Wow, it sure has been a long time since I added to the Bella-goes-to-AK blog. Anna, Ella and I have been on quite the roller coaster ride since we landed in Anchorage on August 15th. I won’t bore you with the details, but will give you a glimpse into the last 6 weeks:
House? No we didn’t buy… but instead found a great rental. Our main priorities were more than one bathroom (we got 2.5) and great guest space (you get your own floor, and if you bring little ones they’ll get their own room too). It’s a place we could never have afforded to buy, but since Anchorage is a town full of tragic duplexes we had to “rent-up.” Anna finally got the attending-house she so deservingly deserves…
Jobs? I’ll start with mine… I’ve landed quite the amazing job at the VA, which will challenge me to no end. I have been tasked with expanding upon an already successful program that’s main goal is helping returning combat veterans reintegrate into the VA (and society) in a “seamless” manner. The VA calls it “seamless transition” and then completely gets in the way of making that transition happen. My job is to break down the barriers to quality care so that this younger generation of vets has a better experience with the VA than previous generations. It’ll be an amazing adventure.
Anna’s job… well that’s a completely different experience. The good news is that her expectations of good surgery experience, loan repayment, 40 hours/week, and travel to the “bush” have all come to fruition. The bad news is that her expectations of being welcomed, well-oriented, and treated with respect by her hospital and practice were completely squashed. Here are some examples of what I mean: Up until the last week prior to her first day, after about 15 phone calls, she had still not heard from one person in her practice since she accepted the job in December 2008. She had no idea where she was supposed to show up on her first day or what was expected of her. Her first week of orientation on Labor and Delivery (without a pager, long distance phone code for emergency calls to the bush, access to the computer or access to dictation) she was thrown into the fray at a pace similar to her days of “running the board” in residency. She could handle the pace, but without the tools to do her job, she was completely overwhelmed. She wasn’t told until Thursday of her first week that she needed to be “proctored” for 5 deliveries before she could be alone on L and D. Needless to say that didn’t happen, and when she showed up the next week, mostly untrained on the particulars of her new L and D, she discovered that she was orienting one of the other new doctors in the practice. Can you believe that? She was now the “expert” and was responsible for training the “newbie.” See one, do one, teach one…. Anna’s now in her 5thweek and is getting used to the complete and total disorganization of the hospital and practice. But for those of you who know Anna, disorganization goes over like a lead balloon, so she’s struggling a bit with her job. Ultimately she’s going to get great experience, and really likes the people she works with, but will need to go through some growing pains and a readjustment of expectations before she gets into her groove.
Ella? Ella is the same happy, full of energy, sweetheart of a child as ever… even with all the crazy transitions. The poor kid unfortunately has parents who cannot make up their minds and has been in and out of daycare for the past 4 weeks. We had signed her up for daycare at the hospital, which has a beautiful facility and caring staff. However, after about 3 weeks of dropping her off, we just couldn’t handle the fact that she came home with stained clothing, a runny nose, and, for the first time in her life, deeply sad eyes. Since we cannot ask her how she likes or dislikes day care, those sad eyes were enough for us… it didn’t help that whenever we showed up we were greeted by at least 5 kids with snot running down their faces, and on what ended up being Ella’s last day, we heard a teacher yell at a kid rather harshly and witnessed one kid crying all by herself without anyone coming to comfort her. That was the straw for us, so we have since interviewed and hired a great nanny. Ella will now be a stay-at-home baby with a nanny and a schedule full of trips to the library, Music Together, gymnastics and dancing classes.
Anchorage? When we were travelling up here we were told on multiple occasions that “Anchorage is about a 20 minute drive from Alaska.” We always scoffed at this… until we moved here and realized that this is a very true statement. Don’t get me wrong, Anchorage is nestled in quite the beautiful setting with tons of trails, parks, beautiful views and access to the most of the comforts of an urban life. However, we’ve also come to call Anchorage a northern suburb of Dallas as it is rather spread out, full of big box stores and people driving very large trucks, and seems to have been designed by dudes who wear camouflage (as opposed to wool slacks like my buddy Eric Philps). When you do travel those 20 minutes outside Anchorage you get into some very beautiful terrain. Within 20 minutes you can see beluga whales, stunning mountains, bore tides, and just a few minutes farther down the road you can see tons of glaciers and have access to anything AK has to offer.
The people? We were once told that Alaska is the place where people who cannot be successful in the lower-48 go to live. In some ways this is a very true statement (think Anna’s experience at the hospital and our most recent governor), and in other ways this is farthest from the truth. We’ve met some great people here who are kind, generous, and very excited about living in such a beautiful playground. Unfortunately since we’ve been crazily trying to get settled we haven’t had the chance to hang out with people as much as we’d like. Therefore our goal over the next few weeks is to start trying to create a community of friends.
Overall experience? Tie all this together and you get a rather stressful, overwhelming, up and down last 5 weeks. Whoever said that moving is one of the most stressful life experiences was totally right! Our jury is still out on the “3 or 20 years” question, but our goal is to live here fully no matter how long we decide to stay. One thing is for sure, we’re here for at least 3 years due to Anna’s commitments, and plan on making the most of this experience. One way we hope to make the most of this experience is to have visitors, so please feel free to come on up...
We hope you all are well…
Take care
MAE
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