I am a morning person. I always have been, and I am physically incapable of doing much of anything late at night. When I was little, I would inform my mom when it was time for me to go to bed. Nobody else gets to work until at least 10, but I wake up at 6AM to arrive by 8:45. My early-morning productivity, however, comes with a hard 10:30 bedtime.

These days, the type of ‘person’ I am is irrelevant. I have to be an all-day person- wake up at 5:45 (allow myself 5 minutes to hide under my blankets), get dressed and out the door to the gym by 6:15. Work out, shower, get ready for work in the locker room, then head to MCAT prep class by 7:45. Sit in my car and review my notes until 8:45. Take notes and listen intently to instructors from 9-12. Head immediately to work. Eat lunch at desk, sifting through the last 24 hours of emails and creating my daily to-do list. Spend the hours between 1pm and 8pm working, doing MCAT studying during periods of down-time which vary day-to-day. Caffeinate as often as possible, but only until 4pm otherwise I won’t get any sleep that night. If necessary, work remotely from 8-9pm at home while also making dinner, packing lunch for the following day, and doing homework/pre-work/reading for class.

9-10pm varies. Sometimes I say ‘fuck everything’ and go to bed, because the day needs to be over ASAP. Sometimes I will do a bit of yoga to wind down. Most of the time, I take the path of least resistance and have a tall glass of wine. I re-watch early episodes of Grey’s Anatomy for inspiration sometimes, imagining myself as a brilliant and competitive intern (before they all died, of course). I know that some of you may think that if i can’t stay up later that I just don’t ‘want it’ badly enough. Or that I should skip the gym in favor of sleeping in a bit. But the truth of the matter is, I had a severe brain injury. Cognitively, I can’t afford to just sacrifice some sleep or endorphins in favor of doing more.

When I start to regret my insanely early alarm (usually the moment it goes off), I remind myself that pre-rounds will start at 5:30. I’m already running late for the rest of my life. I like to think waking up will be easier when I’m excited about the thing I’m getting out of bed for. This is who I am now, and it’s going to mean that I wake up insanely early and go to bed insanely early, and I cannot falter for a second in between. I have stopped caring about how I appear to others long before I had to buy a fancy carrying case for all of my colored pens, long before I started carrying a lunchbox. I don’t think that I cared much about how I looked to my peers before March 13 of 2016, but now I dare someone to try and belittle me for having 17 colored pens. I am going to color-code my way to victory, I’ll worry about being dorky all day over worrying about being alive, or walking again, or breathing on my own.

This is not about how hard my life is, I don’t need anyone telling me how tough I’m being. No, this is not fun, but I am pleasantly surprised by the general balance I have been able to maintain. When I am stressed, without fail, my emotions are all over the place. I have found myself being ‘sassier’ than normal to my loved ones- especially my parents, best friends, and saint of a boyfriend. I have the self-awareness to apologize and think about why I’m so volatile, but I don’t always like the answer. Right now, studying for this big huge life-altering exam makes me worry about not being enough, but this self-doubt spills over to all aspects of my life.

I worry that I’m not ‘committed’ enough to my MCAT studying- should I be pulling all-nighters? I worry that I’m not a ‘dedicated’ employee- does my boss think less of me now that I don’t work 50 hours in a week? I worry that I’m not returning the favor for my loved ones- they have given me the love and support I need to get through this in one piece, and I can’t possibly imagine how I can be doing that for them. I know that these are pretty irrational and I do my best on a daily basis to remind myself of that. This is one of the side-effects of doing something really fucking hard.

But that’s just it- I’m doing it. I am not sleep deprived, I am not constantly sick, I have my mental health (reasonably) in-check. I’m doing it.

I am happy to start off the inevitable barrage of social media nostalgic end-of-the-year posts for you guys. Maybe just read this ONE and then I fully support going underground until 2019. Nobody cares what trash music you listened to this year, so please spare me from seeing yet another ‘Spotify Unwrapped’ screenshot. I have been thinking a lot about the general feeling that this year is ending on, especially compared to last year.

