Thursday, April 2, 2015

Team SJGR's newest member, Doc201X!!!!


                                              * my new running shoes

Due in large part to the medical issues I'm dealing with, I finally decided to join the Grady Doctor's Team SJGR. For the uninformed, SJGR stands for "Shit Just Got Real" and was created ~ 6 months after her beloved sister died suddenly a few years ago from cardiac disease in her mid 40's.

And while I'm still not ready to "go public" with everything I'm dealing with medically, I am willing to share most of the things I'm doing to get myself as healthy as I can be. First stop was to loose the 10 lbs I had gained since I moved to Texas that left me overweight for the first time in my entire life. Second, was to start running again even though I have bad knees. Thing is that my knees don't hurt any more than they did before I started running, so go figure on that one. But running is the absolute best way I know of to get my body back looking the way I prefer it look(vanity intended), plus there are obvious health benefits too. The third thing I've done is to limit my salt intake which I never thought was a problem until my blood pressure started telling me otherwise. The last and most important change I made, was to stop making every one else's needs a priority over my own all the time!! And almost 4 weeks in ( I waited to mention it until it became a habit), I'm feeling MUCH better and still sticking to the plan, although there are a few more medical "mountains" I need to climb in the future.

I just finally had to accept (with my Doc's help) that I'm at an age where if I'm not careful, my life could end a lot sooner than I want it to. And that would be a damn shame because "killing yourself with your fork" is the dumbest thing EVER, besides the fact that I  have career goals left to achieve (hello MD/PhD)!!! Plus, you can't outrun your DNA but so long, so I've developed new habits to ensure that don't I end up like so many of my relatives, either dead from a massive stroke in my 50's or even worse IMHO, significantly disabled for the rest of my life. HELLZNAWZ!!! Plus, I now have this amazing 40 something actress as my motivation:

Yep gimmie X months, and I'll be there with Jada Pinkett Smith....... where "X" equals who da' hell knows, LOL!!!

In other news, my classes are going great and I've started to pick up more on the MCAT front. But now I'm a little concerned that I may or may not be preparing for the MCAT in the best way given that it's a new exam. OTOH, there aren't but so many ways to ask questions about identifying aldehydes and ketones. The change to emphasizing Biochemistry will most certainly work in my favor due to my extensive background in Biochem, as will my overall improvement in test taking in general, so I'll keep plugging away and hope for the best!

On the gig front, I have a second meeting with a new research group next week, a group that has a significant amount of direct patient contact as well as work in data analysis. Needless to say, I'm super happy that I decided to take an advanced course in statistical analysis/R programming this semester since I'll be using it quite extensively should this be a good match. The position is at a hospital's medical school in the department of Internal Medicine, so it could be a good short term (PhD) and long term (MD) match!!! And in the biggest irony of ALL, I'd be back to a cancer research project, making me the only person I know that "chases their own damn tail" as much I do and making this recent post VERY unnecessary!! URGH, ROTFL!!!!!!

So what happend to my "End of the Road"  position on research? Well I stopped "robo-emailing" prospective PI's about my research interests for one and excluded projects with a bench research component too. Instead, I cherry picked opportunities that would be good for me and get me closer to my goals which meant that: 1) The gig would come with patient contact, 2) Have an affiliation with a medical school, 3) Use my strong interest in applying what I'm learning in CompBio to clinical research as opposed to bench research, and 4) Potentially count toward my dissertation project. And this opportunity meets all 4 goals.;)

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