!!!!!!!!!!!!

1/28/11

Do you see what that says?!?!? "Hello, Mark...Your overall Application Status is: Awarded"

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

If you haven't been following, the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program is for doctors, PA's nurses, dentists & hygienists, psychologists, etc. If you agree to work in a rural or medically under-served area in primary care medicine for two years, the federal govt. agrees to pay you $60,000 to go toward your student loans. If you serve for five years, you get up to $170,000. (We have $150K. *cough*) We were otherwise going to be making big fat payments for the next 25 years. Uuuuuuggghh....

So there I was this morning, eating my Lucky Charms and listening to some especially outer-spacey Angels and Airwaves music ("Et Ducit Mundum Per Luce") and I found an email for Mark headed: "Your NHSCLRP Disbursement" and almost peed my pants. Actually, I started crying.

You see, I started researching loan repayment programs back in like.....2006? I dunno. Then when Mark graduated, I found out that our state funded program had been axed. Finally, last spring I happened upon an article on MSN that talked about the NHSC (which I think I had looked into previously but the requirements had since changed). Thus began the ridiculously long and bureaucratic application process, which I first completed in June 2010. We heard nothing for five months, and then found out that they had run out of funding for that year. We had to wait another month or so before we could reapply, and in November 2010 we went through the whole process again.

This time they had a new program director who decided that you should get regular(!) online(!) updates and emails and that they should try to be organized(!) and everything, and this time it only took eight weeks. Needless to say we are a little excited.

High fives to Mark, my Health Care Hero!!! Our finances are saved!!!

I need to go make the man some brownies!