I began 2017 in a weird, unbalanced place; friendships had shifted, relationships had ended, and I was in a hurry to smooth out those kinks. Those knocked me down. I took organic chemistry and didn’t excel as I had hoped. That knocked me down. 2017 ended in a dark place when I was told that my face would likely never get back to where it once was, and that my nerves had stopped regenerating. That knocked me down.  I spent the remainder of that year (all of two weeks) feeling defeated by this news, but then it was 2018, and it was time for me to get back up.

2018 was the year of getting back up. I graduated from college. Had 5 surgeries. Presented my own research at two professional conferences. Submitted my first journal publication as a contributing author. I came back for organic chemistry, and I fucking crushed it. I feel like this year has been an overwhelming success, but it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Of those 5 surgeries, 1 failed and 1 was an emergency fix FOR that one that failed. The other three are probably successes, but I will only know that by their lack of failure.

2019 is going to be one hell of a year. It will be the year that i take the MCAT, the year that I apply to medical school. The year that I get my last (hopefully) round of surgeries. There’s no telling how any of those things will go, but the one thing I know is that I am showing up, and I am ready.

Lots of full-circle posts as of late, but I don’t mind and hopefully you don’t either. Recently, I registered to take the MCAT, right after I complete my prep class in March. The class is several hours a day, every weekday AND Sundays, and my work has so graciously worked with me to figure out a realistic schedule. The date of the exam didn’t stick out to me when I registered, but it dawned on me once I saw it on the confirmation email.

I am taking the Medical College Admissions Test on March 15. The 3-year anniversary of my stroke. I will be taking an incredibly difficult, grueling, and important test knowing that this is not the worst I have faced. Choosing to fight for my own life, despite the paralysis, deficits, breathing problems, that’s the hardest and most important test of my life. And I passed, with flying colors (in my opinion).

Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly stressed about the MCAT. Right now, to me and other pre-med students, it feels like the single most definitive barrier between us and the rest of our lives. But seeing that date in the email and realizing how it related to me was the perfect reality check. Yes, this test is important. Yes, it will be incredibly hard. But I have seen worse.

My success on this test will largely dictate my eligibility to earn the title of medical doctor. But, in theory, my decision to live and thrive after my accident also affected that same eligibility, among many other things. Throughout the day, I trend more towards panic. I buy into the general feeling of panic and dread associated with the MCAT. I know that there is no logical reason to feel this way, for the reason explained above, but it’s tough to listen to that voice when everything around me is telling me to panic.

It’s three months of hell, but this is the rest of my life we are talking about. And I have known three months of true struggle, and nothing will ever trump that.

I was in NYC these last few days to follow up with my surgeon at NYU who operated on me this past July. This trip, we stayed at the same hotel we were in while I recovered, and being there brought some memories of my recovery. 

I only stayed one night in the hospital, and my room was filled with laughter and food until I kicked everyone out so that I could sleep. My saintly boyfriend slept in the hospital bed next to me that night, and didn’t complain when they drew my blood at 3AM, or when they changed my antibiotic IV bag at 4AM, or when the team of residents came to remove my drains at 6AM. Well, technically the nurse made him sleep in a chair after 4 so that he wouldn’t get in trouble with the residents. 

When we got back to the hotel that afternoon, I was near my limit of human interaction for the day. My pain was manageable, but I was covered in yellow betadine and dried blood left from the surgery. I had rejoined society, and I really wanted a bath. Anyone that knows me, knows that there are few things that make me happier than a great bathtub. This hotel had the MOST amazing tub; deep, standalone, luxurious. The problem was that I had dissolvable stitches in my leg where they removed the nerve graft, and I wasn’t allowed to submerge it. 

I was on the verge of a meltdown- I was exhausted, in pain, and I wasn’t allowed to do the ONE thing that always makes me feel better. My poker face is apparently not nearly as good as I think it is, because my boyfriend immediately got to work on solving this problem. He emptied out the bathroom trash can and turned it upside-down and put it inside the tub, creating a pedestal foot rest so that I could bathe without submerging my foot. At that point, I was well into my meltdown and had decided that nothing would work and that it was just a terrible day. 

