That was Ben’s half-joking answer to my question about his plans for his short white coat, the daily uniform of med students that distinguishes them from long-coat-wearing doctors. I was thinking of making a shadowbox, but OK.
The fact that we were even having that conversation means that MED SCHOOL IS FINALLY OVER!
I am not a fan of writing in all-caps, but some things warrant digital yelling, people.
Three and a half years. Seven moves. Twenty-five day-long tests. Five life-changing tests. Countless flights. Eight hospitals or clinics. Two countries. Three states. And a partrige in a pear tree… Make that an iguana in a flamboyant tree! That (and a whole lot of prayer) is what it took for Ben to finish medical school.
Add an agonizing application process (so many decisions!) and nine interviews, and you get the residency match process. Match Day 2019 turned out succesfully with Ben getting residency at his top choice. He’ll be working in Phoenix for the next three years. We’re home! Every day, we thank God and are grateful that it’s over.
What a ride!
If you aren’t familiar with the med school process, here’s what it looks like:
-4 years of undergrad with pre-med emphasis. Ideally includes volunteer work, research, clinical experience. Thinking you’re going to die yet knowing med school is exponentially more difficult.
We are still friends with Ben’s lab partner!
-Take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test)
Study, study, study… And check out that green carpet
-Write a stellar application, apply, interview.
Interview for AUC in LA
-Year One: Classes. Lots of tests, anatomy lab, studying until you fall asleep in your desk. All-nighters because you get home from studying at 3 AM to find your wife forgot she borrowed your key, and locked the door, and went to bed (sorry).
Ben in his lab coat
-Year Two: Classes. More tests, harder subjects, memorizing the molecular structure and chemical behavior of every drug ever. Cramming an impossible amount of information into your brain. Comprehensive exam.
-Step One: First licensing exam. Eight-hour test over everything learned in the past two years.
Ben was medic at a camp after Step 1
– Year Three: Clinical rotations, which means spending long days at hospitals and clinics learning the ropes of various specialties.
-Step 2: A two-part test over two days on both clinical knowledge and clinical skills. Most students have to travel to take this test.
-Year four: Slightly more humane work hours. Basically paying to work in hospitals and clinics. Getting to participate more in deliveries and surgeries. Lots of seminars. Senioritis. Agonizing decision about which specialty to pursue.
-Applying for residency: Long application followed by applying to up to 100 programs.
Ben after finishing his applications
-Interviews: Weed through invitations, pick your favorites and attend as many as you can afford/convince your supervisor to give you days off to attend. Travel the country. Attend fancy dinners.
-The Match: Rank your favorite residency programs. Hope your favorites rank you high in their list. Bite your nails as a computer algorithm matches you to a program.
-Match Day: Best day or worst day of your life.
-Graduation: Finishing med school, burning your short white coat (apparently) and getting that $250,000 piece of paper that proves you can legally slice people open, or give out narcotics, or remove organs.
-Rest of your life: Continuing education, plus saving lives and hopefully finding the cure for cancer.
Ben actually managed to finish a four-year med school program in three and a half years, which meant skipping the life-giving breaks between clinical rotations and jumping into each new challenge without time to recuperate from the demanding schedule. He did take some time to study for Step 1 (an eight-hour exam over 2 years of information), but not much. Taking the test early meant he had a rare opportunity to start his third year of school early, which meant finishing fourth year early and matching in 2019. A lot of people who started in September 2015 with him will have to match in 2020, thanks to their clinical rotation placement and its schedule, which students don’t have a lot of control over. So we are very thankful for the way things worked out!
We had to fill out an alumni survey at our alma matter’s homecoming celebration this weekend. When he came to the “title” section, it was with great flourish that Ben skipped over the “Mr.” box and checked “Dr.” He’s waited a long time to introduce himself as Dr. Johnson.
Aside from Kito nearly killing herself by running in front of a speeding dirt bike, our favorite moments have lately been spent in the rolling hills of Hart Park.
Hart Park is a glorious web of hiking and biking trails that climb high into the hills above the outskirts of Bakersfield, overlooking not only stately rural homes but also the undulations of earth and grass that stretch to snow-dusted mountains in the east.
Although we’re not too far from central California’s best National Parks, we’ve yet to tear ourselves away from these intoxicating hills whenever Ben’s time off coincides with sunny weather.
Here, it’s easy to imagine that the dusty oilfields and smoggy refineries of town are simply figments of our imaginations.
As soon as we park and walk a decent distance from strolling couples and the sounds of the sheriff’s shooting range, we let Kito off the leash so she can run free in the long grass, chasing birds and small animals. Without enough exercise, Kito gets stir-crazy and forgets all of her training. So off-leash hiking is a lifesaver for us!
