We Did It!

My husband and I at his Physician Assistant graduation. It's been a 7 year journey...but WE DID IT!

 

On September 11th of 2001 we watched as a plane hit the second tower of the World Trade Center. This event transformed a lot of lives that day in very sad ways, but for us it was the impetus to a transformed life for our family as well.

 

My husband was a mortgage loan officer, and on 9/11 all financial trading stopped...including the funding of loans. It was already a very unstable income stream for us, and now it was even more unstable so we started to look for something else John could do as a career. At 36, this would be no small feat...but we set out to find a better life for ourselves and our 8 children...the youngest just having been born in March of '01 and the oldest two (twins) were 16. We needed something that could be done in any city, that was stable, that my husband could see himself doing well and succeeding at.

 

We looked at statistics online to see what the top jobs in demand in the country were and tried to find which one would be a good match for John. Out of all of them, physician assistant was the one that seemed like the best fit, and one that John could achieve in the shortest time (not as short as we would have liked!) to get us on the road to actually making a living from this job. We found that the Army had a program available that was a 2 year school called IPAP. This would work well for us because they not only paid for your school, but they paid you a salary while going to school. This would help us to take care of our family while going to school...but John was not in the Army at the time. In fact, he had been out of the Marine Corps for about 12 years by this time and we weren't sure he could even get back into the military. So we researched more and talked and called a few people and the next thing we knew John was going into the Alabama National Guard to try to get in as a combat medic...the first step in our plan. We had seen that the highest percentage of accepted applicants to the program were combat medics...so that was how we were going to start. He still had lots of prerequisite classes to take in college and the Army would pay for those too.

 

So in 2002 John started back to college...the first time he had been on a college campus since he was 21. There were a LOT of younger people there, but at 37 he was determined. He worked full time for the Army Reserve (he switched from the National Guard to the Reserve because it would take too long to get his combat medic schooling in) during the day, and at night he took 12-18 credit hours of college. Class after class, test after test, semester after semester he got his prerequisites and was finally able to apply for physician assistant school.

 

He was accepted as an alternate the first year because he had one class he was finishing at the time the application had to be turned in, yet he was finished with it by the time the board actually met to pick the applicants. So, we had to wait to see if he would get to the top of the list. By the time the next application had to be turned in we hadn't heard anything from the program and they had changed a few of the prerequisites (which had happened along the way and prolonged our application many times)...the main one being that instead of just having an SAT test within 5 years and having a certain total score, now you had to have a minimum math score of 450; John's was 410. So, he went back and took the SAT 3 more times. 420, 440, and then finally a 460. However, his name would not be on the list for the next school year at all...not even on the alternate list. This got me quite upset, as we had worked so hard and the year before he could have been called at any time to come to school, so I did one of my normal things...I wrote a letter...to the program director. My husband was not happy with me either, I must say.

 

My e-mail must have touched a nerve of some sort, because the program director called me...to talk to me. He said that he would see what he could do about putting John's packet before the board...but he couldn't promise me anything. At least he heard me out, heard our story, and that made me feel much better! However our packet was sent back and we were going to have to wait another year to put one in.

 

Reservists were not ever allowed to be an officer and be chosen for the PA program so John always turned down offers to turn a direct commission packet in...and now he felt that he had to have an alternate plan since the PA school route looked hopeless. So in March of '07 John was commissioned as a Military Intelligence Officer and we started to think of a different path...maybe a military career instead.

 

Then, John said he wanted to take the family out for dinner that July. Little did I know that when John gave me a card it would tell me that I would make a great PA's wife. John had gotten a call that morning from the program manager and asked John if he was ready to go. He had a class seat open up and was giving John an opportunity to fill it. The class seat was for the August class but John felt that would be too soon for the family to get ready so we were slated to leave in December for a January '08 seat.

 

I had been remodeling our home in Gadsden and also doing what I could to sell that home AND the home John was using while he was in Birmingham. Since we homeschooled the children we were able to visit with John quite a bit in Birmingham while still having our home in Gadsden. When I would paint the house in Gadsden, or put down tile floors the kids would stay in Birmingham. However, this meant quite a lot to do to prepare to get to PA school in San Antonio, TX. We rolled out of Birmingham November 27th, the day we closed on the house there (Alabaster), and left the house in Gadsden to sell while we rolled out with 6 kids and our household goods.

 

The first year of PA school was so very hard. I liken it to getting a drink out of a fire hydrant for an entire year, with only a few occasions to take a breath. It was a daily challenge. But one I was ready to meet and I got up early every morning to make my husband breakfast so he could at least leave the house for school with a good breakfast in him and with a lunch and snack in a bag to take along as well. He got up at 4am each day and was at the school house by 7am. He was finished by 4pm or so and then went to study til 7pm when we would have family dinner. Then he went off to study til about 10 or 11 pm...and that's the way it went for the whole year pretty much.

 

Then we moved to Fort Benning for the second phase of training and John went through different rotations...sort of a residency time for PAs...but much faster paced than what a doctor goes through.

 

So, yesterday was the culmination of that 8 year journey. Now...we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

 

I write this while watching my 2 grandchildren play and sleep around me. Life, at this moment, is good.

 

I thank God for helping us through it...and I thank God for putting all sorts of people in our path...as we realize we are not without friends, family, and acquaintances that also played some part (large or small) in helping us along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Done