But seeing him working to help me accomplish my goal for the day, that’s love. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I can be incredibly stubborn- I was committed to being upset that I couldn’t make a bath happen that day. But, I didn’t have the heart to refuse to try out his contraption. So I did, and it was a great bath. Not the luxurious experience I wanted, but it eased the part of my soul that was craving it. Sometimes, it is better to let go of that commitment to a terrible day, in favor of something good. I am so glad for Anthony’s on-the-fly engineering skills that allowed me the luxury of a bath one day post-surgery, but I am even more grateful for his refusal to accept my abysmal attitude when I am in pain. 

My appointment with Dr. Rodriguez went well- he was very happy with how everything looked and was progressing. He called me a ‘good healer’. I like to think I’m good at more things, but at least I can say that I am exceptional at recovering from surgery. Wonder how I can put that on my resume. It seemed kind of crazy to fly from LA to NYC for a 30-minute appointment, but I think it was reassuring for me to see Dr. Rodriguez, and be told in-person that everything looks great. 

Before March of 2016, I was afraid to get flu shots or my blood taken. Fast forward to October of 2018. Six surgeries. I have had six surgeries. I’m sitting here planning my seventh like I would a lunch date, negotiating everyone’s tricky schedules. Except it’s not other guests I am accommodating, it’s multiple surgeons.

Next up on the list is a surgery that will help me regain some feeling in my eye, called corneal neurotization. It’s basically the same thing I had done for my smile, but for my eye. They take my (other) foot nerve, and graft it from my forehead on my left side to my eye on the right. Ideally, my forehead will sprout a new nerve branch through the graft over to my right ‘numb’ eye. This regenerates for 6-9 months before anything changes. If this is successful, my cornea will be ‘nourished’ by the nerve supply, and I will have feeling again. Simple as this sounds, there’s a bit of a catch.

This surgery has been performed a handful of times- less than 50, I’d venture, and only twice at UCLA, ever. These are not ideal stats, but let me explain why I will be the next case at UCLA. The surgery was invented in Toronto, Canada. They have performed 22 cases total. Ever. Nobody can deny that 22 is more than 2, however I know better than anyone that pursuing the perceived best-in-the-field does not guarantee the optimal result. Because this procedure is so new, I know that I’m not going to find a surgeon who looks me in the eye and tells me this is going to work out. Because nobody knows that.

There are other factors at play here, too. Dr. Goldberg will actually be performing some of the more intricate parts of the surgery, and I trust him implicitly. I trust the ‘main’ surgeon as well, but I’ll trust him even more after he’s perfectly executed this procedure. Objectively, this is low-risk. I lose my other foot nerve as a viable option for some unforeseen surgery, and I gain a few (more) scars. I am confident in UCLA as a hospital, and I am confident in the team I will have working with me.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t like sitting on my hands for long. There’s no rush to do this surgery, but there’s also no good reason to wait. So I’m doing it.

Last week, I had a surgery to help my ‘tracking’, to help correct my double vision. They do this on little kids all the time, you may even know someone who’s had it. For those of you who didn’t know this about me, my right eye was basically crossed, like the opposite of a lazy eye. This causes extreme double vision- like, the two images are not even close. This is a really common issue after head trauma, but usually resolves on its own. Like everything else, I waited two years for it to wake up, then decided it was time to get moving.

The surgery couldn’t restore my nerve function, but the fantastic surgeons at UCLA were able to rearrange my eye muscles so it’s at least straight. I still have slight double vision and will likely wear special glasses, but I will be able to look someone square in the eye (once they’re BOTH open). When I had pitched this idea to the surgeon who originally sewed my eye shut (Dr. Goldberg), he was not thrilled about it. He wanted me to wait just a little longer, give it one more chance. He came and checked my eye every day that I was in the hospital at UCLA with about 17 residents and medical students behind him, like ducklings. I would feel like a science project laying in my bed with all of these curious eyes on me.