Little Man, of course, doesn’t do much but look around at the scenery and nap in his baby carrier. In fact, he does his best napping in the fresh air at Hart Park! Its too bad we’ll leave Kern Country long before he’s walking, because I’d love to see him toddle around here.
It’s encouraging to me, though, that we seem to find great places to get lost (in the metaphorical sense… most of the time) in the great outdoors no matter where we go. I want him to be an outdoor enthusiast like his dad, and I hope the hours he spends observing the natural world from his carrier will be a good foundation for a lifetime of nature play.
For Ben, Hart Park is an opportunity to get exercise… an illusive undertaking for a med student with a family, unless you count speed-walking the corridors of the hospital during rounds. For me, it’s a stunning subject for my camera. Hart Park is breathtakingly beautiful in early spring! Cascades of purple flowers flow down the emerald hills, providing opportunities for me to pretend I’m more than an amateur with the macro setting on my Canon.
Of course, there are also plenty of entertaining sights that you’d expect to see in a place with trails build for mountain bikes, motorcycles, and quads. Sometimes we see a daring mountain biker conquer breathtakingly hazardous trails.
Once, we watched with amusement (and a little annoyance) as some guy tried to drive his truck up a steep trail meant for hiking.
We’ll be sad to say goodbye to Hart Park in three weeks, but the end of our time in Kern County means the end of med school– and it also means Little Man will be old enough to use to the heavy-duty hiking pack from Mimi and Grandpa! We look forward to tackling trails wherever we go next.
Our time in California is affording me all kinds of nice discoveries. I’ve talked about the bluffs and mentioned the hiking. One of the other things I love about our Cali home is the Little Free Library down the street!
Not the LFL in our neighborhood. I feel too awkward to take a photo of someone’s front yard!
If you’re not familiar with Little Free Libraries, get thee to the interwebs to learn how you can experience these wonderful things. Little Free Libraries are tiny houses filled with books that you can take and read, then return or leave at a different LFL. They can be found in front yards, in public spaces, or at businesses.
We aren’t California residents, so I can’t go get a book at a library in town. This was a bummer to me, since I read all the books I packed as well as one I found in our Airbnb room within the first three weeks. I am trying not to get hooked on a Netflix show or watch a lot of YouTube, because I want to limit Little Man’s screen exposure. Besides, I really do like books. And I like pages, so the Kindle app doesn’t always cut it.
Imagine my joy at going on a quick neighborhood walk and discovering a Little Free Library! More books to read! And an excuse to go walking more often.
So far, I’ve read a novel about Princess Di, Maze Runner, All About Sam, and Finding Alaska. I have also found some picture books to read to Little Man.
When I visited Phoenix this week, my mom told me about the LFL that had opened at Rita’s in Glendale! Armed with my free shaved ice birthday coupon, we went to trade in my LFL books for new ones. And get ice cream, obviously.
Now that I have enjoyed two LFLs in two different states, I am determined to find them wherever I go! I wish I’d taken advantage of the ones at the Detroit Riverwalk, but maybe I will get to do that in the future. My dream is to someday have one in my front yard! I’ll keep you posted on my progress of achieving that… First, I need to get a front yard.
February is a significant month for me, for a lot of reasons. First of all, Valentine’s Day (or maybe I prefer February 15th, when all the chocolate goes on sale… let’s be real), and also my birthday are in this month. Secondly, February is congenital heart defect awareness month. CHD has an impact on my life. Not only do Ben’s career plans revolve around helping people with CHD (he wants to be a cardiologist), but my mother-in-law was born with a ventricular septal defect, which is a congenital heart defect. She had surgery a few years ago to correct it, and it was quite the process. Additionally, CHD Awareness Month means a lot to me this year because in 2018, I lost someone to CHD.
You know, I have sat down to write this post so many times. I wrote it in my head every night for a month while I cried silently into my pillow. I have wondered, why do I even need to put these thoughts out on the internet? What purpose is that going to serve? It felt selfish, somehow, to vomit all my grief and guilt and confusion into the digital world. Maybe that’s dumb, but like I said, I’m feeling a lot of confusion and guilt. Does losing someone always involve guilt? So far, it always has for me.
Today, though, it seems like the right day to do this, because today I know it will serve a better purpose. Currently, it’s congenital heart defect awareness week, and telling this story is my way to bring awareness to CHD. In doing so, I think I am doing something that would make Becca glad. And I only want to tell this story if I think that she would like it. Otherwise, it’s not fair.
