“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell
Growing up in a family of medical professionals, I received an abundance of opportunities with the understanding that my “job” was school. There was immense pressure to bring home straight A’s. I internalized this pressure and spent hours in my room memorizing texts and studying for classes.
In my mind medicine was the only acceptable career for me. Family, friends, and teachers routinely asked if I wanted to go to medical school, and my grandmother would smile when she saw me studying and say, “Study hard and you’ll be a doctor, just like your father.”
I felt that everyone was expecting big things from me, and I wasn’t sure what those things were, how to make them happen, or if I even wanted them.
In the fall of 2007, I was beginning my undergraduate career as a biopsychology and pre-med major at the local university when I became sick with a progressive neurodegenerative disease. I put life on hold as I bounced from doctor to doctor and underwent test after test, which produced few answers.
In a period of three years, I lost my balance, my mobility, my hearing, and much of my independence.
The grieving process that accompanied these losses was intense and surreal. I was convinced that finally having a diagnosis would make it easier, but I discovered that labeling an experience does not change its reality.
Medical science had nothing to offer me, in terms of treatment or a cure for my form of mitochondrial disease, but I found myself moving through grief with a false sense of fluidity and a feigned sense of humor.
I thought that if I pretended things were okay, I would not have to face the seriousness of my illness or the underlying grief. (more…)