When I saw the opportunity to participate in a local high school’s career day, I signed up thinking it would be a chance for me to escape the grind of studying for the biggest exam of my career and reinforce my enthusiasm for and appreciation of being able to study medicine. Running late from a mandatory school activity, I sat down and listened to the other presenter detail in sleep-inducing detail the minute-by-minute specifics of her job and remembered how, when I had been in high school, this was the exact sort of couldn’t-care-less speaker talking at me which induced the deep REM sleep I spent most of high school in.
When my turn came to go through what is oddly the still fear-inducing act of speaking in front of 2 dozen teenagers, I decided to forego the specifics of the pathway I was told to explain in becoming a medical student and future physician and instead focus on how I went from a kid who failed algebra in high school to medical school. Being someone who is always fascinated by finding the most efficient way of doing everything in life, I remembered an article I had read regarding memory formation the night before the career day.
The article had discussed how critical it was, in order to store and retain information, to have a genuine curiosity for and excitement for the material one was studying--and how lucky I was to be in a field where everyday I don't have to try to be motivated to work as hard as I can because of much I enjoy everything about it. While I could almost read the expletive backed Facebook commiserations of how esoteric certain details of our required curriculum for upcoming exams would be in the future, I could hear (though students would probably have described it as a excited hand-motion filled ramblings) my enthusiasm built in describing how important it was for these kids to find the one field, the one career which would provide these students’ “why” in life and how important it had been for me to just be a kid and have the time and experiences to realize I couldn’t be happier doing anything else.
As more and more hands rose up as I explained my unconventional, but irreplaceable, path toward how I found my passion, I felt grateful for the chance to show kids that those seemingly meaningless, carefree years of childhood and high school boredom serve a purpose--that not knowing what you want to do is a normal--and I think now is a necessary part of growing up. It was only by having the freedom to just be a kid and be confident that when you told your grandparents or strangers “I’m going to be a ___ when I grow up” and be confident you could do it whenever you decided it was time to ‘grow up’ that they would be able to (or I was able to) realize what would drive me in life. So when a reminder came up on my phone this morning to fill out my fundraising page for St. Baldrick’s, it gave even greater meaning to that hope I had felt renewed personally and seen on students faces leaving the high school yesterday.
It reminded me that--without any discrimination toward their favorite toy, what crowd they hung out with, who made their PB & J’s, and what these indescribably strong kids wanted to be when they grew up--cancer robs our children and teens of the sort of carefree years I had realized were and had promised those students would be so important in helping find their ‘why’ a day ago.
While my experience renewed my commitment to help in overcoming the complexity and challenges youth cancers present our society with, I sincerely hope my story and the stories of others who will have their futures changed by cancer convinces you that your donation matters. In supporting the research backed by St. Baldrick’s, you can help provide our society’s youth with the afternoons of boxed milk cartons and of flying out the lunch doors to recess; the nights of acting stupid and talking about their crushes with their best friends; and the years it takes to experience life to find out why and how they will matter in this world without something stealing that freedom away.
