i heard it on the radio

Life Changing Moment #2...

Okay, I changed my mind.

Yesterday, I told you I was going
to tell you
the one about a trip.

But I'm going to save that one for later.
Today I'm telling you
the one I heard on the radio.

This life changing moment
happened nearly thirty years ago.

My family lived in Idaho,
and I was going to college in Utah.
I had a REALLY hard time
making up my mind about
what to major in.

I got my Associates' from Ricks College
in General Ed because I couldn't
make a decision.
(Yes, you CAN do that.)

Then I went to BYU and floundered.
I met this really cute boy
(he ended up being a loser)
who convinced me that
the majors I liked
(Humanities, English, Writing)
were pointless and what I should
really major in was Business.

Fine for him...
but I did not have
a head for Business.
However, he was cute,
and I thought
I was in love.
So Fall Semester came along 
and I signed up for Accounting.
All because of him.

By the time the Semester started,
he had moved on--he stopped
calling me, dating me,
anything to do with me.

And there I was,
stuck in Accounting.

By the end of that semester,
I was a depressed mess.
And I knew that I should
never major in Business.

After the Christmas break,
I was headed back to Utah,
listening to the car radio.
An advertisement came on the radio
about a school for dental assistants.
I remember turning up the radio
and listening intently
to every detail.
And just like that,
I knew--
that's what I was going to do.
I was going to be a
Dental Assistant.

In that one life changing moment,
everything changed.

And here's what happened next.
.





.

• I did go to school to be a dental assistant. And I loved it! I never knew that I would enjoy health care, but I was fascinated. School all of a sudden was easy for me, and I enjoyed every minute. And health care became one of the passions of my life.
  .
• One of my church leaders was a doctor. He knew an oral surgeon who was hiring an assistant. Even before I was out of school, I got the job, and did all of my internship hours right there in his office. They taught me oral surgery on the job, and suddenly, I became an oral surgeon's assistant!
  
• The nurse anesthetist at the office said to me one day, "My daughter is dating this boy and it's just not working out. If I can't have him for my son-in-law, I want you to have him. Would you go on a blind date with him?" I said, "Sure." The rest is, you know, history. That boy was D--and I married him two years later.
  .
• I worked for the oral surgeon until I started having babies. Then I became a stay-at-home mother. Eighteen years later, I took my daughter to that same oral surgeon to get her wisdom teeth out. While I was there, they said, "One of the girls is going to have a baby. Would you like to come to work part time a couple of days a week?" Wow. I hadn't worked as an assistant for nearly twenty years! But my kids were teenagers, and the time seemed right, so I said yes--and I did it. I was amazed how fast it all came back to me. And suddenly, all over again, I became an oral surgeon's assistant!


• I worked for about four more years just a couple of days a week until my doctor decided to retire. About a year later, I got a call from him one day. "I'm going on a humanitarian service expedition to Guatemala. I need an assistant. Do you want to go?" This was one of my lifetime dreams. Of course I wanted to go! And I did--giving me one more great story for another day...
  
  
  
  _________________________

You see?
One life changing moment
after another.
And it all started
when I heard it on the radio.

___________________________


I've still got one about a trip, and
one about a new baby.
Check back tomorrow
to see what one I'll tell next!