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Turning a Nightmare into a Dream BY Tarah Dawley
We have a motto at my high school that, for me, rings true. Ad astra per aspera is the latin saying meaning, “To the stars through difficulty.” My experience as a loved one to a cancer patient has taught me how truthful this saying actually is. It has taught me that every second spent breathing is a blessing, and should be used to follow my true passions. Without the nightmare of my mother becoming sick, I would never have been able to discover the enthusiasm that I have for medicine, or the excitement I feel at the prospect of helping others.
Turning a Nightmare into a Dream
BY Tarah Dawley
From birth, we are told to dream big. We are told to shoot for the moon because we’ll land among the stars. As a young child, I took this metaphor in stride. I wanted to grow up and simultaneously become a math teacher, a musician, or a professional softball player. In all of my youthful dreaming, there was no time to be realistic, only irrationally naive. My dreams were constantly shifting and transforming from one to the next, until the one day when my goals settled into one.
In September of 2008, my mother was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. After I was fully informed, I spent every moment that I could at the hospital. I knew my mother’s doctors on a first-name basis and had the phone numbers of multiple nurses. I went to the Coventry Public Library and borrowed “cancer-for-kids” books, used their computer to find patient blogs and gathered medical journals on Leukemia. I took any information that I didn’t understand to the doctors and pestered them for answers. My concern for my mother fueled my searches, and it wasn’t long before the terminology that I once feared became the reading I enjoyed most.
There wasn’t a single day that I didn’t think about my worst nightmare of losing my mom. I remember days when my mom was responding negatively to the chemo, and the words Dr. Butera spoke every time she complained. “Kim, I’m not worried about today, I’m worried about the next million tomorrows.” Those words rattled me. I attempted every day to make “today” as cheerful as possible, to get my mom to “tomorrow.” I brought my portable piano into the hospital room and put on concerts, I learned new songs on my guitar and tried, without success, to sing along with the tune. The day Dr. Butera told us that mom was in remission, that she had survived, I immediately looked over to her bed. Her sheer expression of joy and gratitude struck me. I no longer wanted to become a ballerina, a math teacher, or a softball player. I knew, in that moment, I wanted to become a doctor. I want to give someone the opportunity to feel the alleviation and pure happiness that my mother showed on that day. I want to be able to save someone’s loved one, in the same way that my mom was saved for me.
In the years following my mother’s remission, my passion for the medical sciences has never faded. After school, I have spent extra time on math homework with my teachers, learning short-cuts and more advanced approaches to get ahead. I have taken additional science classes, including CPR certification and First-Aid training, steering my life towards the ability to pursue medicine. My mother’s face on remission day has never left my memory, and will not for as long as I live. It was that look that inspired my choices for the future, and continues to inspire me to become extraordinary.
We have a motto at my high school that, for me, rings true. Ad astra per aspera is the latin saying meaning, “To the stars through difficulty.” My experience as a loved one to a cancer patient has taught me how truthful this saying actually is. It has taught me that every second spent breathing is a blessing, and should be used to follow my true passions. Without the nightmare of my mother becoming sick, I would never have been able to discover the enthusiasm that I have for medicine, or the excitement I feel at the prospect of helping others. Although I will not be pursuing a career in professional softball or music, I am not giving up. I will continue reaching for the moon, and following my dreams, because, in the end, achieving my goals is equivalent to saving a life.