It has been a busy but beautiful spring and early summer. We visited Indiana for 10 days the beginning of May. Mom and Dad went out of their way to accommodate my request to visit my relatives individually. I am lucky that I get "one-stop shopping" when I go visit since all my aunts, uncles, and cousins live in the same town as my parents. But, I seem to only get home every 12-18 months and it is too hard to catch up on the same evening with everyone. We had genuinely wonderful visits with everybody and caught up on each others' lives. I was especially blessed to visit with my Uncle Don on multiple occasions. He has been living through a tumultuous year with a rare and aggressive cancer. During our brief period home he was energetic, full of his usual humor, and receiving a reprieve from the cancer to some degree. Natalie and Liam got the usual kick out of feeding Don's 60 year old turtle, Myrtle, worms and lettuce. Natalie caught some blue gill with Russell while Liam was entertained with Don's magic tricks that he used to play on me at Liam's age.
My cousin, Kristin, has two boys roughly Natalie and Liam's age and has just welcomed a third child, Sylvia Claire, into their family. Lucky me got to hold one month old Sylvia and marvel at Kristin's three redheads - I'm still banking that Sylvia is going to be one too. We relished the warm weather and I tried to satiate my longing for the large deciduous trees I miss from back home. We went with Mom and Dad to explore an area not too far from them in southern Illinois, Shawnee National Forest. The endlessly flat floodplains of the Ohio River valley suddenly change to rolling hills of thick oak forest and amazing limestone outcroppings. Scrambling and climbing on the Midwest's Garden of the Gods was a fun discovery and warrants another trip on a future visit.
Russell enjoyed his mini golf outings with my dad. This is not a sport he pursues very seriously back in Alaska, obviously, but gets a kick out of it whenever we visit my parents either in Indiana or Florida. For fun, I asked Dad to teach me how to hit a ball and we entertained Natalie's superb ball-finding skills at the driving range next door. Natalie and Liam absolutely loved being outside pretty much the entire day, playing in the sprinklers, "fishing" in the little creek and pond by their house, and hitting various playgrounds most everyday.
We were saddened by the sudden loss of a longtime family friend. One of my mother's closest female friends died suddenly leaving us all in a state of shock. New babies, the loss of life, the sometimes arduous struggle to keep living, the heartwarming and comforting connections with family made this visit home more rich than most.
It also, in an underlying way, gave me further strength and resolve about a challenging decision I have made to change jobs. There is much that has been rewarding about being both a doctor and a teacher for the past 3 1/2 years. My involvement with training new physicians has made me feel an integral part of something much larger. I have learned so much and grown in many ways as a physician during my stint there. But, despite a unique job-share arrangement that has afforded me such opportunities as our Central America adventure, being a part of something larger has also demanded a larger share of my time away from my family than I prefer. After 11 years of doing OB, leaving my job has me walking away from doing deliveries among other things. While I could have the option of deliveries babies again someday, I may or may not. That has been one of the tougher things for me to let go of. It has been an internal struggle for me to find the right balance between Mom and Doctor, but shifting that balance more towards Mom feels very RIGHT at this present moment. I have 3 more weeks at my job and I'm rather excited. I have no doubt I'll keep my finger in the pot at the residency in some small capacity, but I am looking forward to a new experience. That "new experience" is only roughly defined at present and will fall more into place over the next several months. In short, I'll be filling in with several other practices in Anchorage and working roughly 2-3 days/week.
Russell and Natalie, too, will be embarking on new experiences come August. Russell, after his year leave of absence from the school district, was placed at a different school than the one he's been teaching in for the past 6 years. It was his first choice as he will be teaching only Physics and at the high school where he first taught 9 years ago. He will still be part time which was also our preference. He will be busy learning a new school and system, but I think it will be a fantastic position for him. Natalie will start kindergarten in the fall at our neighborhood school, Bear Valley Elementary. While Liam will undoubtedly miss being around his sister as much, I have no doubt our little social guy will have a great time at pre-school three days a week.
