Part 4: Why Medicine

Start from the beginning here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Life dragged on after my mom died.

The next month I hardly remember.

I was a zombie.  I just went through the motions of life.

We were living in C's grandpa's hotel before we moved to Flagstaff in August.


I sat and wrote our thank you notes from our wedding.  I felt bad it was a month later.

C's mom reassured me everyone would understand.

We worked and saved money.


I ran more than I had in my prior life.  Because that's what it was.  There was life when my mom was alive and now there was this new life that she wasn't.

I cried the first mile every day.  The second mile I'd find my courage and know that I was running because my mom couldn't anymore.  The third mile I told myself my mom was running next to me.

This was solace.

This was now normal.


I worked at the hotel so during my lunch break I would go back to our room and play with our puppy and cry.  This fur ball seemed to be the only bit of sunshine I'd let in now.

C didn't know what to say.  His body language showed he was uncomfortable. 

I needed him to talk to me about it.  And all I could see every time I tried to bring it up was the uncomfortableness on his body.

I don't think I laughed for months.


This was now normal.

C's mom and dad helped move us to Flagstaff.

We were supposed to go to Colorado so C could continue playing football.  But I couldn't handle one more life changing event.  So he willingly agreed to move back to Flagstaff with me.

We moved into a tiny studio apartment that I loved.  

I went back to school.  I don't know how I did it.  But I did a month after her death I was sitting in the classroom.

In my head I just told myself, "Mom would be so mad at you for giving up.  Whatever you do, don't give up."

My head was not in class, but I went anyway.

Somehow I pulled out decent grades.  2 B's and 4 A's.  

That was the only good thing that semester.

C and I didn't talk much anymore.  I was convinced we would get divorced before we made it to a year.

I was also convinced he was telling his mom how unhappy he was.  And that made me more upset because I couldn't do that with my mom.

I resented him a little bit for having parents and I didn't.  It wasn't his fault, but I wasn't thinking straight either.

I couldn't blame him for being unhappy.  He was now married to a stranger.  She didn't laugh or smile or have fun anymore.  She went to class and cried most of the night and would lock herself in the bathroom because she didn't want to talk.

We didn't talk about the big "D" word.  But we both knew it was coming.  

How was I supposed to make someone else happy when I hated my life?  I wasn't happy.  I didn't know how to be happy anymore.

Looking back, I was obviously depressed but back then I couldn't lift my head up long enough to realize that.  I was in survival mode. 

My brother was now living with my dad.  My dad was making an effort so I made an even bigger effort.  Than out of nowhere, my dad stopped trying to be a dad, again.  I assumed J would now be coming with us to live.  Because I was all he had left.  I was slightly terrified but knew I could do it. 

My uncle and aunt decided to take him in.  I will never be able to thank them enough for that.  We weren't ready for that kind of responsibility yet but I knew it was what had to be done.  They prolonged my already tainted childhood and I will forever be grateful for that. 

That fall we also had to go through my mom's things.  I hated this.  It was awful.  

My mom was so poor, most of her things were garbage.  I hated seeing how she had been living.  She deserved so much better than the filth she had.

I found hospital papers from January.  So I snooped.  My mom had gone in (unbeknownst to all of us) and was saying there was something wrong.  The doctor's orders: AA.  Alcoholic's Anonymous.  That was it.  

She was dismissed for being a poor, alcoholic and sent away.  I don't blame the doctors.  But it was hard reading.  They did no tests.  Not even a blood test to check her liver enzymes.  So many maybes flooded my head.  Well what if?  It didn't matter.  The what ifs weren't going to bring my mom back.  And that was the only thing I cared about. 

My mom's last drink was in March.  I can't even imagine how sick this made her to just quit without medical help.  Her withdrawals must have been terrible.  It makes me sick to think of how hard her struggle was with no one standing by her.  I was in college and newly engaged.  I was off in la-la land and J was too young to know any better.

Flagstaff life was hard on C and I.  We didn't have fun.  We didn't like eachother.  We just managed.

I ran and ran and ran there.  I ran away from the pain of my moms death.  I ran away from my unhappy marriage.  I ran away from life.

I was still a zombie.  Just going through the steps of life.  I kept telling myself- fake it until you make it.

I felt guilty for now being the reason C couldn't follow his dreams.  He mentioned he wanted to keep playing, so we wrote down a list of colleges and from there decided where we would go.

The school in Colorado was heavily recruiting him.  I just kept crunching the numbers and I didn't know how we would both go there and not be swimming in debt.  New Mexico was so much cheaper.  Although they just got a new coach who wasn't recruiting Cody like the last one was, it seemed to make the most sense.

It was November and we decided that in January we would move to New Mexico.

I was strong now.  I could move away from everyone I knew and be fine.

Our honeymoon cruise had been booked since May.

