Life by PJ

Happy Wednesday! Someone please tell me how to make the transition from a dental blog to a speech therapy blog? And gracefully? I know this blog is grounded in dentistry, and the vast majority of my posts are related to the field - but now that I've made this transition in my life, it's time to change over the blog as well. But that'll be for another day. (Although I have no doubt that my DAT guide will always be my #1 viewed blog post. Seems silly now that I'm not even becoming a dentist.) Today I want to reflect on everything that 2017 brought. Well, that's not entirely true. I only want to focus on the positive things. Because honestly I'm sick of reflecting on the negativity I've dealt with this year. Health diagnoses, losing my dad, yadda yadda, I don't want to write about it. (Not that i'm dismissing my dad passing away, but I would much rather write about honoring him, than about the loss of him.) 2017 was a year of discovery for me - d...

Dentistry had been my dream since I was in middle school. Grown-ups would ask me “what do you want to be when you grow up?” And much like the elf on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I would answer them with “a dentist!” The adult’s face would light up at the prospect of a little girl growing up and getting a “real” job and my future career choice would become further solidified in my mind. The odd thing was I had absolutely no idea why I wanted to become a dentist. I didn’t even go to the dentist until I was in 12th grade since growing up we didn’t have dental insurance. My entire desire to become a dentist stemmed back to one conversation I had with a friend of mine in the fifth grade.   “Dentists get paid a ton of money and don’t even do anything! That would be a great job.” My 10 year old friend offered up her career advice in the middle of an elementary school classroom. I agreed. Doing nothing and making a lot of money? Sounds great. Fast-forward 13 years and I’m ...

(This is a copy and pasted FB post that I posted a couple months ago. I lost my dad on January 24th.) “I love you too, sweetie” These were the last words my dad said to me, as I kissed him on the cheek and told him I’d be back tomorrow. He always told me how much he loved me. Every single day of my life I talked to him, he told me how proud he was of me, how I was the greatest daughter ever, and how much he loved me. In return, I told him how he was the greatest Dad I could have ever asked for, and how much I loved him. He would always sigh at this, as if it wasn’t true, but  it was. He was the greatest dad for me and my brother that we could have ever, ever asked for. I could write a book on the lessons my dad taught me throughout my life. But I think the most important is one he taught me just a few weeks ago. After an especially tiring week in December, when it seemed as though the cancer and the surgeries were just too much to bear, I had a long, sobering phone con...