10 years from now by Andrea

10 years from now by Andrea - December 2015 Scholarship Essay

My goals is to graduate become an Occupational Therapist and get my Medical Interpreting Certificate with a minor in Spanish. The reason why I want to become an Occupational Therapist is because of my personal experience with Occupational Therapy. Three years ago, during a workout with the cross country team, we were on this trail and during the workout I noticed an oncoming biker. As I tried to avoid the biker, my foot rolled on a walnut and I ended up colliding with the biker. The bones in my foot moved upwards and the nerve on my foot was cut by the two of the bones in my foot. My teammates helped the biker and me as someone went to get my coach. I can vividly remember my coach taking me to the hospital and the nurses saying something about not being able to walk again. I remember being in denial and just telling myself the reason why I couldn’t feel my foot was maybe from all the swelling in my foot and that it was just broken, but the test results showed something different. The nerve was cut in a way that no one knew if I would be able to walk again. Test after test, it was the same thing being said over and over again, “We don’t know if you will be able to walk again” and “Give up this, give up that, there’s no hope, just give up.” I began to believe that I should just give up and that there was no hope, but there was one healthcare professional that stood out to me.
“What is the most meaningful thing to you? What do you want to be able to do again?” Right off the bat her questions took me off guard. She was my Occupational Therapist. Of course the first thing that came out of my mouth was that I wanted to run again, but then I backed off my words and I said to be able walk again and get around more easily. She smiled at me and told me that those sounded like good goals, but then she whispered something to me that I would never forget. “Don’t let go of that dream to run again, I can’t guarantee you will, but I can guarantee that we are going to try everything we can.” She was the first person who gave me hope and less than a week after talking to her, something happened. I thought that my mind was just playing games with me, but on the morning of October 5, 2012, I didn’t do anything that morning except sit in my bed and cry because I felt my foot move for the first time in over three weeks.
I saw my doctor and my Occupational Therapist later in the day due to the appointment being scheduled prior. Both were able to explain the process of Wallerian Degeneration and that my nerve was cut in the “right” place that it will be able to grow again. They were able to measure the distance it had left to grow and it was predicted that within 3-4 months I would gain full function of my foot. While my Physical Therapist helped me get a lot of my motion back, my Occupational Therapist helped me with chronic pain management, used treatments such as Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation and Neuromuscular reeducation, helped me with heat management since a side effect of the nerve being cut was sensitivity to heat, and had me participate in a group with other patients who had with Peripheral Neuropathy as well. I couldn’t have asked for a better Occupational Therapist and because of her I was able to compete in cross country again.
This experience helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life and that is to become an Occupational Therapist. It also steered me to decide that I wanted to work with cancer patients and you may be asking why. In the group sessions that my Occupational Therapist had me participate in with other patients dealing with Peripheral Neuropathy, a majority of them were cancer patients. While my Peripheral Neuropathy was Trauma-Induced, theirs were Chemo-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy. I found out that the reason why so many cancer patients stop their chemotherapy sessions was and is due to the side effects of Peripheral Neuropathy. I want to focus my attention as an Occupational Therapist to helping cancer patients live their lives to the fullest and manage the side-effects of this chronic condition as well as conduct research on this condition since there is not enough research on how to treat it. This is my reason on why I want to become an Occupational Therapist and I felt that this was something important to share about myself. This is where I see myself 10 years from now.