At the time it was weird we were going to wait to go on a honeymoon, but after life was such a shit show there for a while I'm so thankful we did that.


Before we could do that though, we had to move out of our apartment in Flagstaff.  There was a huge snow storm that closed the freeway between home and there for a few days.  We were home for Christmas and had planned going a few days after to box everything up.  We had to be out by December 31st.  The road finally opened on December 31st.

No one came to help us because no one wanted to miss their New Year's Eve.

C, Chief(the dog), and I made the trek to Flagstaff to move ourselves.

The high that day was 14 degrees.

C and I moved the heavy couches, the dressers, everything.  Just me and him.

We bonded over being upset that no one came to help us move in the snow.  We bonded in our team work that we were forced to do to get the task alone.

We now understood; it was us against the world and together we could do it.

We were finally all packed up and our apartment cleaned by 11pm.  We ate and left.  The roads were still horrible.  We had a trailer with a tarp over all our things.  It had kept snowing that day.  It was slow going getting home.


We shared a New Year's kiss in the truck somewhere on I-40.  

We got home around 2:30-3am.  It had kept snowing.  No one had shoveled the driveway.  We were finally home!  And the truck and the trailer with everything we owned got stuck in the driveway in the snow.  It was too cold, and we were too tired.  We left all our things to freeze outside and went to bed.


I was so much stronger, I moved my own crap in the snow.  I'll show my 20 year old self how hard I was going to rock 21.

It was finally time to leave on our honeymoon.

We had just moved ourselves in the freezing cold and gotten stuck in snow.

And we were getting on a plane to Miami to go on a cruise to the Bahamas.  It was the best thing in the entire world.

No more snow.  We left all the trailer in his Great-Grandma's garage while we went on this cruise.

C was going to miss a week of school because when we booked it we were on NAU's schedule which would still be on Winter Break and it was going to cost thousands of dollars to change the dates so C chose to miss school instead.  I decided I would just go online at NAU still.  I was life crisis-ing still and wasn't ready for all that entailed me to make the transfer.


The cruise was amazing.
It was beautiful.

We were smiling and happy because we were finally somewhere that our responsibilities were not.  They couldn't find us in the middle of the ocean.

On Nassau, we parasailed.  This was the first time I had really laughed that I could remember.  And C was next to me experiencing it with me.

On Half Moon Cay we had a beach day.  We suntanned and played in the water.  We even got a little PDA going on. Making out in the waves.  In the Bahamas.  Was this real life?

At Grand Turk we went snorkeling at a few sites.  The local driving the boat handed out these home made drinks- his specialty he said.  C and I glanced at each other, knowing what it was - so we quickly drank it before anyone else asked what it was either.  We giggled feeling a little rebellious together again.


On the boat, we played mini putt, went to the comedy shows, ate 12 pounds of pizza and frozen yogurt, watched the big NCAA Championship game on the huge screen on deck, lathered each other in sun screen, and did all the typical honeymoon things.  We had to talk to each other.  We were the only ones on the entire boat we knew.  And there was no cell service or internet to break each other's company.  Just us. And an entire boatload of strangers.  It might has well been just us on the boat.  Because that's all we cared about.

We were falling in love again. When we hadn't been for 5 months.

Not even a month ago I was sure that C and I would be divorced within a few months.

After this experience together-  between having to move ourselves in the worst possible conditions and then being able to fully enjoy each other again in paradise, I knew.  I knew that I would never leave this man.  And he would never leave me.  We'd came so far only because we did it together.   We would be okay, as long as we always stayed a team.

And I've been sticking to him ever since.

When our flight touched down in Phoenix, we quickly went over to Phoenix Children's Hospital, because that was where C's little brother was and his parents.  We stayed the day there with them then we picked up our puppy and drove the 5 hours to New Mexico.

Our belongings were still back home.  All we had was a suitcase full of clothes made for the tropics and our dog in his kennel.

We drove to New Mexico in the middle of the night because C had to go to class the next day.  I had never been there.   My first time being there was when we were moving there.  We drove by the apartments we thought we would probably end up moving into when we got in late that night.  I almost started crying.  There were bars on the door. BARS ON THE DOOR!  How was I going to live in a place where everyone had BARS ON THEIR DOORS!  We stayed in a Super 8 that night.  When C was done with class the next day we met up the property management place to look at the inside of the apartments.  It was nice enough.  It was about 3 times the size of our studio in Flagstaff and about $450 less a month.  We took it and signed the paper work then and there.

It would take a day for our paper work to go through so we stayed in Super 8 again.

The next day we got the keys to our new apartment.  All we still had was our suitcases and our dog.

We laughed and went to Walmart.  We bought only the necessities- a comforter, 2 pillows, 2 towels, and a puzzle.

