Remembering Why I Started 2016 by Andrea

Remembering Why I Started 2016 by Andrea - January 2016 Scholarship Essay

My New Year’s resolution this year that will help me become a better student in 2016 is to not lose sight of why I chose Occupational Therapy as my major. There were times during my first semester of my Occupational Therapy classes when I almost lost hope when things got stressful. This semester my sister had a cancer scare, my grandmother almost lost her life, and financially my family was falling apart. School was not my top priority and I forgot I began to ask myself, “What am I doing here?” Just when I was about to give up, I ran into someone that I didn’t expect to during one of my cross country races. I ran into my athletic trainer who took me to my doctor appointments and would always help figure out the insurance information for me. The first thing she said to me, “You’re finally running faster than you did before the injury.” She hugged me while we were both crying. I remembered why I was studying Occupational Therapy.
Three years ago, during a workout with the cross country team, 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 two of the bones in my foot. 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 and no one knew if I would be able to walk again. I began to believe that I should give up, 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 of my words and I changed my answer to be able to walk again and get around more easily. She smiled at me and then she whispered something to me that I will 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.” 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 except sit in my bed and cry. 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 so that it would be able to grow again. They were able to measure the distance it had left to grow and predicted that within 3-4 months I would gain full function of my foot. 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 Peripheral Neuropathy as well.
My goal for my New Year's resolution that will help me become a better student in 2016 is to remind myself of why I chose Occupational Therapy as my major. I need to remind myself during the hard, stressful times and even during the not so stressful times of what I am working hard for. I want to become Occupational Therapist and 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 the dream that I should not lose sight of.