Can you believe that we’re finally wrapping up 2020!?!?  This has been QUITE the year — phew!

How are YOU doing?

1. What were your biggest challenges over the last 10 months?
2. What were your biggest achievements over the last 10 months?
3. What were you most grateful for over the last 10 months?

My biggest challenges over the last 10 months were:

First and foremost was the health and safety of my family, friends, coworkers and patients.  I have many people in my networks who were/are frontline workers who put their own health at risk on a daily basis to keep all of us safe.  I’m incredibly grateful for ALL that they do every single day.

The first lockdown in March was really difficult because I felt completely unprepared.  It happened suddenly on a Tuesday morning in the middle of March and then Adelaide closed its doors until the middle of July and Insight closed its doors until the middle of June.  I scrambled to salvage my practice and felt like I was running around like a chicken without its head!

“Pivoting” to a fully virtual practice while constantly worrying about my IV and acupuncture “brick & mortar” practice slipping away.  I very quickly realized that the stability that I had spent the last 12 years building in my clinical practice was crumbling away and I couldn’t do anything about it but stand by and watch.  I felt completely helpless and I didn’t like that one bit.  I’ve always been a “have a plan A, B, C, D and E” type of person …

Watching one of my clinics frantically scramble and essentially drop the ball on supporting their practitioners and patients.  I had invested many years into my practice here and it hurt my heart to realize that we weren’t valued in the grand scheme of the business.

My biggest achievements over the last 10 months were:

Acknowledging the fact that I needed to take a step back and reframe how and where I wanted to practice moving forward.  I’m not a huge fan of CHANGE and this has forced me to not only change with the times, but just roll with it and make it work

This may not seem like a big thing to most of you, but it’s been night and day for me!  I took some of my down time to learn and implement a bunch of clinical processes in order to be able to provide my patients with even better care.  I took a bunch of blind leaps of faith into the world of technology and virtual medicine, while having to make a few adjustments along the way and it was 100% worth all of the late nights and WEEKS worth of time it took me to re-learn everything. I’m a BIG fan of organization and this was really helpful to give me a sense of purpose and control over a situation where everything was unknown and up in the air.

Over the last 10 months, I’m most grateful for:

The luxury of being able to watch A transition from his stumbling first steps to a full fledged toddler who loves to run everywhere he goes and also “supermans” off of the couch because it’s *fun*.  He’s also significantly increased his vocabulary by leaps and bounds, and I can’t wait for him to speak in full sentences but also want him to just stay little for a little bit longer.  I now understand why moms would always say “don’t grow up so fast!” with a note of sadness in their voice — I fully GET IT now.

My parents for all of their unlimited love and support.  Without their help and full immersion into A’s childcare, I don’t know how I would have survived working from home, re-building my practice from scratch and being a good mum.

My colleagues for being the work family I always knew I had.  Their rock-solid support has been invaluable for me to survive these shaky times and validated my transition over to my new clinic spaces.  I’m SUPER excited for you to meet everyone at both Mint Health Clinic and Kinective Health & Performance!  I guarantee that they’re going to blow you away with how amazing they are.

My patients for sticking with me and being incredibly understanding of all of the changes and adjustments that I’ve had to make to their “patient experience”.  I promise that I’m super happy with my current EHR and won’t be changing it again any time soon!

Keep an eye out for my next blog post where I introduce my two new clinic spaces that I’m starting at the first week of January in 2021!  Who else is with me in sending 2020 out with a big CHEERS!?!?