We slept on the floor of our brand new apartment for the first week living out of a suitcase with our little travel size toiletries, our dog, and keys to a new life.

And this was the happiest we had ever been in our married life.

That weekend we went back home and C's uncle and his wife helped us move all our crap in.  They didn't have to help- but they did and we were so thankful because it would have been just us again moving all our crap into a new apartment.


This was now our normal life.

Which was so much better than our prior normal life in Flagstaff.

We liked each other again.  I was still really distant.  I didn't fully let C in.  I was too scared to show him how weak and lost I was.  But I wanted him in.  

Grieving is hard.  It changes you 

Part 3: Why Medicine

I still find it hard to articulate into a few sentences "why medicine."  Thus the 6 blog posts.  

If you're just tuning in to my 6 part series on my "Why Medicine" check out Part 1: Why Medicine and Part 2: Why Medicine to get the full story.

The day we got back from Phoenix was C's family's annual camping trip- which doubled as a family reunion.

There was no cell service.


While camping I pushed my mom out of my thoughts.  She'd be out of the hospital by the time we got back anyway.


While we drove back from camping I listened to my voicemail.

I had a few from my mom.

In a very strained and hushed voice was my mom. 
She said, "Thanks for always donating blood.  I'm getting a transfusion right now. I love you."


As soon as I got this voicemail I kept trying to call her phone all day but she wouldn't answer.  I figured she had left it on vibrate and couldn't hear it or the battery had died.

We got back to the house and showered because I turned into a quasi-cave woman while camping.

When I got out, my aunt was calling me.  I answered it and she said my mom was intubated and still in the ICU.  That was it.  That's all I knew.

I was 20.  What in hell did that mean?  What was I supposed to do?

I was in a haze.  What do I do?  I told Cody and he started helping me pack to go down there.  I don't even remember packing.  I just remember sitting in the car not being able to wrap my head around what had happened. I don't even know if I got out of the car and helped pack my things or not.

All I kept thinking was take some of my liver.  Take it from me. I don't need it all. Just let her be ok.

As we pulled into a gas station I felt like I needed to call someone.  Anyone.  I called my grandma.  She was my dad's mom.  She was always there for me growing up.  I told my grandma and she said, "Are you ok? Do I need to come get you to go there?"  I explained Cody was getting gas and we'd be there soon.

I hung up with my grandma..  I felt like I needed to tell others.  But who?  I called my uncle.  He asked a bazillion questions like he always does.  I don't remember really answering any of them other then him saying, "Are you ok?" "Is Cody driving?" "Is Jeffrey okay?"

We drove back to Phoenix.

I was on the phone with my another uncle and he was telling me how to get to the hospital and what room she was in.

We got to the hospital in the room he said and it was empty.

We were in the wrong freaking hospital.

This was before everyone had smartphones.

Luckily, I had a TomTom.  We plugged in the name of the hospital and listened to the stupid automated voice tell us to get on the same road and go across the street.

When we made it I went in and saw my mom.

My brother didn't want to.  But I drug him in.  C didn't feel like enough of the family yet but I drug him in anyway too.

She looked horrible.

Her hair was flat and plastered against her head. 
Her skin was another shade of yellow.
Her intubation tube drying out her lips.
And her body gagging on the intubation tube every so often.
Her pink nail polish was chipping.
She even smelt like there was something wrong with her.


I hated the sight of it.

She was supposed to have a biopsy that day to see exactly what it was.  But she got pneumonia instead and had to be intubated.  That biopsy would never happen.  She never got healthy enough to do it.

I stayed there for a few days but then decided I wanted to get away for the 4th of July.  I needed it.  I needed the fireworks.  I ran into one of my old soccer coaches at the festival and explained to her what was going on.  She just held me.  That was exactly what I needed.  I needed someone who loved me to hug me. A mom hug.

I went back down to Phoenix because they took my mom off the intubation.  She was convinced her Physical Therapist was a pervert.  I laughed and thought she was ridiculous.  She'd been so sick that her muscles atrophied and she needed the guy to help her to be able to walk again. I had no idea that this kind of damage could happen so quickly.

She was so embarrassed.  She had a catheter as well as a bowel catheter.  Her hands were too shaky to get food into her mouth.  So I sat on her bed and helped her eat her weird gelatinized food.  It was gross. And weird.

She was getting better!  She'd be fine.  The doctor's said she'd never be able to live alone again- but I knew they were crazy.  She was going to be fine. 
She had to be.  She was sitting up in bed and talking to me.  She was going to be fine.

We just kept talking and laughing.  Everything was going to be ok.

My mom told me I should go wake-boarding with my brother the next day at my uncles since we'd spent so much time in the hospital.  So I did.  I stayed as late as was physically possible for her talking.  I told her I had to go back to work but that promised I would be back in 4 days for her birthday.

