Career Thoughts

My wedding day is just over a week away...  Eeek!  There is a lot that still needs to happen.  Way back in the early planning stages of the wedding, I wanted it to be an event to remember.  I sweated the details, and my sister said to me, "Just wait until the end...  You won't care about the minutiae anymore."  A coworker who had recently married said the same thing- at the end, you're so weary from so many decisions that when you're asked, "This one or that one?", it no longer matters.  I found what they were telling me hard to believe!  But it seems to be true to some extent.  I still care about the details, but I guess you could say that I've given it to a higher power...

Our day will go off flawlessly, or it won't.  Our guests will enjoy themselves, or they won't.  I'll be a beautiful bride, or I won't!  At this point, I have peace because I know that I've devoted a significant chunk of time to the process.  I can feel good about the amount of time and energy that I've committed, regardless of the outcome.  What I know for sure is that there is going to be a wedding on March 20th, complete with a groom and guests.  That's what matters.  The rest is really icing on the cake (What a perfect cliche!).  I feel fairly confident that it's going to be great.  Among other things, the weather forecast is looking good (for both the rehearsal this Sunday and for the wedding!)  Hooray for that!

Now that the wedding is close to being a lovely memory, I find myself thinking ahead to career matters.  I've also been thinking more about motherhood, but that's an issue I can't resolve right now.  Some days I want a child, other days I am decidedly for childlessness.  In any case, that decision is going to have to wait until my career path is clearer.  In his first marriage, R became " Mr. Mom" because his wife felt the need to go back to school while working full time.  He was working full-time as well, but became responsible for getting E dressed, fed, and off to daycare.  He gave his exwife an ultimatum- career or family, and she chose her career.  Their marriage ended because of it, and all of this happened before E entered elementary school!  It's a sad story, but also very instructive.  If R and I have a child, I will not have the luxury of staying home.  So in other words, once that baby comes along, my future will be locked in.  I won't be able to go to school (or risk losing him the way his ex did), and I won't be able to devote myself to career motherhood.  Perhaps his ex and I are not so different...  I long for a future I can be proud of.  If I was to become pregnant tomorrow and get locked into the position I'm in now, I'm absolutely certain I would be unhappy.

As hard as it is, I'm going to have to put the decision off even longer.  It will probably take at least two or three years to become trained for a better job.  So now we're looking at pregnancy at age 35 or 36...  Scary.  I don't want a Down Syndrome child.  Every child is a blessing, but I don't feel equipped for that.  So in a way, my fertility is slipping away, and I'm standing on the sidelines waving goodbye to it.  What else can I do?  I don't want to be unhappy in my career, and I will be if I don't make a change.  What I'm doing now grows more tedious by the day.  I get bored easily and I need to be challenged.  I joked with someone once that since I've been in this position, my brain has progressively atrophied while my ass has progressively widened (pardon my French!).  That's a rather crude way to put it, but it's true.

So what can I do?  When I first returned to health care and worked in transportation, I had the opportunity to see the entire medical center and to interact with individuals in a wide range of patient care positions.  A few things caught my eye:  Firstly, I was intrigued by the blood bank.  As it turns out, Cal State Dominguez Hills (one of the nearest and most affordable colleges) has a program to become a Clinical Laboratory Scientist.  It's an in-demand field and pays pretty well.  A pro for pursuing a degree in CLS is that it would give me the opportunity to finish up a lot of the classes I would have taken for my degree in Biology...  Something I would like to someday do anyway.  A con for this career avenue is that the lab is always busy, and the people who work there don't seem uniformly happy.  They work the same tough hours (shift work and required holidays) as nurses and other members of the health care team.  And although the position is very nerdy/ mechanical (which I'm drawn to!) , I do enjoy patient contact.  I guess I'm an introvert, but I really like people.  People make things interesting.  I'm not sure working with other nerdy lab types would be enough for me.

Another option that I think would suit me better would be to pursue a professional career in a field like Pharmacy or Optometry.  I can totally "see" myself  (hee hee!) working happily in either of these fields.  They require intelligence, some mechanical aptitude (more so for Optometry) and attention to detail, which I enjoy, and also pay well, have pretty good hours, and have patient contact.  Both of these are professions in the true sense of the word- they are autonomous, highly respected positions.  I like that!  But there are problems...  Firstly, they each require the premed sequence of sciences.  I've taken nearly all of the required classes, but I earned a few mediocre grades.   These professions are also very competitive and require a hefty time commitment.  In both cases, the only Southern California programs are offered at expensive private schools that aren't exactly nearby (Optometry is in Fullerton, Pharmacy in Pomona or at USC).  I applied for Optometry school once before (way back in '03 I think!), and didn't get in.

A third option is to become a PA, NP, or Clinical Nurse Specialist.  Way back at age 18, I wanted to become a Nurse Practitioner.  I've taken a "pre-PA" program through Mount San Antonio College (a while ago- back in '03 or '04), and I know what it takes to be a competitive applicant.  I know it's something I can do.  I'm drawn more towards being a PA than an NP, firstly because the time commitment is shorter, but also (more importantly) because of the focus of the training.  Practically speaking, PA's and NP's are extremely similar, but NP's are trained with the nursing model and PA's are trained with the medical model...  and I prefer the latter.  It's more in line with how my brain works.

There are other options that I toy around with, too...  Such as Cardiovascular Technology.  Since I work on a Tele floor, it's a no-brainer- it would be a natural career progression for me. Echo Techs work autonomously, and it is a well paying position, but the training programs are similar to X-Ray and Ultrasound Tech programs-- they're offered at the community college level and therefore don't come with advanced degrees.  There are also only two Cardiovascular Tech programs in Southern California, and only one is within driving distance (one is offered at OCC in Costa Mesa, the other way south in San Diego county).

Then there are the fields of Physical and Occupational Therapy.  Physical Therapy has always attracted me, but Cal State Northridge is not within driving distance, and Cal State Long Beach is impacted, so I think that's out.  Then there's Occupational Therapy-- this is something that never really appealed to me until now.  At all of the treatment programs Emily has been to, there has been an OT on staff organizing craft and art therapy projects for the patients.  OT's also work in schools.  How cool is that?  And lucky for me, there is a Master's Degree program at nearby CSUDH.

So there are some good options out there.  There are many other health care options worthy of exploration that don't involve direct patient care...  but I see myself happiest working with patients in some capacity.  I'd like to explore some of these options further by shadowing professionals for a day or two (or longer, if my interest is piqued).  I plan to try to set something up ASAP (but let me focus on the wedding first- just one more week!)