I don't usually write too much about myself on the blog, except to the extent that I intersect with Lemon and Lime, but I will grant myself the rare opportunity of taking center stage on a blog post since this week's most significant event was mine--I returned to work today after 10 weeks of maternity leave. And, just to keep things interesting (because our lives are so inherently short of interest value), I began a new position rather than returning to my old one.
Here's the scoop--I had been dissatisfied with my former job for a while. It was OK, my boss and coworkers were great, but it just didn't inspire me. That turned out to be a bigger problem than I had originally thought. I came to realize over the course of many months working there that in order for it to feel "worth it" to me to get up in the morning, rush around taking care of treatments and meals, and then spend the day away from Lemon, the job had to be something great. And this one wasn't. Once I was pregnant with Lime, I felt like the stakes were doubled--it would be twice as hard to actually get to work every morning, and twice as hard to be away from two kids all day. Then, when Lemon was sick so many times this past winter, requiring extra treatments and attention, it was even harder to be away from the house. But that left me with a conundrum--how on earth could I find a job that would let me be available to the kids as much as I wanted, while also being inspiring?
To address this question, I did the only rational thing--consulted the internet. It quickly became clear to me as I read different types of job postings that what I should do next is pursue a job as a medical writer. That kind of job would capitalize on my skills in biology and in writing, and many of those jobs allow for some opportunity to work from home. One posting that I stumbled upon seemed to be a perfect match--100% work from home doing medical writing for a company called DaVita, which runs the largest network of dialysis clinics in the country. Although I hadn't been planning on applying for anything right away, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, so I threw my hat in the ring. A bunch of interviews and negotiations later, here we are--my first day as a Senior Medical Writer, and my first day ever as a full-time employee of a for-profit company. I'll give an update about what I am actually doing there on a day to day basis later on, once I've actually done it for a while and know what it is. The overall gist is that I will work with internal and external customers to analyze DaVita's vast trove of patient data to find ways to improve care for patients with renal disease, and then write up publications describing the findings. I'm excited to at long last be doing something that will directly and immediately help patients, and think that will be very motivational, especially when the going gets hard.
I am still a little puzzled as to how I will actually manage to do all the things that I want to do in a day--although my maternity leave felt a bit leisurely, I didn't exactly feel like I had gobs of extra time on my hands. Maybe this will all seem more plausible once Lime decides to cut down on night-time feedings a bit. But, I am very excited to try this out and I have the best possible support team in the world to enable me to do it.
I'll step back into the background of the blog now, but I'll emerge from behind the daily routines of treatments, meals, diapers, and other goings on in a month or two to let you know how it's working out.