While I was at the lake I texted my mom off and on. We drove home directly after the lake because I had to work early in the morning.  I was thinking about what I'd get my mom.  I'd get her some new eye shadow and take her on a date!  Yes, a movie and dinner she hadn't done either of those things in such a long time.  In the middle of that same night they intubated my mom again.

She had aspirated some of that weird gelatin food and was having a hard time breathing.

I thought it would be the same again- she'd get better and wake up again.  I worked my 3 days and got someone to cover for me.  I was there on her birthday like I promised, July 13th with her new makeup and a card explaining our date.

One of my cousins had brought a huge hokey flamingo to hang in her room - her absolute favorite - to make her feel better.  Every year growing up she made sure we had those hideous plastic flamingos in our garden because they made her smile.  She knew they were tacky but it always made her smile.  I put the card I got her as well as other cards people gave her.  And I'd read them to her when I thought she needed a boost.

This time was different.

Now she had a feeding tube along with her intubation tubing.  I hated it.  I hated the color of her "food" and the noises all her monitors and machines made.

The next day they put these weird compression things on her legs.  They were to help prop her ankle up as well as push blood back up to her heart.  I can still hear the sound those things made.  Brrrrrrrrep. Rep. Rep. Rep. Brrrrrrrrrep. Repetitive.  Repetitive. Repetitive.  Never a change in pitch or in timing.


And this was our life for a few days.  I stayed every night in the hospital with her.  Because I didn't want her to be afraid.  During the day when other people would go to be with her I'd go to my aunts house, shower and grab some food.. Everyone said I needed a break from that place.  But every time I was gone my mind was only on one thing; getting back to her as quick as possible.

One morning they took the repetitive compression boots off.  I knew something was wrong.

The doctor came in later that day and explained that my mom was not going to get better.  And that it was our choice of when to take her off life support.

I don't remember the day.  My life stopped spinning. I don't know what calendar day it was.

I'm guessing it was around July 16th.  Who knows.  Who cares.

Two weeks prior my grandpa - her dad- had made his long trip back to Missouri since he had made the trek for my wedding.

We decided to wait until he could get back to Arizona to take her off of life support.


The doctors told us, "it could be any minute from when we take her off that she dies."

It wasn't. 

I hung on every breath after they took her off of life support...

Nothing happened.  She just kept doing her thing.  

Breathing and sleeping.  Sleeping and breathing.

I was mad they made me think I needed to brace my self like that.

She stayed like this for another day.  The doctors then asked how I felt about hospice, I said we should do it.  They warned that she might not make the transport over- that it'd be too much for her body.  I said I'd ride with the ambulance so she wasn't alone.

Nothing happened.

She was fine.

Breathing and sleeping.  Sleeping and breathing.

Now we wait in hospice. Hospice was an odd place.

What do I do now?  My life had been sleeping at hospitals and hospice in a recliner sofa next to my mom for the past few weeks.

Not what?

I guessed it was best to go back to my aunt's house for the night.

We walked in and we went straight to the room we were staying at.  I closed the door behind me not wanting to see anyone.  I laid on the floor with my new puppy who just wanted to cuddle and lick my face off.  Tears streaming down my face the entire time.

This was now my life.

That night I couldn't stop crying.  The picture of my mom's death kissed faced kept playing in my mind every time I shut my eyes.  It has horrible.  How was I going to sleep seeing such a horrendous vision?

C sang to me to help me get to sleep.  He did this for a few weeks every night because it was the only soothing thing to me.

My mom had always said she didn't want a funeral.  She just wanted the people she loved most to get together and celebrate her life.

That's what we did.  There was no funeral.  No eulogy.  

For the next few days I went to my grandma (dad's stepmom's) home.  She told me she would help me scrapbook pictures of her as a guest sign in would be great.  She didn't.  She slept or would run off to go shopping.  When she returned and saw what I did all she said was, "Eh, that's ok for your first time scrapbooking."

Scrapbooking was horrible.  All I did was look at these fun and lively photos of my newly dead mom.  

I needed so badly for someone to be strong for me and I thought she was going to be. 

That weekend we had people over at my aunt's house to celebrate my mom.  

As I sat at my aunt's house with people telling us sorry and other crap I didn't want to hear, I was okay.  I wrote a little blurb about my mom for the obituaries.  I was going to be okay.

The next day I wanted to go home with C and finally start our life.

He loaded up the car.  I was fine.  No tears.  My aunt's house had been "home base" for the last few weeks for me to shower and eat and occasionally sleep at.

The moment we drove off was the hardest I've ever cried in my entire life.  

As we drove back home, I was uncontrollably crying.  Leaving home base meant this was for real.  My mom had really died.  She really wasn't coming back.  

