Today I found out that I will finally start my training in the field of emergency medicine at San Antonio Military Medical Center. It still sort of has not sunk in that this will actually happen in about 6 months. Although at the end of the day, I'm here, right now, exactly where I want to be, there have been times where I felt like I would never see this day.
Sure, it possibly sounds dramatic. But aside from the underlying blessings of my own health as well as the overall health of my family, I've had days where I felt the opposite of blessed. Such days include the day when the Air Force revoked my medical school scholarship because I didn't actually get into a medical school in 2006 and proceeded to station me at Holloman, AFB in buttcrack, New Mexico to do fix airplanes. Also going down in the books as an equally "my life is ruined" day was the day when, after telling them I wanted to continue to pursue medicine, my own squadron commander and Air Force Headquarters ("The Man") told me, in not so many words, that now that I was a aircraft maintenance officer, going to medical school was not part of my life plan anymore and that I should proceed to accept the facts as a proud military officer. Both of these epic days sprouted many other epic days that just made me really feel like my dreams were dwindling away with every day that passed.
It's pretty crazy to think back to those days and truly understand how I was able to look past all of the negative feelings of despair and not allow myself to be discouraged by the obstacles that, at the time, were everywhere I turned. I don't think I'll ever really know how I did that. I guess it's just one of those things that you don't really think about, you just do it. I remember like yesterday wishing and praying to God that if he would just help me get to this day, I'd never ask him for anything else. I remember so vividly the feelings that time was passing around me, taking my dreams of being an ER doctor with it.
That being said, it's still so surreal to me that I'm even typing this post right now. I've been fighting against everything and anything to get to this day that now that I'm here, I have a hard time actually believing it. I'm not implying that I've grown up living the life of hard knocks or anything silly like that. Simply that nothing in my life has ever come easy. I feel like i've spent my life struggling and fighting against to get here, to this day. On the days like I talked about before (opposite of blessed days), there was nothing more that I wanted than to be finished fighting for "this life". But now that I look back, I feel like days when I felt like God or whoever had forgotten about me, were the days when I actually gained the most. It sounds all touchy-feely, I know. But no matter how many terrible days I have now, or how many times I think about how "tough" this life is right now, I look back at those days, remember how opposite of blessed I felt, and immediately realize that those were the some of the most influential days of my whole life. And without them, this amazing day, would not be nearly as meaningful.
So I love today. I love that I finally feel that some of my hardwork has paid off. But what I loved the most, was the feeling I got when I read my email telling me I was selected for Emergency medicine at SAMMC. I LITERALLY felt like the moment I read those words, the 200lbs, ever-powerful backpack of doubt and fear that I had been carrying around for a loooooooong time (even in my sleep, not just since last year) just disintegrated into thin air.
Overall, what an amazing day. I'm definitely going to bookmark this day and come back to it multiple times just so I know it actually happened.
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