FEATURE
THE Climb
Megan Pennell
M
y life consists of two parts:
Before and After. Before is
when I thought I knew ev-
erything in the world there
was to know; After is when
I started learning.
I don’t remember too much about Before,
although that may be because my head is filled with all of the things
I am trying to memorize for my exam on Monday. However, I do
remember one particular instance when I was sixteen or seventeen.
I remember walking out of high school one day, looking around
the parking lot full of new and inexperienced drivers and thinking
to myself, “I think I know almost everything there is to know in
the world.”
Now, what actually possessed me to believe that, I will never
know. Honestly, I’m embarrassed even thinking about it now. I want
to go back to that moment, hand that sixteen-year-old my copy of
First Aid, and say, “Do you know any of this?”
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
Another thing I remember about that time was that I didn’t think
I was happy. You know, the typical “woe is me” teenager stuff. But
I was happy. I didn’t have responsibilities or any real type of stress.
I did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I fell asleep as soon as
my head hit the pillow at night.
Now, as I write this, it’s almost 1:00 a.m. and my body is showing
no signs of being willing to sleep. This is a frequent occurrence in
the craziness of After.
After started the day I took the MCAT. Ah, yes, my first mental
breakdown. The day that my conscience handed me a metaphor-
ical little backpack with its first tiny weight in it and said, “H ere,
carry this.”
Having the type-A personality of most physicians or future
physicians, I thought I had failed the test. I didn’t fail, but I when
I found that out, I didn’t jump for joy either. I was on to the next:
my interview, my choice of schools, my first day of medical school.
More tiny weights dropped into the backpack that I’m carrying up
a steep hill. Now, I live day to day just planning out what’s next. I