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Let the travels of 2008 begin
Flying over Alaska, watching the sun rise at 11 amI’m new to this whole blog thing, but we’ll see how it goes. A week ago I was treasuring my last days in Alaska with a wonderful community of people I have come to know and love in the past year. To back track a little, (I’ll try not to elaborate too much), I recently finished my Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy. During the first few months of the program in Fall 2005 we were encouraged as students to begin to think about where we would like to do our two 12 week fieldwork rotations. Knowing I wanted to travel somewhere for at least one of them, I came across Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in the file drawers when searching for possible locations. On July 1 last summer I found myself in Fairbanks, AK wondering where the heck I was and wondering where all the mountains were. My small initial disappointment with Fairbanks quickly disappeared, and I had a wonderful experience working at the hospital there and enjoying an Alaskan summer doing lots of touristy things, spending time with the other interns, spending a week with my boyfriend at the time Sean, who visited, and traveling the state some with my parents
Tanana River
Sunset over the Tanana River, 11:30 pm, July 2007 when they came to visit. I came to really enjoy and appreciate the people I worked with as co-workers, mentors, and friends. I decided to return to Fairbanks to work after graduation, after spending the fall doing another rotation in the Puyallup School district, living at home with my parents, and commuting to seattle multiple times per week to visit with friends and enjoy city life. I graduated in December and began to pack for the next few months I would spend in Fairbanks.
In January I returned to Fairbanks to work at the hospital and at a pediatric clinic in town a few hours per week. I enjoyed spending time with people I knew from last summer, others I met at Friends church, others I met at a bible study from the church I attended last summer, and friends from work. I passed my certification exam in February. I thoroughly enjoy working at FMH/Denali Center. As an OT, I work with patients recovering from recent surgeries such as joint replacements, those who have had CVAs or heart problems, patients recovering from illness that have left them with weakness, a patient with multiple sclerosis, several with severe frostbite, and
Alaska hillside
Midnight in August some with multiple complex medical conditions. The newness of this field and this kind of work consistently challenges my creativity, stretches my thinking and is very rewarding. I’m looking forward to the years to come of providing therapy and getting to know all sorts of interesting people.
Leaving Alaska was more difficult than I though it would be when planning my 3 1/2 month stay there. So many people to say bye to, and so many good friendships that have begun. I'm still unsure of my plans after traveling overseas, but two excellent experiences in Fairbanks have left me with lingering thoughts about returning there again, for a longer period of time. For now though, I'm switching my focus to these next few months!
Ok, well that's enough of the background. I’ll write again as the adventures continue!
By the way, if you'd like to see more pictures of my time in Alaska last summer and this recent winter, visit Facebook.com. I will be working on figuring out how to upload more photos easily onto this site, or provide a link to another photo sharing site.
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