Story By: Elisabeth Wygant
Growing up, I always knew I wanted to be someone who helped others and welcomed them with open arms. I was one of those girls who wanted to be the superhero and do what was just for myself and others. This passion had a lot to do with my upbringing. My parents always encouraged us to be ourselves and stay true to our moral compass. In addition, my youngest sister was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was born, so I was enveloped by a level of care from her providers and my parents that was truly nurturing. My story is one in which a series of events occurred simultaneously, which led me to becoming an entrepreneur and empowering women to fill their cup first! My ultimate legacy is to create a world where my daughters, and young girls like them, are welcomed with love and respect into the workplace; it is also my responsibility to teach my ladies that they can colour outside of the lines and to follow their intuition and heart in life!
By the time I reached high school, I was bound and determined that I’d become some kind of doctor. I just couldn’t pinpoint which. When I reached my junior year, I had the ability to job shadow the pharmacist and owner at an independent pharmacy where I fell in love with the idea of entrepreneurship. There was so much autonomy with being your own boss, and even better, he was able to develop a relationship with our community to provide care. It was then that I realized I was able to fuse the advocate side of my personality with health care that enabled me to connect with people on a deeper level. I started working towards applying to schools that offered pre-pharmacy and pharmacy programs right away.
Shortly after I graduated high school, I met a boy…we started dating, and one year later, got married! I was 19 at the time and he was only 22. Our relationship (as most do) has only gotten stronger as we have gone through the different eb and flow of life. He has always been my biggest fan and supporter of my very ambitious goals! Together we make each other better and I’m truly grateful for him. We will be married 12 years this July!
I ended up getting accepted into pharmacy school in Florida and had kept in touch with the owner of the little independent throughout my seven years of schooling. During my final year of pharmacy school, he asked if I’d come back to our small hometown and manage the pharmacy. Talk about manifest destiny! I had dreamed about returning there ever since I had started school, and it’s part of the reason why I continued to keep in touch. My husband and I were so excited to go back where our family lived, for me to start this amazing career, and for him to continue his success in his career. Two weeks after graduating from pharmacy school, we packed up a U-Haul and headed to our home town.
Once I started my position as the pharmacy manager, I was met with frustration and turmoil, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time. It was an incredibly busy pharmacy where I was pulled in so many different directions in a day that by the time I got home, I was completely drained. Because I was wearing all of the hats, I felt like I couldn’t help people the way I thought I would be able to. I truly wanted to develop those deep connections with my community and provide them with care that they deserved. I was seeing a pattern of overprescribing and lack of education on healthy lifestyle changes. It was this domino effect where a patient would be diagnosed with a condition and not become well, then have to be placed on another medication. I had several patients on over 10 medications that they had to take per day! I couldn’t help but to feel in complete misalignment and that my moral compass was totally off! This wasn’t what I envisioned my career to be, what I had learned in school was to treat with lifestyle changes then move on to the medications; not to prescribe and totally discount them! Once I reached this point of frustration so quickly, I sensed that I was not in the right place from a career standpoint, which then led to an emotional and spiritual standpoint as well.
Soon after I started working, I became pregnant with my first baby and we were expecting a little girl! My pregnancy was healthy. I was still working full-time because I had to save up my vacation time to use as maternity leave and my student loan debt was over $300k (we will get into that soon)! However, my labor and delivery experience was traumatic, to say the least! I decided to get an epidural and ended up with a spinal headache for two days until I could get someone to listen to me about my pain. The level of pain that I was in from this failed epidural was excruciating and I would’ve rather gone through labor without medication. The discomfort I was in was entirely ignored by the anesthesiologist. My husband and I were trying to express how I was feeling, but he assured me that everything was fine…oh hell no! After I delivered my daughter, I couldn’t lift my arms over my head, it felt like my bones were breaking in my shoulders and spine. With that, I wasn’t able to hold and care for my daughter the way I wanted to. We didn’t get that bonding time that we both so desperately needed and it caused me to go into postpartum anxiety and later postpartum depression. I wasn’t sleeping, I spoke aloud that I wasn’t a good enough mother, and I often worried that I wasn’t worthy of being a mom. I had all of the support that you could possibly imagine from my husband, mom, sisters, the list goes on; but I couldn’t claw my way out. I confided in a family member who had just given birth which helped get me out of this dark place and I can’t thank her enough for this, she gave me my momfidence back!
As an aside, I went back to work after my little one was only 8 weeks old. I convinced myself that I was ready to go back and work full-time again, but in all reality, I wasn’t! I didn’t give myself the rest and time I deserved as a new mother to my first born child. If there’s one piece of advice I’d give a mama is to take the time you need for yourself and your baby! The time slips away so quickly and your body truly needs grace to adjust to a new way of life.
Ways to connect with Elizabeth
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