I would never again receive an uplifting text.  I would never hear my chipper mom say, "It's gonna be a great day, alright!" in the morning again.  

I would never see her again.

And this was now "normal" life for me.

What am I supposed to do now with my life?  This was not normal. 

I wanted to be stronger.  But there was nothing.  I had nothing left to give or feel.

Part 2: Why Medicine

For me, "why medicine" was very difficult to summarize into a few sentences to put into my personal statement or reduce for interviews.  I have to sum it up in a few lengthy blog posts at best.

It is a lifetime of feelings and experiences that had to be condensed.  Most importantly it was my view on my mother from healthy to ill that helped shape this part of me.

Read my Part 1: Why Medicine to read my why from the beginning.

My mom had always been beautiful to me.  She hated her thin, wispy, mousy brown/blonde hair that we often dyed blonde and chopped funky and spiky but I liked to play with it because it would do just about everything my hair wouldn't.  She hated her thin nails and would often tell me how jealous she was of mine.  In high school I still wasn't very girly but had wanted my nails nicely painted so I asked her to help me.  In the middle of her drawing some cool design she whipped off the top of her head she said, "You have every body trait I always wanted," and she giggled and kept painting.  She always had fair skin that would sunburn so badly but would never miss out on our sun soaked soccer tournaments.  The latter part of my childhood she was constantly sunburned because of this.  She had these piercing green eyes that always had a little twinkle in them - which I'm pretty sure just showed how mischievous she was, even as a mother she loved a little trouble.  She always had this bone structure that did not resemble mine- her legs and arms were slender but always muscular, my wrist width had been bigger than hers since I was in 3rd grade.  She had cute little feet and the hands of a woman who had worked hard her whole life.  She always made sure she looked her best by applying her makeup, styling her hair, and smelling wonderful.  She would have killed me if I would ever worn a bra strap that stuck out of my shirt.

She did not look like this woman anymore at my reception.  Her hair was still wispy- but thinner and not healthy.  Her nails were worse than ever - thin and full of ridges.  Her fair skin was sickly yellow, had a weird smell, and was terribly oily.  Her eyes just weren't twinkling anymore- it was more of a wince like she was in constant pain.  It looked like her eyes were bulging out and the whites of her eyes were this terrible yellow color.  Her body was now disproportional looking; her arms and legs were nothing but flesh and bones while her abdomen was 4x the normal size and her face was so swollen.  She looked painfully put together.  Her white bra was peaking out of her black dress, she didn't have her makeup just so like she always had, her shoes and jewelry did not match like they always had in the past.  Her feet, hands, and joints were also swollen for how little her limbs had become. The woman at my wedding was a woman who was hanging on with every inch of her being to be there. 

She was obviously very ill but I assumed that she'd just get better.  She wasn't old.  She was only 47.  It hadn't even crossed my mind that she might die.


I wish I would have been strong enough to lean on my mom like a little girl and asked her to do my hair and makeup once last time.  I wish I would have been strong enough to notice this shell of a woman was in trouble.

Everyone was absolutely concerned with my mom's appearance.  She was yellow, not really something people can easily ignore.


I had all sorts of family members coming up to me asking me to beg my mom to go to the hospital.

I already had.

Her response, "I didn't go because I knew if I did go they wouldn't let me out.  And I couldn't miss this."


My family was hovered around each other determining the next best step to care for my mom.


She promised to go as soon as my reception was over in Phoenix, because she knew she wouldn't get adequate care in our dinky hospital.


My mother sat in her seat the entire reception.  Too weak to really do anything else.

I was embarrassed at how weak and sickly my mother was.  That wasn't her.  My mom was a strong, put together, proud woman.  The woman in the chair was sick and weak.

C's family was busy taking pictures and making sure we all got pictures together.

My family not so much.  As they should be- they were more concerned with the terrible shape my mother was in.  I look back at pictures and hardly have any of my family.  I didn't even get one of my mom, brother, and I.  How did this happen?  How did I not get one stupid picture of the people that meant the most to me?

At the end of the night, I grabbed our guest book, kissed my mom, skipped away, and was on our way out to the hotel.

That night I lazily read through the guest book.  I giggled as I thumbed through it.  I came across my mom's comments.  I hadn't recognized the hand-writing.  It wasn't hers.  It looked like some 80 year old woman's handwriting.  I saw the signature smiley face she always wrote on her notes.  This is when I stopped and thought that my mom isn't doing too good.

My mom and brother were staying in the same hotel.  I decided I needed to go check on her even if it was my wedding night.

I walked down the stairs and across the parking lot to the building they were in.  When my brother (who was 15) opened the door I saw my mom.  Curled up in a ball with all the blankets in the hotel room on her as well as a sleeping bag.  Her room had to have been in the high 70's too.  She wasn't okay.

