My Bible study this morning asked me to think through which parts of the Christmas story that I would like to make sure I remember this season. There was a definite theme to my thoughts. I couldn't help but recognize the hard. Society wasn't really on the side of the unmarried pregnant female or the man who chose to stay with her - yet they said yes. First labors are hard enough in a cushy hospital with lots of help - a barn must have been an extra challenge - yet they persevered. Leaving your flocks and following a star probably didn't seem like rational shepherd behavior, yet they left. My point being it put on my brain - how often things may be hard but they will be worth it. This gave me immeasurable hope today as there has been a lot of hard and a lot of sad in the last two years for my family. But I think if you asked any of us if it had been worth it to keep moving forward through the hard, it would be a unanimous yes. The photo above is the celebration of a group of people who have learned or are soon to learn, their hard battle will be very worth it.
We graduated our first class of #JayPAs today. This has been a dream since 2016 and an active labor of mine since 2017. It wasn't easy building a program from the ground up. There were days it felt downright impossible. We had all taught PA School before but this was a new curriculum with a new set of resources. But we had tremendous support from our Dean and the University. Slowly, the clinical partners knew who we were and warmed up to the idea of our students studying in their clinics. With this first class making such a good impression, many are now eager to have our students. It has been a labor of love but this class has shown that our hard work exceeded our wildest expectations. They excel on national exams letting us know that not only did we meet the mark, we went flying past it. But most of all, the entire reason I love being an educator even though I also love clinic - is that I love seeing the process of undergraduate to professional. And watching those 23 students march across the stage they were nearly unrecognizable as the wide eyed matriculant they were a mere 28 months prior. They not only blazed the trail through an untested curriculum, the weathered the disruption of a global pandemic to their studies, and continued to learn to serve patients through the ongoing pandemic in their clinicals. And today, they can look back on all that hard and know, it was all worth it as they are officially PAs.
A special shout out to this group. The inaugural group of Team Hoffman. To say I am proud would be an understatement.
There is another little lady that tackled some hard today. Miss K is a pretty talented little lady - but she does not love to perform. She has her little friend that invited her to do a Nutcracker workshop and she loved every minute. However, she isn't always sure she likes the idea of doing a performance. I had to miss the live performance as I had to be downtown for graduation but I was able to watch the live feed. K also gave me a full report after I got home. She was glad that she did the performance even though she was very nervous and wasn't sure wanted to. I tried to help her see that everyone gets nervous but that you can just push through those nerves and learn how much fun performing can be. I can't say that she is there yet. But today was one more brick in the path that teaches her that she can do it and she can have fun doing so. It is hard for her to decide to do it anyway and today it was totally worth it that she did.
All of these moments remind me that the hard often builds the strength to get to the good. This is such a good reminder as we continue to navigate a very long road with my Dad. Even in amongst that hard, there have been some moments that make it .... sort of .... worth it. For example, the first two cycles of chemo were SO brutal for my Dad. I know I have mentioned the fatigued - but whatever you are imagining, it was worse. He had never had chemo before so we assumed it was chemo. He would get awful night sweats and chills. Sometimes debilitating abdominal pain. But what always bothered him the most, was the fatigue. In hindsight, we now see that almost all of his symptoms during that time were due to infections. There was a lot of hard in dealing with those infections. Hospital stays and he still is suffering through a drain attached to him. But the worth it part was that it opened our eyes to how well he is tolerating the chemo. Because as those symptoms of infection subsided, we now see a man that is "fired up and ready to tackle the world." That might be a bit of an overstatement or a lot of one - but that is what he always said to us - every. single. day. when we left for school. He would say, "Erin are you fired up and ready to tackle the world? Ready to go out there and give them the old Riley 1, 2!" The two always had a bit of a grunt to it - like how a quarterback might say it when counting off the snap. In reality, by comparison to the first two months of this process - he really is doing awesome. And we are both finding joy in his ability to care for mom, get out to the kids basketball games, to walk to the mail box, run a few errands, and feel like a normal human for more than one or two days of the chemo cycle. He wasn't perfect but the last two weeks were doable. And the hard of the first two months made our perspective such that we realized that all that work got us to here and for now, here is worth it.
It is VERY late and time for me to sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day of cooking for both households, organizing and whittling away on to dos for Christmas and a few basketball games in there too. And if I am going to be ready to fire up and tackle the hard - I need some sleep.
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