Goals This Week 5/17/17

Did you know today is Norwegian Heritage day? I didn't, but that's awesome.

So. Update.

Eventually this blog should take the form of health, diet, and lifestyle advice that will be supplemental to my career as an RDN.   Until that happens, it will continue to serve as a life and school update platform, slowly molding and evolving into a more health and professional based platform.

The first step in that evolution is here.

I am starting a new blog series that should be coming weekly on Mondays (nevermind that this one is coming at you on Wednesday).  Here I will feature a goal for the week along with a review of a product, book, or diet that I've been learning about.

This week I mainly focus on the goals.
I've got so many for this first week home.

Here they are:
- PPD test administration and reading
- Immunization record and flu shot record
- Transfer of scripts to pharmacy that accepts WA AppleHealth
- Dr appt with GI
- Discuss the merits of staying on Humira vs coming off of it entirely or in favor of another med
- If staying on Humira, transfer to specialty pharmacy
- What I Learned This Week post Saturday
- Change YouTube channel name

So as you can see this week is a focus on personal health and getting my ducks in a row for clinicals.

In the state of NY, every Healthcare professional must have a yearly PPD test (for TB) - which is pretty standard - and a yearly flu vaccine.
I got my influenza vaccination in November last year here in WA, at a local pharmacy so I have to find that record and get it transferred to my immunization record through my primary care physician and get all of that sent to my school so that it can be disseminated to the proper people before I start clinicals.

Other than those goals, I'm trying to relax and prepare myself mentally for the next big step in my college and professional journey - taking care of self, in other words.
I've been vlogging in bits and pieces this week and those clips will be coming to my YouTube channel as well.

As I mentioned above, I am also looking to change the name of my YouTube channel to better reflect where I am taking the content and my plans for the future in terms of business pursuits.

You will notice the content change shortly as well I hope. Not this week and maybe not next but definitely within the month of May. My first foray into science based diet advice will either be on Thyroid diet research or personalized Crohn's diets.

Part of my other blog series (What I Learned This Week) will wrap up how I did on my goals and what I learned from them and any changes or progress I have made.

I hope you are all looking forward to these changes and some previews into what might be coming from me in future as I step into a career as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (MSRD). I look forward to your input and feedback and PLEASE SHARE the videos and blog entries so I can reach more people.

_ xo SHELBY <3

What I Learned this Week... 5/13/2017

It has been a long time since I have written a post. Lately, I have just been filming a video as an update instead of writing a post.

This past week was finals week. My first term in Buffalo is done and I am 1/5 done in my journey here. I will be back in Buffalo in about 7 weeks to start my first round of clinical rotations. It is incredibly scary, but I am trying to stay focused on the fact that this next 7 months may be the hardest of my life so far.

With that being said, I have to make sure that every other part of my life is set and I will not be having to deal with crazy health problems, money issues, etc. The next seven weeks will be spent hopefully relaxing, but also spending quite a bit of time getting my life in shape, in every sense of the word.

There are so many things that need to be done. My first week back home (starting Monday actually) is going to be spent getting a new physical, updating my TB/PPD, and having a gastroenterology appointment. So most of my health-ish things will be taken care of right off the bat. Then I have to go through all of my medications and work out whether I need to purchase new insurance instead of just Medicaid (AKA AppleHealth). Hopefully getting all of those things done right away will allow me to focus on the other parts of my life - family, fitness, modelling nutrition, relaxation.

The other thing, which I mentioned in my last Vlog, is starting the process of finding out which internal streams of dialogue actually represent me and sorting out what I know does not represent me.
I guess you could say I am hoping to "find myself" this short summer off of school so that I can come back and start this next set of classes and clinicals the best way possible.

Building confidence, learning about myself, getting in shape mentally - physically - emotionally: that is my plan for the summer -- oh, and a lot of horses too. And my dog. And sleep.


This first four months in the CPD program have been rough, but looking back, I know they could have been much worse. And I know I handled them as well as I could. And toward the end, I was really starting to come into my own. I owe a lot of that to therapy.


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Keep up to date on my Youtube channel: Go to channel and subscribe here.
And I will try to keep posting here too, but I am starting to actually vlog, so if you are curious about what a graduate student's life is like, or what I deal with daily as someone with crohn's and other chronic illnesses, it might be worth hitting the subscribe button!

Talk to you all very soon.