On October 12, 2018, my friend Becca left broke free from her pain and left the world a little emptier. To me, it seems that her kind heart broke over an unkind world. Medically, it had beat as many times as her tetralogy of fallot would allow. She wasn’t supposed to survive infancy, much less childhood, yet she had lived a few days past her 26th birthday.
I can’t stop thinking how unfair it is to have to say goodbye at 26.
You know, Becca seemed really typical. She was pretty, funny, and ambitious. She didn’t seem like someone who needed to be on oxygen or park in a handicap spot, so people didn’t really understand the big deal about her CDH. I don’t think I really was aware of it for the first couple years I knew her.
I met Becca 15 years ago, when I was eight or nine and she was 10 or eleven. We were in a sign language choir together. I remember one year, we were performing a song about heroes. I wore nurse costume, and told her it was because my grandma had been a nurse. She was wearing a doctor costume, and told me it was because doctors kept her alive despite her heart condition. I was ten at the time, and hospitals were foreign places to me. I don’t think I thought much of it until years later during one of her scarier surgeries. She was never “the kid with the heart condition” to me. She was always just Becca– “You know, Becca with the pretty blonde hair.”
As we entered our high school years, I remember Becca coming to practices lugging an oxygen tank behind her. She would walk in, look around in mock surprise, and declare, “Didn’t you get the memo? It’s B.Y.O.O. night! Bring Your Own Oxygen!” We’d laugh, and get to work.
I stopped going to the choir when I was 14. School was demanding. I didn’t have time for it anymore. But I did keep in touch with Becca by email, and I saw her face on the cover of a medical magazine once. I remember reading it and thinking, wow, this CHD is really big deal. She’s kind of famous in the medical community.
We lost touch for years. I don’t know how. I lost touch with a lot of people as I transitioned from high school to college when I was sixteen. I remember thinking about reaching out during my late teens and, in my immature insecurity, worrying that she wouldn’t want to stay friends with me– after all, I was younger, and she was more popular in our circles, prettier, funnier, more outgoing. It was dumb of me to worry about, since she had been so nice to me during all my awkward middle school years. If fact, she had made the tornado of teenage social crap a lot more manageable with her consistent kindness. But teenagers don’t always think their insecurities through.
Looking back as an adult, I feel a lot of guilt that I didn’t try. Of course people come in and out of our lives, so I don’t know why I feel so guilty. I think mostly, under the guilt, there is sadness. I lost several years I could have had with a friend that I had cared about. I’ve lost touch with a lot of people in my life. Some I have reconnected with, others I have not. I guess I always think that, thanks to Facebook, it will be easy to strike up friendships again once we stop moving all over the place.
As we were planning to move back to Arizona, I thought about the people I’d like to reconnect with. Becca was one of the first people I thought of, so I sent her a Facebook message and we became “official” friends again. I was hoping to see her when I moved back in July.
But by July, Becca was in California in the hospital. She told me in the fall that she wouldn’t get to come back home. That was really hard to hear. We messaged back and forth a bit for the next couple of weeks.
When I went to the hospital to have my baby, I thought about her a lot. I was not enjoying getting stabbed with needles and feeling so much pain and being walked in on all the time. But for me, the hospital stay was short and ended with a baby, joy, and a new lifetime to look forward to. Becca was also experiencing pain, intrusion, and plenty of needles. But her hospital stay was so different, and the end result was the opposite of mine. It made me so sad. It was not fair at all that I got to experience this and have so much to look forward to. Why couldn’t she have the same?
The last conversation I had with her, I sent her a photo of the baby. I wanted to talk with her about something that didn’t have to do with medical stuff, since she probably had to talk a lot about that sort of thing. Then, a few days later, I read her mom’s post on Facebook and all I could do was cry and cry.
I had a really hard time processing everything. Part of me felt like I didn’t have a right to grieve, since I hadn’t seen her in person in almost a decade. I went to her beautiful memorial service but not the reception (even though I would have been welcomed), because I didn’t feel like I had a right to go when I hadn’t been there enough during her life.
I’ve been trying to process this all for the last four months. First, somehow I don’t really understand death. It doesn’t seem real that someone can be here and smile and make memories, and then suddenly they are just gone. I believe in God. I believe in Heaven. I believe people live on after physical death. At the same time, death doesn’t register with me at all.
Secondly, there’s something so wrong about a 26-year-old having to say goodbye to everything and everyone. It’s not fair. CHD is FREAKING NOT FAIR. Have I told God this? Have I questioned Him a lot in the past few months? Yes, I have.