Me-"Are you okay?"
Mom-"I'm fine."
Me-"Mom, it's obvious you are NOT okay.  Go to the hospital."
Mom-"No, the one here isn't good.  I'll be fine."
Me-"Mom, really??"
Mom-"I'm fine." and she curled up in a ball away from me.
I walk over to the other side of the bed.
Me-"Mom, promise me you'll go in the morning?"
Mom-"Fine. I'll go.  Now go enjoy your wedding night."
I told her I loved her and left her room.

We decided we would go on our real honeymoon 6 months later so the day after the wedding we went to Phoenix for a few days for our pre-honeymoon.

My mom was supposed to leave her hotel room the morning after the wedding. 

While in Phoenix I got a call asking why my mom hadn't left the hotel yet.  I was mortified.  C's family owned the hotel and had allowed her to stay for the wedding free of charge.  And she had overstayed her welcome.  Why was my mom still there? 


I called my mom and she said she just felt too sick to drive.  I was embarrassed because it made her look like a moocher to my new family. 

My 15 year old brother ended up driving them to Phoenix.

A few days into our trip my mom called. 

Mom-"Hi sweetie.  The doctors told me whats wrong."
Me-"Oh ya? Well what is it?"
Mom- "They said that my liver isn't functioning well.  And I did it to myself." I could tell she was fighting back tears.
"They said if I get better I might be eligible for a transplant."
Me- "I'm sure you will be get better soon."


I didn't think my mom was this sick.  She couldn't be.  I didn't even believe that she'd need a transplant.  I figured she'd just get better.

I was mad.  I was mad that she was so sick.  I was mad that she had drank herself into it. My only real parent couldn't be sick.  I needed her.  My brother was 15, he needed her.  I couldn't raise my brother.  We needed her.  I disguised my absolute terror with anger.

I wish I were stronger at 20 so I could have processed my panic better.

Part 1: Why Medicine

If you are a pre-med there is one question you need to be able to answer and be able to put it into words; Why medicine?

It's a very personal reason and it's different for everyone.

My answer: My mom.

Before I delve straight into it, I think it's important to get a better view of me; how I got here and why.

This post will serve as part one of a multi part series on my "why medicine".

I started my undergraduate degree in Physical Education and then switched to Secondary Education: Biology when a Department Chair told me I was too smart to just teach PE. I loved biology and thought it would be a good, reliable job.

I was perfectly content with the idea of becoming a teacher.  Content.  Not excited or passionate but content.  This should have been my first clue but my self worth was also lacking and didn't think I was capable of more.

Why I thought this-

I grew up poor in a broken home.  My dad abused drugs and often neglected his family.  My mom worked full time, made it a point to cook dinner every night, make it to all of our games, school functions, and still made individual time for us. My mom had her flaws- she drank.   I can only assume to numb the pain of her own life.  She was an alcoholic but it was never more important than my brother and I.  We were her priority and she always maintained that.

I think most people who have attended college can say it is a time of self reflection, loneliness, and confusion.  I loved college but looking back there were plenty times I felt completely alone.

No one in my family had ever attended college and they were all very proud of me.  I felt like it would let them down if I was to say how hard it was some days.  Especially my mom-- when I talked to her she would always cry tears of joy while she told me how proud of me she was.  How was I going to tell her I was alone a lot and it sucked?  I wasn't.  I was strong and I could suck it up.  And I did and I figured out how to even enjoy it.

I got engaged and married to my high school sweetheart against a lot of people's wishes after my second year of college. But my mom was always my best cheerleader.  She told me she trusted my decision.

Growing up it was a lot of me and her fixing things and doing a lot of manual labor together.  Before we started she would always say, "Well how hard could it be." And this is how I've attacked everything in life.  

How hard could being young, broke, married, and in college be?  I can do this.

I had been a convert to the LDS church for a little over two years.  Everyone was encouraging/telling me how important is was for me to get married in the temple - except my non-LDS family - which was everyone.  I thought I was doing what God wanted me to do when I chose to alienate my entire family on my wedding day.  Many people even congratulated me on my decision to do so.  It was hard.  I wanted my dream wedding and knew that this was not it; but I thought sacrificing for God's wants were commendable and I should always try to follow God's wants.  I was doing the right thing, wasn't I?

It was a few days before our wedding that my mom showed up jaundiced.  Completely yellow.  I asked her why she didn't go to the hospital and she said "I know they wouldn't let me out and I wasn't going to miss this."  And she was right. 

I was angry.

How could she have let this happen to herself?

She was too tired to help me with anything.  How could she do this to me?  I had so much to do.  I was getting married in 3 days.

So I didn't do it.  I was embarrassed because if my mom wasn't going to help me, who would?  So I just let it happen.  Left everything for everyone else to do.  Because if I was going to have to have this traditional Mormon wedding, I just wanted to do the dumb decorations with my mom.