The way that I was able to feel powerful was when Dr. Goldberg would quiz me on the cranial nerves in front of the students. I had known them before, but I became an expert as I was living through the issues that arise when they are interrupted. I would recite them seamlessly, and would pretend that maybe some of these brilliant, young, able-bodied students were envious of the feeble girl in the hospital bed. When he pushed back about pursuing surgery, I asked him what my other options were, because I was NOT going to live my life with one eye. I started to cry, and I think that’s when he realized how serious I was. In the hospital, I was stoic and positive through every poke, prod, every “sorry sweetie, it’s almost over.” But I was tired, and mad.

In his defense, he has tried to un-do my eye, let me have a little freedom, and I got a minor infection. But this is a much more supervised, structured path to freedom. We started with this tracking surgery. A very predictable, straightforward procedure and he was in the room to stitch my lid closed as soon as Dr. Demer was finished with the muscles. That was the deal I made with him, very low-risk for my cornea, and more-delayed gain for me. It was a problem that would need to be fixed eventually, so why not start with it? Baby steps. I spent more energy talking him into the surgery than I did myself.

When I saw both surgeons (separately) at my post-op appointment today, they were practically levitating. I don’t think either of them could have fathomed a better result. I would have loved for the double vision to go away altogether, but my cornea is clear and healthy, and my eye APPEARS straight. My lid is still mostly closed, but I have a peephole in the center so that I can actually use my eye. This is best-case scenario. Now, I need a nerve graft to my eye, the next surgery. This will help give me that ‘blink’ reflex to protect my cornea, something I do not have since I have no feeling in my right eye.

This is a very new, but very promising surgery where they take a piece of nerve from my (other) foot, and connect it from my good eye to my bad eye. Basically, the eye-version of the surgery I had in July. Dr. Goldberg, my very conservative surgeon who doesn’t like taking big risks, is rearing to get going on this next surgery. I don’t know if it was the ease with which I healed from this surgery, or the positive momentum of my recovery, or my attitude, but I’m not questioning it.

I feel like, for the past year, I’ve been saying “ready when you are” to the world. And now, the world is ready. The ground is rising to meet my feet, and it’s time to run.

The other day, I spent some time thinking about how I would feel about my current job if my accident had never happened. Sure, I would have been equally as interested in my work but the first thing that occurred to me was that I wouldn’t have ever even gotten this job. Virtually everything that led me here has been a result of my accident. The fact that my doctors are involved with the company, the fact that the mission is so personal to me, even just the fact that it’s a research position is not something I would have gone for had it not been for my research experience post-accident in undergrad.

But, my job would have also scared the shit out of me. There has been so much that I have learned over these first 3 months, but there’s also still much to be learned. I would have chickened out. Learning to program in python within 3 months? No way, I can’t do that. Preparing posters to be presented at international conferences? That’s awfully ambitious. No, this is not me telling you how great my job is. This is me explaining that, faced with challenge after challenge, I have accepted with a smile and delivered. The weird thing is, people don’t normally live like this. Who is motivated by looming, seemingly-impossible obstacles? Me. I am.

This being said, you readers have heard a good amount of venting on here as well. So what’s the difference between those posts and this one? There are things you can control and there are things you can’t. When I did my first self-review at my job, I ranked my skills as ‘below expectations’. My manager was very quick to correct that- the ‘skill’ I did have was a willingness to learn, to figure it out. I was smart ENOUGH to get this job, and I am smart ENOUGH to figure out how to get better at it as I go.

When I begin looking into which medical schools I should apply to, there will be no safety schools, or even mid-range schools. They are all a huge fucking reach. But that’s ok. Someone recently told me that comparing myself to other pre-med students is like asking a fish to climb a tree- there’s absolutely no logic there.

I would also say that my skills as a potential medical student are ‘below expectations’. But, just like I am doing here, I am willing to figure it out. I know that becoming a doctor isn’t exactly something you just ‘figure out’, but I will. Watch me.

Today, I saw my neurosurgeon. Not from a hospital bed, not even in a hospital setting. I got into work a little early, and saw a message that our chief medical officer (CMO) would be around this morning. The CMO of my company also happens to be the man who helped save my life two years ago at UCLA.

