An Epiphany

Note: I am posting this here from my LiveJournal blog simply because it's relevant to what I'm doing, even though it's not something that's actually happening in anatomy class.

When I was young, my Mother used to play dress up with me, and often times she would make a paper hat similar to that of an old school nurses' hat so that I could wear it when we played. She told me several years later that often I would attempt to perform surgery and I would prescribe medicine afterward, handed out in the form of Jelly Belly jellybeans or M&Ms, for my patient to take. I don't recall all the small details of those days back in the early 1970s, but I do remember enough to know that I have always had that drive.

A couple of years later, when I was maybe 6 or 7, I wanted to be a painter. I wrote and illustrated my first book with crayons, pastels, and construction paper and gave it to my Mom. It was called "The Sad Clown", and I will never forget the look of pride on her face as she read it. She saved that book for many years, up until we had to go overseas for my parents' business, and everything that was left behind here was eventually lost. But between the ages of 6 and 7, my standard answer to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was always the same: I want to be an artist, so that I could paint the world in beautiful colors.

Even at that precocious age, I knew that there was something about the world that was gray and drab, and therefore sad; and to the mind of a little girl, the instant way to fix it was as simple as a few paint strokes and brushes of colorful pastels. The sad looks on peoples' faces would instantly change to the happy smile like that on my Mom's face when I showed her my first book.

As I grew older, I wanted to heal. That little girl in me, the one that wore the nurse's uniform and hat, that would overstep her boundaries and try to operate and prescribe jellybean and chocolate pills, she never went away. I suppose from an early age on, I've always had this drive to heal the world. What I saw as gray and drab and therefore sad was really illness and disease, and I wanted to cure it and make it go away. It's an overly ambitious streak in me that I know will never be met, but the drive is there. Some people never experience that sort of drive. I'm one of the few who have, but I've also spent years ignoring it and squandering opportunities that I could have, should have, taken advantage of.

I spent the latter years of high school angry that I was held back a year for being overseas and not having enough English or History classes under my belt. They felt that if they put me in as a Junior, that the last year and a half of high school would not be enough for me to catch up on 3 English classes, World History, US History, and US Government/Civics. They felt that doubling up on those classes, plus the regular curriculum classes of science, math, PE, and electives would be too much to handle, so their fix was to hold me back a year and have me repeat my sophomore year. Naturally, I spent that repeat sophomore year angry and bitter, and I spent my entire junior year (which should have been my senior year) even more angry and bitter. I didn't focus on academics as much as I should have, and I earned Cs as a result instead of my usual As and Bs. I didn't take the classes I should have taken in order to get me into a very good 4 year university right off the bat, but at that point I didn't care. Also no adults pulled me aside to talk to me about my college future; not my parents, not my high school guidance counselors, not any teachers who felt that I was gifted and had potential and were concerned with my performance. Looking back, I feel rather cheated.

I passed my SATs with a combined score of 1300, which back in 1991 was considered very good. I scored 775 in Reading Comprehension and Critical writing, and 525 in Mathematics. It was my SAT score, combined with my mediocre high school GPA that allowed two state colleges (Humboldt State University in CA, and Colorado State University in CO) to accept my applications for admission. Given the fact that I was considered behind in some classes, I made a rudimentary plan of going to Humboldt State University for 4 years to get a Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Arts, and take enough science classes then to qualify for medical school. My pipe dream was to go to UC San Francisco and then live in the Bay Area and be a doctor. I was comfortable with that dream.

But after high school, life took a strange turn. Mom and Dad's family business had gone under, and they couldn't afford to pay for college. Due to other, unforseen reasons, some which also come from the fact that my parents' credit at that point was shot, I could not qualify for financial aid. Student loan centers wouldn't touch me since I had no credit of my own and Mom and Dad couldn't be relied upon, money wise. My grades in high school were too pathetic to qualify for any scholarships or grants. My dream of going off to college was crushed, and instead I found a job locally to help pay for the bills at home, and I enrolled at a junior college.

