I often reflect on how weird it is, my path, how I got here. The other day, I was working my clinical shift, standing in an operating room, watching some getting a permcath installed in his chest, waiting to take an X-ray, so the doctor could visualize final placement. It wasn't too long ago that I was in a cath lab, having an cardio angio done, in preparation for my heart surgery that would follow within the next week.
What peaked my interest in radiography? It probably started when I was getting kicked out of the Navy. I had enlisted to be in the SEAL program and was sent to Orlando, Florida for boot camp. Before I graduated, they sent me to undergo repeated testing of my heart. They knew before they even shipped me off to basic training that I had a pretty severe heart murmur- why they let me in will always be one of the world's greatest mysteries to me. Perhaps, the government just needs to burn up some budget cash and to keep the head count up for military enrollment? I don't know. Every day I was sent to the hospital for testing. I had EKG's and lots of X-rays done, some even with contrast. I remember falling asleep to the sounds of my own heart during my echo-cardiogram sessions. All this imaging was really intriguing to me- I didn't know much about it, but found it fascinating nonetheless. In the end, the Navy found me unsuitable for service, so they sent me home. At that point, I had considered pursuing an education as an X-ray tech, but after further investigating, the commitment was just too much to fathom at the time, so I ended up in the technology sector.
Over the following years, I had to keep an eye on my enlarging heart with yearly checkups. We all knew that a valve replacement was inevitable- it was just a matter of when it would be. Meanwhile, I was busy getting kicked around in the tech world, watching the economy go sour. I eventually ended up in a thankless network job, where I was traveling 80% of the time- it was not satisfying. Then I had a revelation- I realized that although my wife and I had done every [conventional] thing we were supposed to do to have a descent retirement (which might've worked twenty years earlier), it wasn't going to be enough. And having ongoing health issues, it's a guarantee that I will need further heart surgery in the future. With the economy in the shitter, there's no good place to put your money to make your retirement grow. Very few companies give out pensions anymore- everyone just wants to contribute to your 401k, which probably benefits them more than you, or they want you to reinvest your pre-tax dollars in an employee stock purchase plan to pump up the value of their company, while reducing your overall salary. And when they're not exceeding their forecast of their bottom line, they'll cut you, all the while, your retirement didn't get much bigger than when you first started. So in hopes of a better life in my older age, I quit my job. Back to school I went.
One year ago, I was struggling through my physiology class, trying to muster enough prerequisite courses together, so I could even just apply to local radiography programs- my path was so uncertain as to where I might end up. At the end of the school year, I took enough courses to apply to seven programs around the Bay Area, achieving a 4.0 GPA. I had a great plan, but I would still need luck on my side, during the selection process.
After jumping through all the hoops, somehow I was lucky enough to get into this program. Twice a week, I show up at the hospital and X-ray patients. It's just so weird to think about it sometimes- two years ago, I was hating my tech job, installing Cisco equipment in hospitals and schools, and now, I'm actively radiographing sick patients. Hopefully, two years from now, I'll be licensed and gainfully employed.

A collection of blurbs stemming from mostly the motorized projects that I do. Some posts mixed in have to do with my experiences in X-ray school. (Some entries are from older blogs that I killed off.) Some of my toys are a Mazdaspeed Miata that I work on and take to the track, a little Harley that I can't stop modding and an old Yamaha RD400 that I've been collecting parts for over the past 15 years. When I'm not wrenching, sometimes I mountain bike, sometimes I snowboard, sometimes I make beer.
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