Baby Steps

I still don't feel 100%, but I am getting stronger every day. I am sure by 15th that I'll be ready to start my family medicine clerkship. Every day I have been trying to go out and run errands, walk and just get up and about. I am not allowed to work out for a few more weeks, but I am able to go walking around the mall, a large store, and even going to the hospital to visit old friends for several hours, which I couldn't do a week and a half ago. It is a little scary to start moving again after surgery because there is a fear of pain and weakness after being so helpless, but at some point you just have to start trying and I've been surprising myself on occasion.

I am getting both excited and incredibly nervous to head back to school. I've been looking forward to my clerkships since I started medical school. In fact during the first two years of medical school when things got tough, I would remind myself to keep my eye on the prize: being in the hospital learning practical medicine rather than just book medicine. Now that I am ready to start the part I've been looking for, I am nervous. I hope that I am competent, knowledgeable, compassionate and tough enough to get through the next phase of my training. I have had higher grades every semester of medical school (as every semester is more clinical and practical than the last) so anticipate that I will do great in this next phase of my training. But, I am still a bit nervous...of course anything new in life and worth doing is often daunting.