Funny Coincidence

While in high school, I knew I was going end up at BYU for college.  It was the plan. I was raised by a VERY blue family, I attended all the football games, I had all the ‘Y’ apparel and living in Provo was my plan.

So, I applied to BYU, was accepted, and even had a scholarship.  I arranged for my housing and was ready to go, but then, The University of Utah contacted me.

And, they offered me an even bigger scholarship, and an opportunity to do drug research as a freshman.

And doing drug research was my dream career.  So I changed my mind and started school at the U.

And I worked in a research lab and realized working with test tubes wasn’t as fun as working with people.

But there was a funny coincidence that the research lab director just so happened to be the admissions chair for the PharmD program, and she saw my potential as a pharmacist.

And because of this funny coincidence, I got into the pharmacy school on my first try, without even my bachelor’s degree, whereas it takes most people a bachelor’s degree and 2-3 tries.

And so, I was set up to start pharmacy school.  And I was nervous.  And this anxiety was worsened by my neurologist who warned me that the stress of pharmacy school (no sleep, no time to eat, lots and lots of studying) was a disaster waiting to happen.  And I should expect for the seizures to get worse.  So, I prayed that my decision to go to pharmacy school was right and that my body would cooperate, and funny coincidence, I didn’t have a single seizure until my last year of pharmacy school--- after the more rigorous, didactic part of the program was over.

And even though my health was the best it’s been in years, pharmacy school wasn’t all roses.  During the second year, I got sidetracked by that one boy and decided I didn’t need to work hard at school ‘cause we were just going to get married and have kids.  But, funny coincidence, just prior to the third year where I needed to  me make major, career altering decisions, our entire relationship fell apart, and although my heart was devastated, my pharmacy career was unscathed.

So, I continued through pharmacy school and, funny coincidence, I found my dream job (clinical geriatric pharmacist) on a rotation that I almost dropped, and received a very strong impression that I needed to pursue a residency ONLY a few weeks before I received a very, very tempting job offer from Wal-Mart. 

So, I turned down the job and began chasing my residency dream.  And then another strong impression came that my career needed to include academia.  And this was a bit hard to take.  Because, while I like teaching, I like working with patients much more (patients aren’t nearly as whiny).  Plus, also, I haven’t known a single woman in academia who had a good family-career balance.  And family life is WAY more important to me.  So I prayed, and begged, and pleaded that I would end up on the right path for me.  And, funny coincidence, I matched (that’s right, you don’t get to choose your residency, you’re assigned one) with the PGY1 residency most focused on academia, the one place I was POSITIVE I wouldn’t match with.  

Yes, the past seven years have been a series of many funny coincidences.  So many in fact, I don’t really think they are coincidental at all.  And how grateful I am for that!