Hello again,
Well, it's been 2 years since I had to give up my teaching position in Metepec, Mexico and return to Canada. I just couldn't completely recover from the severe bronchitis I developed when I caught the flu. I continued to become tired and short of breath very easily at that altitude (9,000 feet). Fortunately, while I was at home on some powerful med prescribed by a pulmonologist, I received an unsolicited email from a speech-language pathologist in Ontario who had found my resume on indeed and wanted to expand her business to the Vancouver area. (She had also just expanded to Calgary & Edmonton.) The owner of the language school in Mexico was very understanding and supportive of me returning to Canada without fulfilling my contract with her.
Back in BC, I found a basement suite and moved my things from Vancouver Island, where they were being stored, to Surrey (just outside of Vancouver). I began seeing clients for speech and language therapy in their homes. That summer, I was also asked to fill in for each of the SLPs at the hospital that I used to work at in Alberta, for about a month, while they took their vacations. We had hired an assistant and she took over all the children that I had been seeing for the summer while I continued to see my adults who were receiving accent therapy on Skype. There were a few bumps but it generally worked out well.
When one of the SLPs in Alberta went on maternity leave a year ago, I began to cover for her via Skype or Facetime with the assistants in the home with the client and me present digitally for the assessment and later for some supervision sessions. This worked really well and I began working with the assistants we had hired here in BC in the same manner. The practice continues to grow and since I now work completely digitally, I have the the ability to work from anywhere!
I have tested it out during some vacations over the last year. I am fortunate to live between 2 major ports (Seattle & Vancouver) so I have taken a few short cruises (1, 3 & 7 days) building up my rewards level with Princess. These are great little getaways and resonably priced if you wait until a couple of months before the cruise starts. I now have my platinum level which gets me priority embarcation and disembarkation as well as some free wifi on board. (Helpful for reviewing the assistants' clinical notes.) I was in Mazatlan with friends for a couple of weeks earlier this year and was easily able to keep up with work for the 2 weeks away. I have a month long trip at the beginning of next year so we'll see how that goes as a trial for even longer trips in the future. I think that the longer the trip, the easier it will be to fit work in as part of the routine.
I'm really glad, and grateful, to be able to start thinking seriously about how to get back to the goal of longer, slower travel that will allow me to experience more of what the world has to offer!