She couldn't get out of her hotel bed because the 3 hour trip had exhausted her.  And I thought she was just being a stink about me getting married at 20.  This was not how she had planned my life and I thought she was using this to get back at me even though she had already said she supported me.  And it embarrassed me.  I wanted my mom to be next to me with her input.

My feelings of my mom being sick clearly show how immature I was.  I'm not proud.  It hurts admitting to the world how selfish and dumb I was when I was young. 


I wish I would have been strong enough to feel compassion toward my mom and how bad she felt.

I wish I were stronger at 20 to have felt her pain more than mine.

About Me

This introductory post will give some insight into my background, who I am, where I'm from, and where I'm going!


I am from a small underserved town in Arizona.  I grew up in a double wide home where we fell below the poverty line and most of my life was raised by a single mother.  None of my family (even cousins and distant relatives) had even been to college.

I went to college to become a P.E. teacher (because I also did not think I was very smart- why I thought this I don't know) at a state university paid for through pell grants and academic scholarships. After the department chair pulled me aside and told me I was much too smart to be a PE teacher I switched to Biology Education.

After the second year of college I married my high school sweetheart and very shortly after my mother and cheerleader also passed away 3 weeks before school was to start back up.  We were supposed to transfer to an out of state university so my husband could play football but I just couldn't move.

After a semester of grieving and recuperating my mind, while still taking 17 credit hours, I decided I was enough put together to move.  We transferred out of state so my husband could accept his football scholarship while I took online classes for a semester. I eventually transferred over to the same university.  Here, my education classes would not transfer because my prior Biology Education classes were too specific to transfer into their "secondary education" program and would require me to start from scratch (even though I was now 3 years deep in education classes).  I cut my losses and switched my major to Cell and Molecular Biology after meeting with the Advisor of this major.  I liked the subject matter better anyway and figured I would figure out what I wanted to do along the way.

At this university I was blessed to serve on the Board of Regents (governing body of the university; in between the Governor and President of the university).  Which allowed me to contribute to the university on a greater level than I knew and learned so much about who I am in the process of things.

I excelled in the small classrooms where I could be myself, ask questions, and have my professors know me personally and academically.

I still doubted how smart I was and struggled to find what the heck I was going to do with my life.  After my moms passing I knew I wanted to do something in healthcare but I was intimidated by it.  You have to be smart, and girls where I am from just don't do things like that.

I wanted more than nursing; I didn't want to be told what to do all the time and not being able to make decisions.  I thought maybe a Physician's Assistant would be my calling.  The deeper I got into shadowing I knew it wasn't for me; I still wasn't the boss and was still basically not making final decisions.  At this point I had already graduated with my Bachelors of Science but C was still finishing his degree and his football career so I had time to play with.

I was able to shadow more and do more networking.  I made the decision and began studying for my MCAT about 5 months after graduation even though I had not taken Physics yet.  And had missed the deadline to take it for that year so would have to wait another year to take it.

My first round of the MCAT was horrible.  I studied so hard by myself for months for nothing.
I was so discouraged and thought maybe this was a mistake and I really wasn't smart enough.  I pushed passed that and was lucky enough that my university was to hold a MCAT prep course that summer.  You had to apply, write letters, get letters of recommendation, the whole 9 yards.  I got in!  I had teachers, tools, and tips to do better.  I took my MCAT at the end of the summer and disregarded everyones advice to not apply that cycle as it would already be a few months into it.  That MCAT was not stellar either- I rocked my Verbal Reasoning, decent Biology, but again horrible Physical Sciences.  It was a very mediocre test score.  But it was ok, mediocre but better than horrible so I submitted my primary applications at the end of September 2014.

I had not shadowed a DO yet because the town I was living in literally only had 1 DO working at the hospital and the hospitals insurance did not cover students shadowing.  The nearest DO was 2 hours away just to shadow.  So I used my MD letters of recommendation for everywhere- regardless if the school was DO or MD.  All of the DO schools I submitted my application to said no because of that fact.

I received one lonely interview in the 2014 cycle.  It was to the University of New Mexico in November.  I was so excited!! The day before I left for my interview I was knee deep in snot with the flu.  I couldn't remember a time I had been more sick.  But I had to go- it was a medical school interview!! This was my shot, my future!!  To this day I couldn't honestly tell you if the interview went good or bad because I had flu brain to an extreme. I checked my email obsessively daily awaiting a decision.  December went by; no answer.  January went by; no answer.  February went by; no answer. March went by; and when I had lost all hope I had received an email.  I was excited and opened it and was eager to read it.  Was I accepted or waitlisted?  I read the first line, "Dear Camille, we regret to inform you." That's all I read before my dreams were shattered and I closed out of the email.  I was with a friend at the time so I fought back the tears.  I had to stay strong because thats what I do.  I texted my husband the news about the email and headed home after a while.

