Admission Essay
I finally finished my admissions essay for Samford. It's been really good for me to write. Very therapeutic. It made me think through exactly how this whole experience has changed me. I think I'm going to lengthen it at some point. I didn't get to say everything I wanted. Overall, I am pleased. Anyways, here it is:
If I were writing this essay immediately upon graduation from high school, I would have written on one of several positive experiences that inspired me to do more and be more. In the three years since graduation, what defines an experience’s significance and meaning to me has changed somewhat. While I still value and treasure those events in my life that enliven me and imbue me with a desire to be more than what I am, I hold most dear the difficult trials that drive me beyond what I believed I was capable of and into the arms of my Creator. The most significant of these experiences for me began over a year and a half ago with a pain in my side.
In the fall of 2003, I started getting a sharp pain in my left side and feeling slightly nauseated after eating. I chalked it up to poor college eating habits and ignored it, along with the inordinate number of ‘stomach bugs’ I caught, throughout the fall semester. By Christmas, it was more than just an annoyance, and I discussed with my mother what dietary changes I needed to enact. I went back to school that January, plan in place and ready for life. With me now eating a better diet, I expected the pain and nausea to just fade away. Instead, they got much worse. By March, I was not keeping any amount of food or liquid down. I finally decided to go see a doctor. Over the next several weeks, I went back and forth between school and home, seeing several doctors and looking for an explanation. I had to continually elucidate that I was not pregnant or bulimic to each new doctor before being taken seriously. With no answers or improvements by April, I was forced to withdraw from school and return home for a barrage of tests to determine the cause of the pain and nausea. The doctors ran test after test, all coming back ‘normal’ and strengthening the opinion that this was somehow ‘all in my head.’ Finally, after more tests than I can remember and five different doctors, one test came back abnormal, and I had a diagnosis: idiopathic gastroparesis.
Despite the validation that a diagnosis gave, this one brought with it a sense of hopelessness. This disorder is an under-researched, little-understood one, and treatment options are limited. I was devastated. I could not return to school because I could not keep my weight steady. I was too sick to do the work anyway. Prior to withdrawing from school, I had been planning to take the MCAT in the summer and possibly apply to medical school early. Now medical school seemed completely out of the question. All my friends were six hours away, moving on with their lives, and I was stuck at home not knowing what was going to happen. My friends, my planning, my schooling, my future, I felt like everything I had dreamed of and worked for had been stolen from me.
With even my own body betraying me, the only place I had to turn was God. In the months prior to my condition spiraling out of control, I was inundated with messages to trust God and not be anxious in anything. Being sick everyday has shown me how much I can and must trust Him. Everything I believed stolen, He has replaced with something greater. The distance from my support network of friends forced me into the comforting arms of the Father. The loss of all my future plans forced me to actively and sincerely seek His plans. I have always been a strong-willed, stand-on-my-own-two-feet type of person. Now, because of my experience, I now know that I can rely on Him even when I cannot rely on myself. My illness has made that statement real in a way that nothing else could have.
It has been over a year since I first learned my diagnosis, and although I can now manage my condition with diet, I still deal with nausea and pain on a daily basis. Some days, I still fight to live my life and not let an illness define me. Sometimes, even the ability to hope is a battle. I cling to Jeremiah 29:11. I almost get scared every time I hear it because each time someone directs the verse to me, God takes me down a path I do not expect or understand. This experience is no different. It has been a fight from the beginning, one that in some ways, I cannot win. I will not lie down and quit. I will trust that His plans for me are greater than any I could make for myself and will seek those paths He has for me. This experience has beaten, shaken, and refined me into a stronger, more determined individual than I was. I know it has better prepared me for whatever work God has planned for my life and I can not wait to see where He takes me.
If I were writing this essay immediately upon graduation from high school, I would have written on one of several positive experiences that inspired me to do more and be more. In the three years since graduation, what defines an experience’s significance and meaning to me has changed somewhat. While I still value and treasure those events in my life that enliven me and imbue me with a desire to be more than what I am, I hold most dear the difficult trials that drive me beyond what I believed I was capable of and into the arms of my Creator. The most significant of these experiences for me began over a year and a half ago with a pain in my side.
In the fall of 2003, I started getting a sharp pain in my left side and feeling slightly nauseated after eating. I chalked it up to poor college eating habits and ignored it, along with the inordinate number of ‘stomach bugs’ I caught, throughout the fall semester. By Christmas, it was more than just an annoyance, and I discussed with my mother what dietary changes I needed to enact. I went back to school that January, plan in place and ready for life. With me now eating a better diet, I expected the pain and nausea to just fade away. Instead, they got much worse. By March, I was not keeping any amount of food or liquid down. I finally decided to go see a doctor. Over the next several weeks, I went back and forth between school and home, seeing several doctors and looking for an explanation. I had to continually elucidate that I was not pregnant or bulimic to each new doctor before being taken seriously. With no answers or improvements by April, I was forced to withdraw from school and return home for a barrage of tests to determine the cause of the pain and nausea. The doctors ran test after test, all coming back ‘normal’ and strengthening the opinion that this was somehow ‘all in my head.’ Finally, after more tests than I can remember and five different doctors, one test came back abnormal, and I had a diagnosis: idiopathic gastroparesis.
Despite the validation that a diagnosis gave, this one brought with it a sense of hopelessness. This disorder is an under-researched, little-understood one, and treatment options are limited. I was devastated. I could not return to school because I could not keep my weight steady. I was too sick to do the work anyway. Prior to withdrawing from school, I had been planning to take the MCAT in the summer and possibly apply to medical school early. Now medical school seemed completely out of the question. All my friends were six hours away, moving on with their lives, and I was stuck at home not knowing what was going to happen. My friends, my planning, my schooling, my future, I felt like everything I had dreamed of and worked for had been stolen from me.
With even my own body betraying me, the only place I had to turn was God. In the months prior to my condition spiraling out of control, I was inundated with messages to trust God and not be anxious in anything. Being sick everyday has shown me how much I can and must trust Him. Everything I believed stolen, He has replaced with something greater. The distance from my support network of friends forced me into the comforting arms of the Father. The loss of all my future plans forced me to actively and sincerely seek His plans. I have always been a strong-willed, stand-on-my-own-two-feet type of person. Now, because of my experience, I now know that I can rely on Him even when I cannot rely on myself. My illness has made that statement real in a way that nothing else could have.
It has been over a year since I first learned my diagnosis, and although I can now manage my condition with diet, I still deal with nausea and pain on a daily basis. Some days, I still fight to live my life and not let an illness define me. Sometimes, even the ability to hope is a battle. I cling to Jeremiah 29:11. I almost get scared every time I hear it because each time someone directs the verse to me, God takes me down a path I do not expect or understand. This experience is no different. It has been a fight from the beginning, one that in some ways, I cannot win. I will not lie down and quit. I will trust that His plans for me are greater than any I could make for myself and will seek those paths He has for me. This experience has beaten, shaken, and refined me into a stronger, more determined individual than I was. I know it has better prepared me for whatever work God has planned for my life and I can not wait to see where He takes me.