2020 Hits Back

Well I'm just gonna say it. This year has been weird. Yup, 2020 you really have thrown some funky, never-before-seen curveballs. If you have been following my journey through Instagram, then you know that I have had quite the interesting past couple of months. Nevertheless, everyone has had an interesting couple months. I thought that I would shine a light on this year so far .

I ended 2019 with a bang. Like a literal bang. Unfortunately, I got into a bad car accident the week of my birthday. It left my car completely totaled and me with a minor concussion for the very last week of finals in undergrad. So Lovely. That was one of the hardest weeks of college for me personally. I was so close and yet so far. With God's grace and His amazing gift of coffee, I pushed through and made it to graduation day.

For some reason, college graduation hit different. For me, it wasn't even close to high school graduation. I was five steps off of that stage before everyone else, ready to apply to medical school. Don't get me wrong I was proud of my achievements in undergrad, especially graduating a semester early from the Honors College with academic rewards. But I was ready to move forward and pursue my dream. I spent the rest of December in Oregon with my family and came back to Arizona with a new 2018 Toyota Rav 4 and a renewed spirit (big thank you to my car insurance).

Come January, I knew it was time to start prepping for my MCAT. I enrolled in an on-ground Kaplan prep course (future post to come about this) that was on Saturday and Sunday of each week. During the week I nannied part-time to pay the bills and spent the rest of the time studying at coffee shops or shadowing surgery.

Then COVID-19 made its ugly appearance in March. My day-to-day life really didn't change except for more quarantining and studying, less nannying. I was gearing up my medial school application because the MCAT was really up in the air at this point.

Fast forward to May, my little sister's GI health took a nosedive and I decided that it was time to return to Oregon to visit my fam bam. That trip helped me make a couple of key personal realizations about my future. There's really nothing like driving on the country back roads to get a person thinking. They were really difficult decisions. It was a very tough trip honestly because I couldn't keep absolutely any food down for about a week (appendectomy coming soon) and my emotions were on a roller coaster.

Anyways, I decided that it was time to move home. After almost 5 years in the dessert, it was time to return to my beautiful green trees. Don't get me wrong, I love the sunshine and I will endlessly complain about the rain and cold (so be ready). I will miss my friends and family that I have cultivated in my time down here. Don't even get me started on how much I will miss dancing down here.

However, I owe it to myself to purse my little girl dream of going to medical school at OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University) with the best of my ability. That means moving home and continuing to make connections and improve my application.

Alright bear with me, we are almost done. If you follow Insta then you know that I ended up in the ER and had an appendectomy the next day. If you don't follow insta, go look at my post for the amazing gory medical details. Fast forward two weeks to my surgical post-op and boom, I find out that I actually had appendix cancer. My tumor was a Neuroendocrine appendiceal tumor 1.1cm Gr 2. Cool. So. Freaking. Cool. (post coming soon). They think they got it all, but I have scans coming to to confirm.

Then things kinda settled down for two weeks, or so I thought. COVID-19 hit my friend group and I ended up contracting that (post here). Quarantine is such a joy as you all know. Anyways, I am FINALLY to the point where I feel some small semblance of control over my life. I have some super exciting things in the works for myself and you guys! I hope that we can all reflect over this year and the barriers that we have overcome individually, and collectively.

Stay safe and sassy,

Ash