Mexico Medical Student |

Happy New Year!! I missed you all! I’m writing this in a Best Western in Monterrey, Mexico–a small overnight stopover on our way back to Guadalajara. I know in my last post that I said I’d write with a big update of school and all, but honestly, I never could get it together to post. All the stress of being away from home with the little one, worsening family tensions (outside us), and a much more somber tone from everyone it seemed, and we were ready to come home at our leisure shortly after Christmas, pending errands and things of that nature to do.

Then I came down with a rather virulent Man Cold. No sooner than I had started working that bell, Claudia got it as well. Then A got it–her first little cold ever. Knowing I was “Patient Zero” made me feel bad about it, but funny enough, she withstood it better than we did. New Year’s was just a couple of days away, so we figured “what the hell,” and decided to get better before adding more stress of yet another trip. Suddenly, I had a mini-epiphany: I thought to myself, “Why am I trying to hurry home to be there in time for offices, etc. to open (and school to start, but I can’t start with them), when they certainly won’t be in a hurry to help me?” Usually, I’d be stressed arriving before a school start a day or two before with so little time to get settled, recover from trip, etc. (I’m not a spring chicken anymore), but this time I said, “Screw it!” and will be arriving tomorrow, THE DAY OF. How about them apples!!

The title of the post is “Epiphanies,” and wouldn’t you know it, today is the celebration of the Epiphany (which, by the way, is the gift-giving part of the Christmas holiday here in Mexico–something I forgot about when I booked these tickets, reminded quickly by the crowds). I’m not going to go into any spiritual parallels–that would take too much brain power than I have at the moment–but I did have more than a couple of breakthroughs in the way I saw things.

First, like a scripted Zen Hollywood moment, I really did finally understand I am nothing. I am obviously nothing to the medical community, not even being a degreed/licensed anything medically–that was never in doubt. However, I am also a nothing to my school. My ace-in-the-hole in dealing with school was always that they couldn’t possibly stand their ground charging me for that unattended semester when they know they’d lose me as a student and forego 4x that amount in lost tuition. Even my being that cynical and making it all about money I overestimated my importance. What did I miss? The fact that my place can be replaced by any number of wide-eyed, eager, naive 20-somethings just waiting to have their shot at a medical career too. To be kind, UAG isn’t exactly “selective,” so it’s not about supply/demand, it’s just that there’s no shortage of students wanting to be physicians. Many will make good doctors if given the chance; quite a few have no business being anywhere near a white coat, but they all will come, and the school knows that. Losing me or any one student is meaningless. That was a tough lesson.

Second, I have no idea why this is happening to me right now, but one day soon I’ll be able to make some sense of it. Whether one ascribes it to “God’s plan,” or simply a time where lessons were learned, the worst that happens from this doesn’t break up my marriage, doesn’t carry the diagnosis of a terminal illness, or God forbid, the loss of a loved one. I’ve had a few friends and even a couple of doctors simply say, “Well, can you just go back to your old job? Or perhaps even turn this around and get a clinically relevant IT position somewhere?” (ie, medical informatics) At the time I heard that I was insulted, even though I knew they honestly, truly had my best interests at heart being people that I love and have known me for years. “I am not a quitter!” kept telling myself. But you get beat down so much, you start questioning yourself and wondering if the lesson that needs to be learned is “Enough is enough!” There have been precious few months of peace and tranquility in my life in the last 3-4 years, especially so since I started medical school. Nothing seems to come easy, without drama, without struggle. I’ve never expected things to just fall in my lap, but damn if I didn’t keep asking myself, “Is it supposed to be this hard?” I’ve been thinking lately of this Demotivators poster (and then saw this new one when getting the previous link…heh) and wondering if that’s me. It’s not about the academics, but academics isn’t the only player here. I am not willing to let it all go just yet, but I did have a “light bulb” moment that perhaps this isn’t supposed to be for me, which is a huge step for me to admit with seriousness, even if I’m nowhere close to accepting it should things go that way.

We have to be at the airport at 7:15am and I just saw it’s almost 2am, so I better finish this once I get back home. It’s weird having the juxtaposition of wanting to home so badly so you can settle back in, etc. but not know if you’ll have the home in a matter of weeks.