That’s what my best friend from college calls it: my odyssey.
Lately things have been very difficult – and I know I’d be saying that even if it was only med school that was troubling me. Unfortunately it’s so much more than that.
It’s been a tough year for my family: my mom flew to Lebanon in October to take care of her sick mother. The rest of us pulled together to take care of my little sister (the only one not old enough to drive herself around). In January Mom came to visit, then took Rowena back to Lebanon with her so that she could be with her. And then there were four (me, Dad, two brothers).
Last Tuesday 4/7, my dad fell and broke his hip – an impacted femoral neck fracture that he had repaired the next day. And so began a long week of visits in the hospital, discussions with the family, planning for what we would do next. It has been honestly been the longest week of my life. There is so much that has to be done when your whole routine becomes up-ended like this.
I won’t lie – it was really hard initially. I was an emotional wreck for days. I don’t know how to manage a family, a household, everything else, while both my parents are away. And it happened just as things were picking up with school. My finals start in 12 days. Yeah.
I haven’t been sleeping much. I lost a lot of studying time, even though I’ve been trying to read whenever I can. Most of my time until this weekend was spent dealing with family things.
But what else can I do? Bad things happen, and sometimes they happen at the worst, most inopportune times (even though there’s never a “good” time at all). All I can do is shoulder the new responsibility, face these issues head on, and do whatever it takes to get through.
Thankfully people have been so supportive… We have good family friends who bring us home-cooked meals, offer their help, visit my dad in the hospital. And my school has been accommodating enough to give me excused absences from classes (though I’m still trying to attend as many as I can). Still, there is only so much burden that can be removed. There’s still a lot that my brothers and I have to do ourselves, not the least of which is studying.
The other day I met with a dean from school, who gave me something interesting to think about. He said, “This age that you’re at, in your 20s, this is when you expect these things to happen: the parents, the grandparents, all of that. And it’s unfortunate but it always tends to happen at this age. The difference between you guys and your peers, though, is that you’re in medical school. If all of this happened to someone else, they might say, ‘you know what, time out. I’m taking a week off work to sort this out.’ and then they go back the next week. But medical students don’t have that luxury. The work doesn’t stop for you; it just keeps going no matter what’s going on in your life.”
I realized that he’s right: our responsibilities increase and problems come with them, but there’s not much flexibility to deal with that in medical school. But I’m doing the best I can. It really made me take a step back, think of how I have been dealing with things, and cut myself a bit of slack.
My best friend calls it my odyssey because it is a huge personal challenge, something I have to overcome, and that will hopefully make me stronger. But the process – the getting there – seems so overwhelming.
I had much more ambitious goals for my exams before this happened. I thought I could study pathology and behavioral science as much as possible for my shelf exams; that way I wouldn’t have to study them as much for USMLE Step 1. But now my focus has shifted. I still want to do well on finals, but I’d be satisfied to just pass with a safe margin. I’ll deal with Step 1 later. One thing at a time. (That’s part of my new thing now: “compartmentalizing.” So much harder than it sounds. Try studying difficult science material while worrying about your parent in the hospital.)
Today is Pascha – celebration of the resurrection of Christ. I went to church last night after studying for nearly 12 hours (with breaks, of course!). I was happy because it was the first successful studying day I’ve had since Dad’s surgery. (I’ve been productive, but not in regards to school.) Today is not going so well, and it’s tough when I think about how much I have to do. But I’m going to visit Dad soon. It’ll be good to see him and spend time with the rest of my family. That’s my priority right now.
