Rejection

The next two months flew by with what felt like warped speed. I had made it. I had sat for the MCAT, all eight hours of it. It felt like a marathon. I knew it was my final test of endurance. To see if I could push. To see if I could handle the pressure. To see if I were smart enough. To see if I were truly up for the challenge of medical school and all that came with it. I gave it all I had. I left all my cards on the table that day. I prayed a lot, hoping and trusting that God would fill in the gaps. The questions I didn’t know, I figured he would help me to pick the right answer. We had our agreement, after all. Our understanding. Or so I believed at the time. And I was going to need a very high score to make this dream fly.

A few weeks passed, and scores were in. I knew only 30 percent of those that applied to medical school were admitted. I knew I needed a score of 30 or higher to get in. I knew I needed a 30 to be considered competitive. It was the final piece. I had met all other criteria. I scoured the website for my number. The number that would dictate my future. As I glared at the screen, I searched to find my score. There it was. My stomach flipped. This couldn’t be right.

It was a 21.

‘That’s okay,’ I told myself. Everything else on my application shone brightly. I had all but killed myself to obtain an excellent grade point average. I had achieved awards in academics. I had outstanding extracurriculars including hospital volunteering and soup kitchen volunteering. I had traveled to Kenya and Bolivia to work with surgeons. I was a trained EMT, and I had excellent letters of recommendation. Surely, they would see I was well rounded. Surely, they would see my intelligence. Surely, they would see my drive.

And so began the process of application. It was a process. There was an essay to write. And everything to include. Nothing could be forgotten. Nothing could be left out. All t’s needed to be crossed and all i’s dotted accordingly. I filled out application after application, each one different. I included my essay with each one, which was about a girl, running a marathon, a metaphor for my life. In total, I applied to 20 medical schools. That was the general recommendation, though it was costly.

I knew of others who applied to medical school out of the country, in the Caribbean or even in Europe. I knew their criteria were less rigid. But I also knew myself. I was no longer a free agent. I came with baggage. And that baggage was going to follow me. That baggage was going to demand proximity to my doctors. And easy access to medications. That baggage was going to require a bit less risk and a bit more security. As much as I despised my baggage, there was no denying it. And with that, all applications were decidedly chosen schools within the United States.

If God wanted me to be a doctor, I just knew he would get me in.

Some months passed, and I waited with great anticipation. I pictured myself opening a letter. A glorious letter of welcomed acceptance. A letter that would somehow validate the past five years for me. A letter to make all the sacrifice of late nights and early mornings, all the tears, all the stress, and all the pain somehow worth it. It was just out of my reach, and I could almost taste it.

Envelopes began to flood the mail. Thin envelopes with my name on them. The first few didn’t bother me much. I brushed the first few rejections quickly off, knowing I had applied to a good number of schools. Surely, there was a school out there for me. Surely, God was going to come through for me.

Still, others trickled in over the next few weeks. They were thin envelopes too. And as time passed, my excitement was slowly dimmed. But it wasn’t over. Not yet.

Then one cloudy day, a final envelope arrived. I knew it was the last one. I knew this would be my final chance. I just couldn’t open it alone. The weight of its importance pressed on me. I stood before my parents that evening. My dad was seated in his recliner chair, covered in sawdust from a day’s work, and my mom sat next to him. I knew what this letter meant to them as well. All the sacrifice they had made for me. Here was my chance to really make something of myself. To really make it.

I opened the letter hurriedly, desperate for good news.

It was a letter of rejection.

I was stunned. I sat back on the floral hassock, wondering what this meant. Where I would go from here. How could this happen? Med school was the plan. There were no other options. No back up plan.

Frustrated and angry, I wondered what was God doing? How could he let me be made into such a fool? After all I had sacrificed to only be rejected?

I wanted this dream more than anyone I knew.

It didn’t seem fair. None of it seemed fair. And I began to wonder if life was really just random. If I had gotten it all wrong. And really it was just nonsensical. My disease. My efforts toward school. All of it. Didn’t I matter to God? What was he doing?

A few minutes passed. They both looked at me with kind and knowing eyes, sorry for the news. My dad went on to ask, “What about nursing school?”.

I was disgusted. How could I go from medical school to nursing school? This was not happening.

I had intentionally taken the harder science courses. There was nursing organic chemistry, and there was science major organic chemistry. The same went for physics and a few others.

I had literally almost killed myself to do well in these grueling courses. Was it all for nothing? Sure, I now held a degree in molecular and cellular biology, but I wasn’t cut out to work in a lab somewhere. Research was something I tolerated. I didn’t love it. I didn’t love anything else other than the idea of becoming a doctor.

Exasperated and without any sort of plan, I agreed to consider nursing. There were no promises. Over the next few days I learned of a nursing program offered to individuals who already held a bachelor’s degree. It was an intense one-year program where one could earn a second bachelor’s degree in the field.

I didn’t know it at the time. But I had much to learn.

I didn’t know that nurses were the real unsung heroes. I didn’t know they were smart. Capable. Life giving individuals. I didn’t know what they did or what they could do. I didn’t know it was nurses who gave. And gave. And gave some more.

More, I didn’t know that God had answered my request. If he had wanted me to get into medical school, that is exactly what he would have done. I just wasn’t able to hear it at the time.

A quiet bitterness had come over me that I wasn’t particularly proud of. Though I wasn’t sure I was ready to let go of it either.

And so, I continued to circle my wheel of confusion. Wondering when my life, the life I was supposed to have, was going to really start.