Finally, I have been thinking a lot about the person I am and the kind of person I want to be. I have been dealing with guilt. I have talked to Ben a lot about how I wish I had understood CHD more and how I wished I knew better how to be a good friend to Becca. The idea of visiting her at the hospital when we were younger did cross my mind. But I thought that might be a nuisance, and I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I didn’t realize until I read her blog years later that a hospital visit would have been most welcome. As an adult, and as someone with more understanding of disabilities, I realized a lot of things I could have done differently to be a good friend. When we were both at the state fair, it would have been awesome if I had hung out with her rather than gone running off to enjoy the thrill rides. I didn’t even know that rides were off-limits for her, and I never thought to ask. I could have sent her an email after a procedure to ask how she was doing, but I thought maybe bringing it up was rude, like when someone inappropriately comments on a missing limb. Stupid to think? Maybe, but I didn’t really get it.
So why am I sharing this? Maybe a little bit of it is personal processing. Maybe a little bit of it is regret. But mostly, this is a story of how I was not aware of CHD. I think it’s easy for those of us without much experience with disabilities or sickness to brush off “awareness months.” What does awareness do, right? Shouldn’t we be donating to research or something? Sure. But awareness is important, too. Being aware of CHD, and educating ourselves about them, will help us to relate to people better. It makes us better friends. Becca had a lot of awesome friends who “got it” better than I did. She had a lot of friends — both in the CHD community and out of it– who were educated on CHD. Or maybe they weren’t, and they were just good friends in general. I don’t know. But I do know I personally missed out because I wasn’t as aware of CHD as I might have been.
So the moral of the story is this: be aware of CHD! Don’t be afraid to admit your lack of knowledge so you can learn what life is like in that world. Recognize that heart conditions are often invisible illnesses. Have a friend with CHD? You might need to ask questions– like, can you eat at this restaurant, or should we pick a different one? Can you do this hike? What would YOU like to do? How are you feeling today? Or, you may have to be extra understanding when someone with a CHD has to suddenly cancel or is feeling super low-energy. And don’t be afraid to be there. I am always afraid of being annoying. Don’t worry about being annoying. Be there. Be aware. Be a friend.
Want to learn more about living with CHD? Start here, with Becca’s blog.
Breathlessly, we broke through the trees and cactus patches. Below us, the island spread like a lazy sea otter, floating peacefully on the blue ocean. Above us, we could see the antiquated stones peeking out from among the brambles. We had found it: the lost fortress.
Sound like the beginning to an adventure novel? Well, sometimes living on Sint Maarten felt like being a character in an adventure novel. I didn’t stick to the beaten path much when I lived there, so I often found myself on some old goat trail leading to a lonely summit (fun!), the dump (not fun), or a tangle of poison apple trees (even less fun). Today’s hike, though, led me and my husband, Ben, to the ruins of the island’s original fort.
Fort Willem was the first of three forts built on the island. It was constructed by the British in 1801 to protect the new territory from invading colonists and pirates. Apparently, it wasn’t particularly effective, because not long after, the fort was captured by the Dutch. The Dutch named it Fort Willem, after their king, but didn’t use it for more than a few decades. The fort offered awesome views of the bay, but unfortunately was too high and too far inland to effectively cannonball the enemy. Fort Amsterdam, built near Fort Willem but much closer to the water, was constructed to replace it.
View of Great Bay from Fort Willem
Fort Willem is on every map of the island, and it’s advertised as a fun outing by several websites and tour companies who have apparently never been to Sint Maarten. Just because a location is labeled on a map and it looks close to the tourism district does not mean it’s a great little experience for every tourist. Especially when you’re on an island made of really tall HILLS. Fort Willem is ridiculously hard to find. And you’re guaranteed to end up bleeding in at least one place by the time you reach the fortress.
Giant shoe-penetrating thorns
That being said, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go anyway! If you like hiking and don’t mind a little adventure, you’ll have a blast hunting for the fort.
How Not to Get There:
I spent weeks asking around about the location of Fort Willem. The map I had wasn’t quite clear about which labeled hill corresponded to the undulating mounds of earth near Philipsburg. But nobody, local or expat, had been there or could tell me where it was. A lot of people didn’t even know what what I was talking about. But I was determined to visit every accessible location labeled on my SXM map (which I eventually did!), so I didn’t give up.
Fort Willem is located on- surprise!- Willem Hill, next to Cay Hill. There are two ways to get to the top. The first way includes near-death experiences and trespassing on a TV tower. This was the way we got up. We parked across from Sonesta Great Bay Resort and followed a winding road- deceptively named Fort Willem Road- up the hill. It was incredibly steep. When we got to the end of the paved road, we followed what started out as a well-worn dirt path. As the path went on, it became narrower and less beaten down. I guess there had been a lot of relic-hunters like us who gave up and went back at this point. They were smarter than us.