When I got home, the moment my eyes met his I broke down.  I cried hard.  I sat on my husbands lap and cried into his shoulder like a child.  I had only felt this kind of sadness once before in my life and that was when my mom died.

I felt like a failure.  I had let us down.  I wasn't going to medical school- the only thing I had been focused on for months.  All that time studying and not going out with friends because I wanted to keep my good grades- and for what?

I didn't know if I could apply again and be rejected again.  The pain was too real and hurt too bad to willingly put myself through it again.  What if I failed?  But what if I succeeded?

March went.
April went.
May came--- my timehop showed me a picture of me starting my applications the year before.  This snapped me back into it.  What was I doing sitting around being sad?!  This was something I could control!  This was my life!  I certainly have enough to put myself through this again.  I couldn't live with the idea of just quitting because I was sad- that was ridiculous!  My mom wouldn't have let me give up so easy, so why was I giving up so easy on myself?

I shadowed a DO.  Refocused on the schools that were good matches and left off the schools that were bad matches.  Met with my advisor to go over every detail of my application.

Submitted my primary applications the very first day it opened.   I also applied to all of the fee waivers because I had no family and we were a young, broke couple living off of love and dreams and medical school applications do not accept anything other than the US dollar to pay for it.  Thankfully, I was granted full fee waivers to both AMCAS and AACOMAS.

I also applied to a medical school in the Caribbean because I was not going to be caught off guard and having to obsess about back up career plans- i spent hours researching and asking school questions as well as past and present students.

June- I interviewed at the school in the Caribbean and was accepted.  A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.  Either way this dream of mine was going to come true. Right then and there I almost said, "This is good enough. I'm in. This process is too long and hard to be told no." And almost didn't want to even try with US schools. My husband encouraged me, "Why not? What's left to lose?  You're already in somewhere, if you fill these out you might have an option of where to go to instead."  So I completed ever secondary that came my way.

July-Found out I was pregnant!  What the heck?  In the middle of all of this I was going to be a mom too?  If the US schools didn't work out we were supposed to be moving to the Caribbean in 5 months.  My husband assured me if anyone could do it all I could.  So I pressed on.

August- I interviewed at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine (received an acceptance the same day), A.T. Still University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona, and to the University of Arizona in Phoenix.  We were also moving back to Arizona the same weekend as 2 of these interviews.  My husband moved us so I could go interview.  Also I began miscarrying in the middle of all these interviews.

September- Received an acceptance from A.T. Still SOMA!
October-  Received a rejection from University of Arizona in Phoenix.

After all the heartache, tears, long hours studying, countless hours writing secondary, the nervous sweats at interviews;I had a choice to 3 different medical school.

My dreams were coming true.

Self doubt is real.  And I hate that it almost won multiple times.

I doubted that a girl from my upbringing could be a doctor.  But here I come!

A Starting Point

It's 2016 and I officially start medical school this year. 

Here are the things I shamelessly search Google or Pinterest for:

1. What to wear in medical school- including business casual ideas and dressy flats

2. Being a woman in medicine

3. Being married in medical school 

4. Having a family in medical school 

5. Cute dogs

6. How to study better

7. Worst parts of medicine

8. Best parts of medicine

9. Obstacles of coming from a different background in medical school 

I want this blog to serve as a guide of things I wish were all in one area because I know I can't be the only person in the world that searches constantly  for the answers above.

As school and life progresses so will the posts. 

So here's to 2016- a year of change and firsts!! 

Why SOMA

The location of medical school has been chosen, deposits have been placed, and now apartment searches are beginning!

Why I chose A.T. Still University School of Medicine in Arizona 

There were a few reasons:

1. I felt at home and comfortable at the interview.  I could be a dork and still have friends. I absolutely loved the group of people I interviewed with. 

2. The 1:3 set up of the curriculum. 1 year in a classroom and the other 3 in clinic- yes please sign me up.🙋🏻

3. I like the location of the school- it's ten minutes from my grandmas house

4. I like the idea of the Community Health Centers- they have an option where I can spend 2 of the 3 CHC years in my hometown learning from docs I went to growing up.  

5. This also gives me a foot in the door to come back to my hometown and actually work someday 

6. It's close to home- C and I intend on having kids while in school so it'll be easier for him to raise our kiddos with family near by. 

7. They said yes! 

8. I can get federal student loans.

9. They have a reputable program. 

The past few years have been full of a specific timeline of things to do: GPA, shadowing, community service, letters of recommendation, MCAT, primary applications, secondary applications, interviews, and a hopeful someday acceptance.

To say that I'm at the end of that timeline and beginning a new timeline is the best feeling.