Match Day: One mother’s medical journey

The time finally seemed right for medical school.

I had had both of my kids, and things seemed settled. So once again, I talked to my husband about medical school.

Since we had two children, I suggested that maybe I’d be happy just going to physician assistant school.

“I know you,” he said. “You will not be happy unless you go all the way.”

But just a couple of months later our youngest son, Dane, got sick, and my world and life as I knew it seemed to implode. I’d been fortunate enough to grow up healthy, with healthy parents and grandparents, so true illness, real suffering, was somewhat foreign to me. It seemed so impossible that something like this could happen to my sweet baby.

There was a time, in the midst of days where I’d watch my baby have seizures more than 100 times a day, when I truly wondered if it was possible to die of a broken heart. Any parent knows that you’d put yourself in your child’s place a thousand times before you’d let them suffer.

With all of this happening, it seemed like any grand thoughts I had of going to medical school were now completely impossible — and truly, it simply was not the most important thing anymore. I vividly remember driving through the UNMC campus on our way to one of our plethora of appointments that first year, with my baby in the backseat, longingly watching the students in their short white coats.

Feeling stunned, standing outside our hospital room late one night, I asked our doctor — Young Oliver, MD — “What do I do when we leave here?”

He replied, “What would you have done otherwise?”

So I went to medical school.

I’m certain he has no idea that his simple statement made such a resonating effect on my future.

I have always loved the quote “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” After the shock wore off, I decided that we were going to face this, be tough together, and keep moving forward.

Class by class, month by month, as we got Dane’s seizures under control, suffering staggering setbacks along the way, we never gave up.

To relieve stress, some people go to the gym. Some talk to friends. I find my comfort through hard work and learning. Going through medical school, I had my work cut out for me, especially as a mom of two, commuting from Fremont every day. But that was exactly what I needed. We as practitioners use medicine every day to improve and hopefully save lives — at the end of the day I guess you could say “medicine” has done the same for me. Medicine was the therapy I needed.

What I’d tell others going through something difficult or who may feel like their future hopes are broken: I know it can feel isolating; in the early years when things looked grim, I remember it feeling almost dangerous ever to be optimistic. Those are the days where family is so very important. Give yourself the grace of time. But know this: with enough perseverance, and support from those you love, it’s never too late to rewrite your story.

I’m so grateful for both medicine and miracles, the work I put into studying in the early days was very therapeutic during a difficult time, and I’m of course so thankful for all of the doctors, therapists and actual medications that helped Dane along the way, but most of all, it was nothing short of a God-given miracle that’s allowed Dane to be one of the lucky ones.

Last but not least, I’m so grateful that I get to spend the rest of my life as part of this equation for my patients, helping them to navigate health decisions, treatments and when need be, praying with them for a miracle.