The Road Less Traveled - Making a Difference

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. I've given up Facebook for Lent and been busy with school and life. My grandfather who had advanced stage colon and liver cancer passed away last Thursday. His viewing and funeral were Sunday and Monday. It's one of those life events that really get you thinking. Family comes together in times of grief. I saw my aunts and uncles whom I normally only see at Christmas. We hugged, we cried, we even laughed. The memories of my grandpa are ones that everyone knows - he was an avid fisherman, hosting annual fish fries. He was a farmer from the time he was a child. He was hardworking and compassionate. I'm very thankful for getting to see him in his last few months. I have guilt that I didn't spend as much time with him over the past years as I could have. I didn't hear as many of his life stories or his hilarious jokes as I wanted to. I will miss him, but I know he is fishing in Heaven with Jesus, with my Grandma by his side.

This week also has me thinking about my journey in life. I have mentioned before that I am taking my board exam May 24th. As this looms closer, I feel less intelligent, far behind,  and more petrified. I have known for almost ten years that I wanted to go to medical school and become a physician. I have never doubted it was what I wanted to do. However, I am struggling now more than I have before with the path this journey forces you to take. You are away from your family and loved ones, studying daily and becoming exhausted. I LOVE medicine - I love learning about the intricate details of the human body, the way your brain controls your every movement and thought, the way your heart is synchronized to pump blood throughout your entire body, the way our every breath delivers oxygen to our tissues. But while I love learning about how God beautifully and wonderfully made our bodies work, it does take a toll.

Ever since I was a child, I have loved to read - poetry, novels, short stories, really anything. I grew up in love with libraries and the lives the authors create within their books. When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who made us do year-long projects to learn about writing. We wrote poems and short stories. She would give us photographs and tell us to start writing a story. I still remember that my photo was a shoe lying in a deserted road. She inspired me and my love for writing. I have always wanted to write novels and hopefully publish one someday. If I could ever write like J.K. Rowling, I would feel as though my goal for authorship was accomplished. As I think about where I am now, studying 12 hours a day (or not, because my motivation is definitely not as high as it should be), I wonder if I would have been on a better journey by getting a Ph.D in literature and becoming a teacher. It's still one of my passions, and it would have changed the path of my life to a different road.

Even as I wonder about the journey I am on, I know that God put me on it for a purpose. I have a passion for science and medicine, a passion for patient care and helping others. It is easy to forget why we are all in medical school when we are studying from the books, but I was reminded of it a couple of weekends ago when I went to our Student Outreach Clinic to volunteer. I spent 5 hours interviewing only four patients, but I got to learn about their lives and their struggles, help them get to the bottom of their healthcare -- I even got to remove staples and draw blood. That day reminded me of why I am put on this journey. Everyone is given a set of skills, and we have the capacity to do with those skills anything we wish. There is no reason why I cannot both become a good physician and someday still have the opportunity to dive deeper into my love for literature. Never lose faith, never give up, and above all, never be afraid.

As Robert Frost once said:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.