. It was the most difficult part of my career in schooling that I have ever done. The material that I had to know was MASSIVE and the breadth was WIDE. I felt like I had to know everything and anything about medicine. I really fell down into the pits of despair for a while with my only solace being my patients. I hated studying and I hated that I had no life outside of medicine. Towards the end of the twelve weeks rotation, I started to figure out that it wasn't worth losing my mental sanity for medicine. I started to make changes and do things for myself again. I became much happier and more like myself. Then I found out that I did amazing on my medicine shelf. I'm still waiting to get my grades from my family medicine shelf, but I felt like I did the best that I could. I survived the first six months and I can survive the next nine months, although they will be difficult.


NUMBER 4: Meeting Raccoon

I know that I've already written about Raccoon some on here and I'll just say that meeting him, becoming his friend, and falling in love with him is one of my top moments of 2017. I can't believe that it has almost been a complete year since I met him! It's amazing what a person can do and bring into your life. We've had our rough patches, but we've always stuck it out and stuck together. I know that he loves me and I love him, despite our distance and what the two of us are going through. He will always be there for me and I will always be there for him. He has helped me through some really rough times this year and brought many happy memories into my life. He has helped me change, grow, learn, and see the world in the a new light. I'm so grateful to have him in my life and hope that he will always remain in my life.

NUMBER 5: Taking LSD on two different camping trips

I'm not going to talk a lot about these two experiences, but I want to say that they were life changing. I've never done drugs before, but I have been very curious about taking hallucinogens for years now. Actually, I first became interested in it while I was at BYU. In my Sociology of Medicine class, we discussed shaman/medicine men and how they used hallucinogens to connect with their god/s, people, and the world to gain great knowledge and the ability to heal their people. I've read about others using hallucinogens to connect with and heal themselves. This year was the perfect storm of all the turmoil in my life plus returning to medicine and healing others that lead me to try it for the first time. It was amazing and learned a lot about myself, my connection to the world, and my connection to others. Both of these experiences are very sacred to me. Will I do LSD again? Most definitely! Will I do it a lot? No, probably one to two times per year. Is it safe? Yes, but read up on it and learn as much about it as you can and try to have someone with you who has done it before.