But if that wasn't already enough, I was a barely blooming 19 year old recovering from a 3 year case of unrequited love when I met someone. His name was Jerry, and we pretty much met through his pager, although mutual friends of ours at the time had tried to set us up but I wasn't for it. I was saving myself for Jason, whom I'd known since we were 11 years old, and I had held out hope that someday he'd come around and realize that I was the one he wanted. I had dialed Jerry's pager hoping to get a hold of somebody else, and he called me back (this was in 1992, well before cell phones were widely popular. Pagers were the hip thing to have). He asked if I wanted to go out for dinner, and I said yes. Seven months later, after a tumultuous and whirlwind relationship-courtship, we were married. Shortly after we married, I stopped going to college and I started working full time so that I could help bring money in to our newlywed independence.

So that's where my dream of becoming a doctor ended. Now I'm in the later half of my 30s, with two prepubescent sons to raise, and I figured the closest I'd get to practicing medicine would be as an NP. I switched careers 8 years ago, after being laid off from a computer related job I had, and decided to test the waters of health care. I became a medical assistant. Through my job as a medical assistant I had been allowed to work as a phlebotomist, surgical assistant, and administrator of various types of shots and vaccinations. I love working in health care and I know this is the field for me, but I'm not satisfied with being a medical assistant. I know I am capable of doing more, so I started looking at nursing.

In 2004 I started taking classes towards nursing school, starting with the prerequesites, but a separation and divorce towards the end of that year put my efforts on hold. I did so badly in class due to the stresses at home, and I neglected to withdraw in time to save my grades. I ate the Ds and the Fs. Two years later, I started class again after sorting out personal issues and making sure I was mentally prepared for the rigors of single motherhood and balancing college work with a regular job. Here I am 3 years later, doing 11 units this semester, working part time, and still raising my kids, and I'm wondering if it's too late for me to switch gears again and just GO FOR IT. Everybody around me who I have spoken with in detail about this (whose opinions actually matter to me) have told me that I'm not too old, nor am I lacking intelligence and drive to do this, so why hold back?

I think it's because a part of me was scared. The forumla for me at this point to get to the coveted M.D. title looks something like this: Baccalaureate degree (preferably in a discipline involving science) + MCAT + trying to get into a medical school + 4 years of rigorous college courses through med school + finding a way to pay tuition for it all + residency + fellowship = M.D.

I think I understated the part where I said a part of me was scared.

Then a friend of mine sent me a link to another field of medicine: Osteopathic Medicine. You get your B.S. degree, you take the MCAT, you apply to the medical schools that specialize in it, you go for your 4 years like any other doctor, then you graduate with a D.O. (doctorate of osteopathy) as opposed to a M.D. and you can practice in whatever field of medicine alongside other physicians. The goal of a D.O. is to treat the person as a whole, rather than just focus on the symptom itself, and they focus on a more holistic approach than a chemotherapeutical one. One of the two colleges in CA that specialize in D.O. training is located an hour and a half away from San Diego, in Pomona, CA.

I read that and it's like a light bulb went on somewhere in my head. The clouds parted, the heavens sighed, and the angels began a rapturous chorus of Handel's Messiah all at once.

Today I went to the college counseling office at Miramar to discuss changing my degree planning. I'm about 6 courses shy of being able to transfer to SDSU or CSUSM (California State University San Marcos) with an undergraduate degree in Biology, upon which I can define the discipline. He said I could also move it to something like Liberal Arts or Fine Arts, but I said I was so in love with the human aspect of science that I might as well narrow it down to Human Biology with a minor in Anatomy. He said I've taken enough biology and my GPA overall is very nice, good enough to be able to transfer without any problems so long as I'm not flunking out of college.

Next I spoke to my parents, and with Jerry. They all agree that I should pursue this, and not waste time anymore. My parents will be helping with watching my kids as needed if I have to be in class, and Jerry says that I should enroll in whatever I need to enroll in and not wait for him to catch up anymore. The only obstacles I have now are finances, which always seem to settle themselves out, and my flagging sense of worth. Can I do really do this, or am I kidding myself?

My father is a man who loves me unconditionally, but has always been honest with me about things he doesn't like. He told me last night that he not only loves me and will support me in this endeavor, but it's about time that I came around because he always felt that I was too smart and had too much potential to settle for something that is less than stellar. Also, while there is very little in my life that he feels I should regret or redo, this changing of careers is not one of them, and he only wondered what took me so long to figure this out. He also said that he respects me and my decision to do this, and finally thinks that I'm doing myself some justice by considering this path.

The only thing left for me to do now is to go out and get this all over with.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about my own ability to pull this stunt off.