I actually passed him in the hallway before he was formally introduced to me. His face was familiar but he wasn’t wearing a lab coat like I had always seen him, so I didn’t recognize him out of context. When he was being shown around our office, there weren’t many other people around (it’s 9AM at a startup). When we were ‘introduced’, I said “good to see you again” instead of ‘nice to meet you.’ I think THAT is when my face clicked. He had no idea that I was working and graduated at all, let alone working for a company that HE helped start.

I never actually met Dr. Martin consciously until after I had left the hospital, at a follow-up visit. When I was his hospital patient, I was (mostly) unconscious, and he would come and observe me in the middle of the night. So, to ‘meet’ him all over again, this time as professional colleagues, was incredibly gratifying. We were as close to eye-to-eye as a 5’2” girl can get with a 6’6” man, and we were talking about WORK. Not my surgical plan. Not my ongoing disability.

This man’s only job is to fix someone’s brain. He looks at the insides of people’s heads all day, every day. Did he have to field my mom’s 100 questions at 3AM in the ICU? No. Did he have to counsel my subsequent surgeons on how best to handle my case? No. Out of the thousands of heads he’s operated on, did he have to remember mine? No. But he did.

He has gotten to see me come from a nearly-vegetative, but smiling, girl in that hospital bed to a college-graduated, research colleague. Hell, this isn’t full circle, this is like 1000 revolutions around the sun. He was thrilled to see me doing well, but even more excited to have me working for him. I think, for his profession, he sees a lot of lost hope. He told me that I am one of the most resilient people he knows, that I have only gotten stronger. I  think that I am one of those few cases he looks back on to remember that it’s not always all doom and gloom. For that I am as thankful as he is.

Another, rather long break from writing! I should preface this post with this: I am currently on a plane to New York (City), where I will undergo further cosmetic surgery, with a different surgeon from the one I saw in March. By the time you are reading this, I am likely out of the surgery. To answer some of the questions you may be thinking: This procedure isn’t actually cosmetic at all, but reconstructive. There are taking donor nerve out of my heel, attaching it to a branch of my ‘good’ nerve, and threading it under my skin and muscles to my ‘bad’ side. Then, they close me up and let it marinade for 6-12 months. This is phase one, so I will be getting minimal aesthetic improvement.

6-12 months from July 20th, they will take a piece of muscle and blood vessel from my thigh and attach it to my new nerve (that has been growing across my face). Then, some months after THAT, I will be able to smile spontaneously.

This is the surgery that I opted out of initially, because it will take a long time, and each step has to go well before the next to be successful. But, here I am. I’m over it. I’m unwilling to accept this as my reality. You may have noticed that a different surgeon has taken over my reconstruction. I am incredibly lucky to have the ability to be connected to such incredible resources, and beyond a certain point there is no way to tell where to go. My rationale for this move is an extensive pro/con list, but I can say simply that this surgeon is at least the same caliber as my last, so it’s time to try something different.

What am I afraid of here? That it fails? That I develop an extremely dangerous post-surgical complication that leads to more surgery? Been there. Done that. Next. I am not going to say that was the worst because it seems that THERE IS ALWAYS WORSE, but that was pretty bad. And my psyche survived in spite of those things. I didn’t think that I could deal with putting myself on an OR table and having it fail, until it was happening to me.

I won’t say it was easy, or that I was strong through it all. Those closest to me witnessed my insecurity, my pain, my post-anesthesia hanger. They know. Sometimes I still cry about the unfairness of it all. But I wouldn’t have thought that I could have survived my accident, and I did. I wouldn’t have thought that I would survive a failed surgery, but I did. Some days I don’t even think I’ll survive a day or work, but I do.

My point is, go with your gut and don’t sell yourself short. I know people say this all the time, but I am living proof that we’re a lot stronger than we think. I still count on my fingers sometimes (a lot), but I’m also a research scientist at a biotechnology company that will change the world. I refuse to eat raw tomatoes but am saying yes to having 3+ surgeries this year (more on that later).

I have picked my battles and what doesn’t kill me, better run.