SWAISHA: It’s Like this Alternate Universe…

I don’t know the day it happened. I have no idea when it was that I crossed over.

In the first week of school, during orientation, the faculty made it a grand point to notify us that we would no longer be laypeople. They made sure we were informed that this process that they call medical school would change us forever, and we would never again be the people we were before that day. When you hear that, you believe it. I mean, that’s the point, right? We want to be doctors, and that is a huge deal. Of course we won’t be the same. We believed it, and we were all very excited. What we did not know was exactly how or when this change would take place. So here we were happily (or not) living our lives, attending new classes, learning new things. We met new people, made new friends. We did some partying, did some studying, took some tests (okay, many tests). Then finally, there was a break. Thanksgiving break! We were so happy, so excited, and so burned out. Thank GOD for holidays, and bless Emory for giving us the whole week off! Yay!

Thanksgiving break! “What a good time to catch up with friends and family!” is what you are thinking. That’s exactly what we were thinking too, and it is a really good time for that. But, what we didn’t know was that we were no longer a part of their world. Don’t get me wrong; we are still very important to our families and old friends, and we still love them and they us. We are certainly still a part of their lives. What I am talking about is that world that we were so very familiar with, it seemed as if someone had plucked us out of it and dropped us into a different one without us noticing. Okay, fine, it could be just me. See, there’s this world where my family and friends have what is sometimes referred to as “leisure” time. They make plans for this time, and they do stuff during these times…sometimes together even. There are TV shows that they watch every week at the same time. They can even predict the next time they will have this “leisure” time. Thinking back on it, I used to know this “leisure” time. There was a time where everything on my calendar wasn’t tentative based on how difficult lecture was on any given day, or how many hours I may need to catch up on my studies, or how much fat and fascia were between me and a major nerve, artery or vein. There was a time when my day would end simply because it was the end of the day, and not because my brain refused any new information. It all felt very familiar.

So there I was, amidst my family and friends and their TV shows and their leisure time…feeling like I had been abducted by aliens for a few months then returned to Earth. I mean, all the things that had been going on, it felt like maybe I had read about them somewhere but I was definitely not around to see them for myself. And it all happened so quickly. It had happened. I had changed! I was so different! My priorities were different, my commitments were different, and my brain couldn’t even process real-time the way it used to. But I had a week to relax, and that is just what I did. Who knew how much of that I would be able to do from now on? It was a little shocking to realize. I couldn’t do what they were doing except this one week. For a moment there was panic. No one wants to feel like they’ve lost control of their own life or their own time. “Will I ever get it back!?!” Next came envy. “Why can’t I go out in the middle of the week?” Then, after the reality set in, there was a little bit of fear. “I have to go back next week!!!”

For a moment, I started to dread the inevitable. The break was going to end sooner or later and I would be back in that alternate universe that is medical school. And all too soon, that is exactly where I was. But when I got back, the shock & awe had subsided. It was like I never left and I realized it was exactly where I wanted to be. It is who I am right now. I am a med school student. I work hard, I study hard, I stress out a little bit, and then I rest hard. There’s really nothing else that I would rather be doing (except fast-forwarding to actually being a doctor, maybe.) So when Christmas break rolled around I was more than ready. I took a little time off to visit my old universe, got a lot of sleep, then it was back to business as usual.