Acceptance into Springfield College

 Over the course of the year I spent taking Anatomy & Physiology, I looked into a few occupational therapy programs, but in the end only applied to Springfield College. I was in the process of applying to Bay Path College when I received my acceptance letter from Springfield.

Today, almost four years later, it seems the excitement I felt upon opening the acceptance letter was above and beyond. I ran around the house in pure glee. It felt like one of the most accomplished moments of my life up to that point. It was a big deal to me.

I'm curious to know if any of my readers can remember a moment in their life like that; a moment you have strived for, and it had materialized. It's a fantastic feeling. Isn't it?

The letter came sometime in the spring, and I think I was ready to order all the books the next day, but I didn't. The summer was spent in a deep state of migraine if I remember correctly and I wondered how I was going to manage school if the migraines continued. Somehow it all worked out.

The first week of school was not fun for me. Whether it was a virus, nerves, or the fact I had eaten a pound of chick peas, I don't know, but I had diarrhea. Oh boy! I could not eat nor drink any fluids without problems, and yet I had to be in class. There was another classmate with a similar problem. I have no idea how we started discussing this very personal problem, but we commiserated for the rest of the week and became fast friends.

The second thing to happen in the first week that sent me over the edge was being asked to write a paper. I was in a class with about thirty 21-35-year-olds and writing a paper was nothing for them. They could type fast. They new the computer program and editing and formatting. They had just finished undergrad schooling and were damn good at writing papers. I had not written a paper in twenty years. I had a panic attack. The paper was a compare and contrast paper. I didn't even know what that meant (Hello Lisa... compare and contrast!!!!).

I tell people I cried every day for eight weeks straight. And I did!! It was one of the scariest, and hardest things I ever did. I ended up going to the counseling center for help psychologically to get me through. When I dropped into the counselor's office six months later to say hi, he told me he NEVER thought I would make it. AT the time, he was so concerned for my mental health that he had me coming in twice a week.

I made the decision to drop neuroanatomy class and take the program at a slower pace. The program called for taking both neuroanatomy and clinical anatomy in the first semester. These classes entailed a ton of memorization which was just too much for my brain. In hindsight, I could have managed them both because neuroanatomy was not as difficult as I had imagined in the beginning. Oh well, all things for a reason. This put me six months behind the rest of my class and had me graduate with the upcoming class. In the end, I took classes with three different groups of graduating classes and got to know many people. I liked that.