From Loss to Healing: Supporting My Medical Journey

The Day Everything Changed

I was ten years old when I watched my mother take her last breath in a hospital room filled with machines that could measure her heartbeat but couldn't make it continue. Breast cancer had stolen the most important person in my world, leaving me standing in those sterile halls wondering how I would ever smile again.

But in that devastating moment, something profound happened. I witnessed the nurses who made their routine visits into acts of extraordinary compassion. I saw how my mother, even in her final days, whispered prayers while brushing my hair—teaching me that how we face our darkest moments defines who we become. I didn't know it then, but I was watching my future unfold before my eyes.

The Words I Never Heard

From the day my mother was diagnosed when I was in kindergarten, there was only one thing I wanted in the entire world: to have a mom the way my classmates and relatives did. Every hospital visit, every treatment, every sleepless night, I waited with the naive hope that only a child can carry. I yearned to hear just five simple words: "She's all better now, you can go back to how life was."

For four years, I patiently waited for those words. Four years of hoping, praying, believing that someone in a white coat would finally deliver the miracle that would restore my universe. But those words never came.

Coming Full Circle

Ten years later, I found myself in hospital corridors once again—not as a grieving child, but as a pediatric ER scribe at Children's Health Dallas. For over a year, I documented the stories of frightened children and desperate parents, working overnight shifts while pursuing my pre-medical studies.

Walking those familiar hospital halls brought everything full circle. Every night at 3 AM, exhausted but determined, I would document cases that mirrored my own childhood trauma. But instead of breaking me, these experiences strengthened my resolve within walls that felt achingly familiar. I wasn't just recording medical histories—I was witnessing the sacred space where healing happens, where hope battles despair, where miracles unfold in the hands of skilled physicians.

Now I understand the true power of those words I never got to hear. I know how they can change someone's entire universe, restore a family's world, turn despair into joy. And because I know their significance—because I lived for four years without them—I want to be the physician who gets to deliver them to other families.

The Weight I Carry

During my freshman year, I worked three jobs to support myself through college—overnight ER shifts, tutoring neurodivergent children in science and mathematics, and serving as a medical assistant—all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. My outstanding work ethic and academics earned me a scholarship for my sophomore year. I've learned to convert exhaustion into strength, to find purpose in the most challenging moments.

But my work extends beyond academic requirements. I volunteer as a playmate in the oncology ward, bringing smiles to children receiving chemotherapy. I know what it's like to be a scared child in a hospital room, and I refuse to let any child face that alone. When I see fear in their eyes, I see myself at ten years old—and I become the comfort I desperately needed then.

This isn't just career preparation. This is my calling written in my own tears and strengthened by every life I've touched.

The Crisis I Face Now

Despite working multiple jobs throughout college, I'm facing a financial reality that threatens to end my medical school dreams before they truly begin. I need $6,000 to complete my junior year at UT Austin.

The cruel irony haunts me daily: I've spent countless hours in hospital corridors that brought back every memory of losing my mother, now helping to save other children's lives, while struggling to afford the education that will transform me from someone who documents healing into someone who creates it.

Why Your Support Changes Everything

When you support my journey, you're not just funding my education—you're investing in every patient I'll serve throughout my career. You're helping create a physician who understands that medicine isn't just about treating symptoms, but about seeing the terrified child behind every patient, the desperate parent behind every question, the sacred responsibility that comes with holding someone's life in your hands.

Medical schools need more than students with perfect grades. They need future doctors who've learned resilience through tragedy, who choose compassion when bitterness would be easier, who understand that the most profound healing happens when someone truly sees your pain because they've walked that same dark path.

What Your Support Will Fund

Your contributions will directly support my junior year coursework, which includes essential pre-medical requirements:

Fall 2025:

Spring 2026:

Each of these courses brings me one step closer to medical school admission and ultimately to becoming the physician my community needs.

The Doctor I'm Becoming

I carry my mother's memory into every patient room, every study session, every moment of doubt. She taught me that how we do things matters as much as what we do—a lesson I live every day. When I become a physician, I will carry this wisdom into every interaction, every diagnosis, every moment when someone needs hope more than they need medicine.

Your support helps ensure that scared children in hospital rooms will one day encounter a doctor who truly understands their fear, who can offer not just medical expertise but genuine compassion born from shared experience. You're helping transform my deepest wound into my greatest strength.

My Promise to You

I don't ask for this support lightly. Every dollar you contribute carries the weight of my promise: to become the physician my community desperately needs, to honor my mother's memory by healing others, to prove that sometimes our greatest tragedies become our most powerful purpose.

Whether you contribute financially or share my story, you become part of a journey that began with devastating loss and continues toward healing countless others. You help prove that even in our darkest moments, hope can take root and grow into something beautiful.

Ten years ago, I was a broken little girl who lost everything. Today, I'm a determined young woman ready to dedicate her life to ensuring no other family faces that loss alone.

Help me complete this transformation. Help me become the doctor I needed when I was ten years old.

Goal: $6,000 for junior year tuition

Timeline: Needed by Fall 2025

Every contribution brings me one step closer to healing others the way I wish my mother could have been healed.