Remembering a mission

Now that I am officially done with my clinical year of PA school (YAY!!) I can jump back on the posting bandwagon. I've decided I'm going to make the next series of posts into story time. This week commemorates the 1 year anniversary of a trip I took with my classmates to Mali, West Africa, to donate medical supplies and volunteer our clinical services. Over the next several days I'll be uploading bits and pieces from the journal I wrote while I was there to share what we did and what I experienced. 

May 13, 2011

          It is the Friday morning of our departure... Friday the 13th. I'm patiently waiting for the arrival of my parents, who will take me to lunch and then the airport. I'm about 90% packed but still feeling very overwhelmed. As I'm looking at my bags while sitting on my couch "taking a break" I'm getting more and more nervous. What I'm nervous about, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps its that I'm going on this 10 day journey during which I will have little to no contact with my parents or fiance. Perhaps I'm worried about the food - I'm a picky eater, I have a GI condition, and I'm petrified of being sick the entire trip (Because of this, I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably lose 10 lbs and will be surviving on dry cereal and peanut butter). Perhaps I'm afraid of flying after recent political events (namely, the death of Osama bin Laden). In an effort to combat these fears, my fiance matter-of-factly rattled off statistics about the un-likelihood of plane crashes over the phone (he left for Texas last night to visit his parents). Unfortunately, this does not help me.

            In reality, I know it all boils down to the unknown. I'm stepping far out of my comfort zone and the 
honeymoon excitement phase is over (hopefully it will come back when we land!). Deep down, my "logical" brain knows I will be just fine and that this will be an absolutely wonderful experience - but it’s my "unlogical" brain that feels the stress and the desire to just stay home and sleep for two weeks after finishing our last didactic semester of PA school. One thing I know - it will be an awfully big adventure.