The path started to lead us along treacherously steep drop-offs and through tiny gaps in the thorn trees. I don’t even know how we squeezed through while fending off the wasps, but we did.
“I think this is a goat path,” I told Ben, who agreed with me and wondered aloud if we should go back. We decided we might not survive that trip a second time, and continued on. The best part thus far was the STUNNING views of Philipsburg and Pond Island.
If you find yourself here, you’re in the wrong place
Once we’d scrambled up some slippery dirt inclines, followed an ancient boundary wall built by people enslaved by the Dutch, circumnavigated a cactus forest, and bushwhacked through the thick undergrowth, we finally came to what looked like a really old building wall. Finally! We climbed up, and to our dismay, found ourselves on the foundation of a TV tower. Yikes!
At this point, I started worrying that we’d trespassed AGAIN and might get in trouble this time. Vowing to only follow human trails from then on, we got out of the TV tower area as fast as possible.
What did we find on the other side of the tower? Why, a road, of course. A nice, beautiful paved road leading up the side of the hill from the street below.
Armed with this new discovery, and now feeling much better about the trip down, we began to search for the fort.
WE FOUND IT!
To be honest, there’s not much left of Fort Willem. I heard a rumor that some of the stones were used to build Fort Amsterdam once Willem was abandoned. We could now see Amsterdam below us…. hundreds of feet down, it stood like a LEGO structure on the end of its peninsula. Maybe they just rolled the stones down the hill?
Fort Amsterdam
After a few minutes of searching, we finally found the ruins of the wall and battlements of Fort Willem. Overgrown by bushes and invisible from the road below, the wall offers a breathtaking view of the island and the sea. Wow! It did require a climb, but the end result was worth it. We sat on the wall and tried to imagine what it must have been like to man the guns from all the way up here, long before the buildings and cruise ships appeared below.
How to Get to Fort Willem
Now that I’ve described the first way to get up, I should probably tip you off on the second, and far better, way up the hill. The road we found was a much better route. We followed it down and back to our car without incident.
Walking back to our car…. down and around the hill
If you’re going toward Philipsburg from the Simpson Bay area, you’ll go right past the road leading up to Fort Willem. When you get to the part of the road between the hospital and Little Bay, look for Otter Road. Otter joins up with Camel Road, which is the road you need to take.
You’ll find the turnoff on this road
You can drive most of the way up, or park in the neighborhood below and hike up.
Old Battlements
This is definitely one of the most painful and more random excursions available on Sint Maarten. If you’re looking for a cool hike and you only have a few days on the island, go to Pic Paradis or Belvue. If you want to see a fort, go to Fort Amsterdam or Fort Louis. But if you want to go off the beaten path and do some Indiana Jones type exploring, Fort Willem is always waiting for you!
Happy MLK Day to you! For those of us who got it off, it was a very happy day indeed, for everyone else, sorry. Hope you enjoyed all the MLK quotes on social media, either way. I know I did. King had a lot of wise words that transcend the decades.
Today, we spent our day off enjoying a hike outside our town. What an amazing view we had! Kito was able to go off leash, which made her very happy.
Our hike in t-shirts was very different than last year, when we walked the city streets in the swirling snow.
Last year, we were in Southfield, Michigan, which is part of the Detroit metro area. MLK Day is a very big deal there! It was cool to be a part of a community that goes all out to celebrate the amazing Dr. King.
Despite the icy weather, Southfield citizens gather and march through downtown each MLK Day. The march ends at the civic center, where there is a big celebration with speeches, entertainment, and refreshments.
After my early morning classes with VIPKid, Ben and I suited up in our snow clothes and drove through the icy streets to a local church, where the members were passing out coffee and hot cocoa to what appeared to be half of Southfield. There were hundreds of people there! People representing every socioeconomic group, race, religion, and age were packed into the church gym and flowing out the door. Everyone was smiling, even as we stamped our feet to keep our toes from going numb. It goes to show what a big impact MLK had on our society!
We all poured out of the door and began to march down the street, across the bridge, and toward the glass and gold buildings of downtown. Fraternities, churches, and businesses unfurled banners. People laughed and joked together.
The best part, to me, was that this was not a political protest march, but a celebration. In fact, politics were almost totally absent from the while thing. It was about what brings us together, rather than what divides us.
The crowds at the civic center buzzed with conversation until the speeches, songs, and dance performances began. The theme of the year was “Youth are Our Future,” so teens led much of the ceremony. It was awesome.
Our hike this year was wonderful. But I will always savor memories of MLK Day 2018, when we marched alongside our neighbors to celebrate the community made possible by Martin Luther King, Jr.
