The reason this is so common is that the type of person that usually gets into medical school is already the uptight, type A personality; then you isolate them from family and friends, make their life studying, and you place such a high financial burden on them that failure seems to disappear from the option list, as anyone who’s been through it can tell you, medical school (really medicine in general) is a very dangerous place. Some will take a year off, some quit school, some quit life (a good friend ended her’s with pills), and the lucky majority pass through the dark times with stories similar to mine, stories you don’t usually wear on your sleeve…or your hand.
The tattoo which I’m writing about is a simple, sinusoidal wave, very similar to the letter “S” on it’s side, similar enough that I hear this a lot, “Why do you have an “S” on your hand?” My quick and dirty explanation, if I don’t feel like explaining the story is, “It’s like a Ying-Yang, but 20$ cheaper.” If I feel like explaining the whole story then I start with the end of my first year of medical school.
It was one of those times when things couldn’t get any better. My girlfriend and I had just arrived to class for “debriefing”, where we receive our scores for our last test, and the chancellor tells us bye and to have a nice summer. This girl I write of, I had been seeing/dating for the last two months. I was in love with her, so much so, that the previous week, in my impulsivity, I had told her just that (I’m an idiot huh?). When I told her that I loved her she didn’t say anything, she just smiled and kissed me, I was amazed that she hadn’t run for the hills, after all, she had just gotten out of a really long and serious relationship. So there I sat, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. I had just passed my first year of medical school, I was a soon-to-be-doctor, in love, and with the summer break I knew life could only get better.
Fast-forward ten minutes later when the grades were handed out for the last class of the year, Sexuality and Reproduction. I stared in disbelief as I held a test graded “C” in my hand (in medical school anything below a C is failing). If I had gotten 5 points lower, I would be retaking this course! I was in shock, I had tried so hard during the year, all I had gotten were B’s and A’s…this was impossible! (I had been spending too much time with my new girlfriend) Stunned I sat quietly through the rest of the chancellor’s words and sullenly walked back with her to my apartment, where I was in for yet another “surprise”.
As it turns out, my girlfriend really had been freaked out by my confession of loving her. She had simply held her tongue until the final test was over and done, she didn’t want it to damage my performance (ha!). So there we sat in my bedroom, my heart pounding panic through my veins, as she slowly told me how she needed time alone to think things over and that she wasn’t ready just then for another serious commitment. It all happened so fast, she was saying it and then she was walking out the door, stepping into her car, and finally she was gone…there was nothing I could say…I sat there in silence watching her go, inwardly I was a knot of anxiety and shock. That hurt, but not so much as the final crushing blow.
It wasn’t but an hour later that my father called me with horrible news. I might have barely passed the previous class, but I got an “A” in Neoplasia and I knew exactly how much of a death sentence Inflammatory Breast Cancer was to my Aunt, who I was learning had recently been diagnosed. I was wide eyed, in horror, tears streaming down my face as my father cried on the other end of the line…I had never heard my father cry…I don’t ever want to again. She died not long after. Her death was crushing to my family, both close and extended.
As it turns out, the other two “downers” had just been softening me up. I may have been sitting in my room blankly staring at a wall, but in my mind I was shattered, sobbing, and broken. I spent the greater part of the day like that. I walked the streets of the city by myself looking for a distraction that wouldn’t come. My friends weren’t any help, how could anyone be. It was nearing noon when I started walking and when I finally laid down upon the concrete of a random city parking lot and gazed up into the air, a full moon was visible among a cloudless, starry sky. I didn’t know how I would get over this, how I could move on. I was considering how such a seemingly amazing day could turn so horribly bad in such a small instant of time, it was like it had flipped on me…that’s when it hit me.
Life is just like a wave, it’s up one minute and down the next. Getting into the mindset that things will always be good and grand, will set you up to come crashing down. Conversely, trapping yourself in a dungeon of darkness, certain in the belief that there is no hope of escape, will lead you to just that…or worse. As I dwelled on that thought over the course of an hour, I also realized that happiness and sadness were dictated by me and not my situation, they were states of mind, and if I chose so, I could be happy once again, just as quickly as I had become depressed.
I walked to my house, got in my car, and went to the end of the year celebration with my friends. I pretended nothing was wrong and in my pretending I rode the wave back up once again. I graduated medical school and I’m now a working doctor. My girlfriend one year later became my wife and though my Aunt is gone she lives on through her children and grandchildren, through our memories, and the love we shared for her.
That following morning I visited a tattoo parlor, intent on never forgetting the lesson I had learned that day. There are so many emotions and thoughts embodied by this small, seemingly simple symbol, I really don’t think I can put it all to paper (or blog), but in it’s simplest form, it’s a reminder to hold steadfast while waiting for life’s swells and a warning to always be wary of it’s troughs. Life is as unpredictable as it is uncontrollable. You’ll be flying high one minute and dashed upon life’s jagged rocks the next. Life is a wave, ride it.
Newbie Doc
If I asked you where the “low point” of the wave was, could you tell me…or does it depend on your point of view?
This story is very powerful and a great lesson. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletePowerful is right. Need to warn us before we read something like that at work. :) Thanks bud.
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