Medical Review sent!

Well, finally after a much longer timeframe than I had previously expected, I have Fed-exed my Medical/Dental/and Vision forms back to the DC Office. I know they were delivered yesterday, now I'm just waiting to see how long before I see that they are actually in the hands of my Medical reviewer. I e-mailed them to let them know I had overnight shipped my documents and asked if they could let me know when they see them. So fingers crossed they see the documents soon!

I thought I would write down some of the reasons why my medical review took so long to get in order. First, as I have written about before, I was asked to get a form filled out by the Therapist I saw once in 2006. That took forever. First I had to find the name of the Therapist I saw (thank you gmail for your wonderful Archiving). Then I was able to mail him the forms required. After that and after he and I spoke on the phone to refresh both of our memories of that distant visit, I didn't hear from him for two weeks. So I reached out to him only to learn that he had lost the forms. Oi! Thus I needed to ask the DC medical office to please mail me a new form for him to fill out. OK, done. Sent him the new documents and didn't hear from him for another two weeks. I finally called and e-mailed until he responded, told him my address over the phone and asked him to put it in the mail that afternoon. Finally I got them back in the mail on this past monday, more than a month after I first spoke to him.

Another hiccup in my review process was the surprising reaction I had to the TB skin test. I showed a reaction of 9mm. For a healthworker or for someone who had spent significant time in a foreign country, that would be considered a positive reaction. However, I am in the lowest risk group since I am not a healthworker, not exposed to healthworkers frequently, and have not spent more than a week out of the US. I would have needed to show a 15mm reaction to classify it as a positive. I feared though that this might raise some flags and slow my process of getting clearance, so I called my medical contact and asked her if I should get a chest x-ray to verify I don't have TB, she said of course. So I had to set that up and that took a whole extra week. Finally I have everything back, I had a normal chest x-ray thank god, and sent everything off on Tuesday afternoon.

Now that I have sent the forms off, I have a renewed sense of excitement and relief. At least now the whole process is out of my hands, I either get an invitation or not. Hopefully I will hear back in the coming months that I have been invited because I am so thrilled about the possibility of this actually happening. I've been reading some great books lately to get me inspired about development work and I definitely recommend reading them if you're waiting to leave, in the application process, or even just thinking about something like the Peace Corps. The first is Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and a co-author who I can't remember right now...the second is Nine Hills to Nambonkaha by Sara Erdman.

Three Cups of Tea was an amazing amazing book. It was so inspiring to read and I flew through it so quickly I just couldn't put it down. It was so amazing to see just how much one passionate, motivated person can do when they really fight for something they believe in. It has me really hopeful about starting my adventure in Africa and helping a community as best as I can. I'm afraid that I might enjoy development/non-profit work that I will continue in that field for the rest of my life. I guess afraid isn't the right word, because it would be awesome, but I do think it would prove to be difficult in planting any stateside roots. Well that's getting way to far ahead of myself and I should just be happy to be a part of the waiting game now.

:)

Talk to you all (if anyone) soon!!

Keith