Welcome and My Why

I think it was around 1st grade when I began to develop a love of reading. By the time I was in junior high school, I was reading at a level well above my peers (and probably well above my level of maturity, if I'm being honest). Once I was established in my career as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), I began supervising graduate student clinicians and they all seemed to comment on my exceptional vocabulary, which I feel I gained by being a well-rounded reader. I affectionally refer to myself as a nerd and have been known to look up grammar and punctuation rules to make sure my professional documentation is as close to perfect as I can make it. Over the years, I've developed an eye for catching errors, and friends and co-workers have often sought my advice on how to word their own documentation and projects.

After working as an SLP for about fifteen years, I started feeling pretty burnt out and no longer enjoyed this career I worked so hard to establish. As I had recently turned forty, I began thinking about what I would've done instead of pursuing speech-language pathology and remembered being on yearbook staff when I was in high school and how much I loved the process of writing and editing.

It was during this time that we learned that my dad's health had significantly deteriorated in 2021 and his pulmonologist was referring him to the lung transplant team. My dad was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) a few years ago but was doing really well until he experienced repeated exposure to a noxious spray used to treat cattle. This repeated exposure caused further damage to his lungs and he was discharged from the hospital on oxygen. On December 1, 2021, my dad, younger sister, and I traveled to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas for our first meeting with a transplant surgeon. We were told that day that my dad's life expectancy was about three years without a transplant. Our first hurdle was weight loss and he started making big changes to his diet that very day. Here we are now, almost eleven months from that first appointment, and my dad has lost sixty pounds and officially made it on the transplant list last week! He's first on the list for a right lung at UT Southwestern. My sister and I are so incredibly proud of his hard work and positive attitude throughout this long process.

My birthday dinner, August 2021. Pictured clockwise from left to right: my nephew, Thomas; my sister, Laura; me; and Dad

This brings me to my why. When it's time for my dad to undergo transplant, he will have to live in Dallas for several months after surgery, and will require 24/7 supervision. Dallas is about a two-to-three hour drive from where we live, a small town in Central Texas, so this is going to be a huge change for us. My sister and I, along with other friends and family members, will take turns staying with him until we are released to come home, which could be three-to-six months or longer. I have been able to bank paid time off, but it's hard to know if it's going to be enough. As I work in a small community hospital, I don't have the option to work remotely. I needed to find something that I could do while I was taking my turn with Dad in Dallas. That's when I stumbled across an add for Proofread Anywhere and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for (and needed!). I immediately signed up and got started on the course, finally passing the final exam last week. I'm now getting my ducks in a row and will start applying to jobs this week.

While I have loved many aspects of being an SLP, there's also been so much stress and frustration with this career. Yes, I've experienced many highs, but there's been a lot of lows, too. I'm tired and healthcare has drastically changed in the past two years. I'm ready for a career change. I will continue to work as an SLP full time and proofread/edit part time. My goal is to retire from being an SLP within the next five years and make proofreading and editing my full-time job. I'm so excited to get started and help you revise your words for all your projects.

What else would you like to know about me? What questions do you have about proofreading, editing, grammar, punctuation, speech-language pathology, or English in general? I have fun ideas planned for this blog and will continue to keep you updated on my dad's transplant progress. Thanks for stopping by!

My dad, 60lbs lighter, and holding his retired license plate from the Texas Department of Public Safety