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Metaphors and Medicine (Year I): Chapter 1

If I could sum up the last 7 weeks of medical school in one thought, it would be that everyone tells you, "You will be fine." And I keep thinking, "How?"

How does this terrifying, anxiety-inducing, exciting, way-too-fast paced race ever become fine? 

They do seem fine. They seem to have gotten through their first year of medical school fine. They are living. Or I should say everyone appears to be living. 

I wonder if they felt the same way I do. I wonder if they struggled with certain parts of adjusting to this new way of life as much as I have. Would they still be fine? Or is this merely a coping mechanism, a way that their brain hides the suffering they endured in the previous years, or else how would they move on to the next year and the bigger challenges each year brings? 

They have to believe they are fine. And maybe that is what they are trying to get me to believe. 

Maybe I will be fine. But right now, I think it's important, for the sake of anyone interested in this field or interested in understanding what your future doctors (and current doctors too!) may be going through or did go through in order to be care providers. 

In order to tell others that they are fine, we have to go through many many moments where we are NOT fine. And I am at the point where I do not want to hear that we will be fine. It is no longer helping me. No matter how many students tell me that we will be fine, it no longer gives me comfort. Because for whatever reason, I am not walking away from those conversations anymore feeling better. I am walking away with the same thought:

HOW?! 

I am so grateful for everyone who has offered their support. Needless to say, it would make this challenge a LOT more challenging that it already is if we did not have people to lean on. But there has to be more than we can do to become more prepared.

I want to know how to adjust to this new chapter, grow stronger, and then say, "Yes, I'm fine now, but only because I had to grow in every painful way possible to get here. And you know what? It was freaking hard." 

So while the previous series in my blog was all about my WHY, why I love this field, why I'm meant to be here, why this is so worth the fight for, this new series will be all about HOW. HOW will we become stronger? How will this education and this journey bring me closer to my WHY and make me fine slowly day by day. And I will do that through what I do best: reflections about medicine in metaphors to make every moment seem more meaningful than I initially thought. There is so much growth in each moment; it's just a matter of reflecting on it and noticing how important such a small thing can be in the grand scheme of your life and your journey.

I do not have an answer for that yet, but I am hoping that with each chapter, there is an ounce of growth that will be witnessed. Hopefully, by the end of these four years, instead of TELLING you how to make this manageable, how to be fine, I will SHOW you how I will make it, inshAllah. Because this is not a space for quitting. There is no time to feel less than or less worthy of being in this seat that I battled for over the last how many years. 

Maybe this is part of how everyone becomes fine. They face their truth and push themselves forward until they realize that no matter how awful some days might feel, some days truly feel worth it if you convince yourself that you CANNOT quit. 

There is too much on the line, too many people waiting. You cannot quit. 

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