There and Back Again

Many years ago as Tom and I talked about working on getting Tom into dental school, we also talked about where we ultimately would like to settle. We'd had many friends over the years from Washington State who LOVED living there. We looked at the climate and decided that a cool, rainy place would work well for us, especially for Tom who seems to be allergic to the sun and sweats like CRAZY!!! Later we found out they hardly have any bugs; after living in Texas and its plethora of roaches ... GROSS ... we really were excited to settle in Washington.

So along came dental school and finally after many years and a few ups and many downs, we arrived to Tom's last summer as a student. We took a trip up to the Seattle area to check out the area and to get things rolling on us finding a job in Washington. We LOVED the weather. We loved that in June we were wearing jackets. We loved the overcast days. We loved how beautiful it was, and we loved that we had friends in the area. We met with a dental broker during our trip and started to get things rolling. Throughout Tom's senior year, he made numerous trips back and forth to the Seattle area.

By April, we still hadn't secured a job, but it was time to plan our move. One night while out on a date, I had a bit of inspiration to have Tom call his sister Cynthia and ask if we could live with them after dental school IF for any reason something went wrong. After many years of having things go the hard way, I decided we'd better be careful and have a backup plan. In true Orme fashion, life took the hard road; by Tom's graduation we didn't have a job secured in Washington, and Tom had to retake a portion of his Boards ... the hygiene portion of all things.

Amen to Cynthia and her family's kindness, who had told us when we asked in April if we could live with them, "Did you even need to ask?" On June 1, we arrived in Utah at Cynthia's house. Tom retook, and passed, his boards a few weeks later. By the end of the month, we submitted his application for a dental license in Washington and continued our job searching. After a month and no progress in Washington, we decided to apply for a Utah dental license, so Tom could find a temporary job in Utah while we waited for things to work out in Washington. The Utah license came in 2 weeks, and we were now looking in Washington and Utah for a job.

Tom ended up making 2 trips back to Washington, and, on his last trip in September, he felt like Washington just wasn't the place for us (and no ... we still had not received his WA license at that point). We were sad because we had planned for so many years to live there and were looking forward to living Washington and now everything we'd planned and hoped for was gone. Since we were living in Utah and Tom had a license to work in Utah, we decided to find a job in Utah. We looked and looked and looked; by November ... 6 months since Tom had graduated ... the only opportunity we had was for Tom to buy a dental practice in Salt Lake. At the time, Tom didn't want to take it, but it was the only opportunity we could find, and we desperately needed a job, so Tom took it. On November 18, 2009, we became the owner's of Elmwood Dentistry.

You'll notice that, with the exception of me updating my blog background in February, the last post I made ... was in November. The last time I recorded sayings from my children ... was November 17. Buying that dental practice took life from harder to nearly impossible. We thought dental school had been hard, but the majority of the stress had fallen on Tom. With the buying of his dental practice, we both were under a HUGE amount of stress. We worked hard, but struggled getting the practice going. Months later we felt like we had hardly made any progress. We were blessed to always have enough to pay our bills, but we still stressed each and every month when it was time to pay, not knowing if we'd make enough through the month to replenish our bank account. In April, I discovered some MAJOR financial errors by Tom's office manager, and with our bank account low, we let her go so that I could come work for Tom to fix her errors and to eliminate having to pay for an office manager.

By the time June came around daily panic attacks was a normal thing. Often we just felt like bawling our eyes out, and we felt like we had to consciously move our bodies just to get through each day. The things we loved about Utah ... the beautiful mountains, walking to church on Sundays, snow in the winter, the changing of the leaves in fall, cool summer evenings, and most importantly being surrounded by family whom we loved ... didn't make up for the hopelessness and stress and panic we were feeling continually. On a trip to our nephew's wedding reception in Idaho, Tom and I started talking and by the time we returned home we had decided that we needed to leave Utah and try to get a job somewhere else. You wouldn't believe the amount of relief we felt once we made that decision. Of course the stress and everything was still there weighing us down, but suddenly there was a glimmer of hope; something we hadn't felt in awhile.

A few weeks later, we put Tom's practice up for sale. Miraculously, 6 weeks later the practice was sold for a profit; it was hardly any profit at all, but considering we'd only bought it 8 1/2 months earlier, making a small profit was a miracle. We really felt that we'd made the right choice and felt God's hand in the whole process. On August 6, we sold the practice. Tom immediately head down to Cedar City, UT for a temporary weekend job giving dental exams to a National Guard unit who would be deployed to Iraq shortly. Tom returned on August 8, we celebrated Declan's birthday, we packed up the van, and on August 10 we headed for Texas.

We are grateful for all of the love and support from our family and friends; it's truly what got us through this past year. Now here we are in Texas ... back again ... settling into life and feeling hopeful about the future.