As Match day comes steadily closer and closer and thoughts of the future come creeping in, despite attempts to push them away, I can’t help but contemplate the idea of jumping off a cliff….

Now, before you call a psych consult and consider my mental stability, I refer to jumping off a cliff not realistically, but instead metaphorically!

The idea of jumping off a cliff is something that all fourth year medical students around the nation are having to figure out how to do, inherently, but don’t realize it. For so long, we have had the parachute of certainty and the wings of a meticulously thought out plan to keep us safe, but we now are forced to embrace a new friend, an uncomfortable friend, uncertainty, as we wait for the single envelope on March 20th that will dictate if the odds are in our favor for residency. 

Call me fanatical… but is it just me, or do we find value in productivity, in the busyness of each day, in the “go go go” mentality, in the ability to check things off our to do list? 

Is it just me, or do we find our value and label ourselves based off our accomplishments, off of what we can do, what we look like, the validations of others, and what we essentially have taken from society to be a yardstick of our personal value and worth to the world?

Is it just me, or would we rather be busy with tasks, inherently forgetting the value and joy in doing them, just to cross the finish line and “win” than being intentionally present, still, and fully aware of the emotions of the mind, heart, and body occurring directly in a moment? 

It started when I was young. My Papou (“grandfather” in Greek) had died. I remember standing in a line, surrounded by people in black, in a room that seemed oddly ornate. My Papou lifeless, yet full of strength, integrity, and compassion. He looked different in a suit, something I only saw him wear to church, where he would stand proudly, and loudly, in the first row. Instead, my memories of him included him wearing scrubs or an old flannel out on the farm.

Each foot hits the ground with increasing force, stamping resilience into the rest of the body. The hot, humid air is stifling the motivation that began with the run. My whole body begins to regret the decision to run today, but there is no choice except to finish the out and back. Two more miles until air conditioning and lying on the apartment floor with my feet up because a PE teacher once told me that was a good thing to do. I remind myself on the last hill that I chose to do this.

I have wrestled with this blog post for months now. After the circumstances of this past year, many have asked me to write a blogpost… to tell my story… but frankly I have just wanted to forget this past year.

For the many not aware of what happened, let me tell you. I began medical school in July of 2018. As real classes began in August 2018, I was not able to adapt to the intense stress like my classmates were. My body began shutting down in response to the stress, and I was experiencing severe numbness on my right side. Our school placed an emphasis on preventative healthcare so I decided to see a doctor in October, at which point I had begun throwing up regularly in response to stress, as well as experiencing vision loss and intense headaches. After a lot of physical therapy, complications of care, and a second opinion, an appropriate diagnosis was made: an intradural lipoma that had caused a tethered spinal cord, with additional complications. It was not that I was weak and could not handle the stress, it was that the tethered cord had caused a Chiari, so my body physically could not handle any stress.