Lessons From the Swarm

    Have you ever witnessed an event in real life that seems like it happens in cartoons? The cartoons that I'm talking about are the ones where one person disturbs a bee hive and people run around trying to avoid getting stung by an irate swarm of bees. I can say that I have.

   This post begins with a little background story. I currently work for my uncle's AC maintenance company. We go wherever the airconditioning units are at, whether they be in the roof or 24inch crawlspaces we go there and do the repairs.

    Today started out as a typical work day: cleaning AC coils, patching up leaks, checking refrigerant pressures, answering calls-returning calls, and booking appointments for repairs. The normalcy ended 6:30 p.m. While I was in the the truck checking over the next set of appointments I saw two guys just running outside and swatting the air. I thought nothing of it and I just resumed my work on the logbook organization. After a couple of minutes I looked up and saw the other construction workers running around in the roof and it dawned on me that they somehow irritated a pretty large swarm. The sequence of cartoon/real life event happened in this order from my point of view:

1. Multiple people running around the roof to get away from the bee's
2. One worker jump from from the ladder height approximately 15 ft. and he started running
3. My co-worker who was on the roof followed suit, however he didn't jump and just scrambled down the ladder to find shelter in one of the buildings, but they were all closed. He ran into the truck and I managed to kill 4 and I tried to swat the remainder of the bees that were on him.
4. The bees that were in the truck turned their attention on me. I ran outside the truck swatting them as I tried to find shelter. I found it in the form of my co-worker's girlfriend's car. She helped me kill off the 5 bees that were on my head.  
5. My Co-Worker managed to get away from the bees that were in the work truck and join me and his girlfriend in the car. I was able to remove 15 stingers from his head. He was in pain and I did the best I could to keep him calm until the paramedics arrived. He wasn't allergic to the bee-stings ,but he still ended up being one of the 5 that went to the hospital in this story. http://www.themonitor.com/news/mcallen-62268-attack-bee.html

    As far as the rest of the story is concerned everything ended up relatively well. My co-worker was just released from the hospital and is faring much better ( the wonders of pain medication and anti-histamines). I walked away relatively unscathed and was still able to return to the job site to recover the rest of the tools that we left behind. Thank God for these blessings.

    What really got me the most out of this was how calm I was while I was helping to take care of my co-worker even while he was in pain and was agitated. He was responding to the aid that I gave him and was pretty cooperative while I searched his head and removed all the stingers that I could see. I really value the knowledge that I acquired in the one year of medical school that I attended. I was glad that I was able to implement some of that knowledge to help out a friend. I really am praying that I am able to continue my education so I could help out people in this capacity. The stings of life have made my vision to my goal blurred , speech slurred, and my will slightly deterred. I thank my friends, family, and other well wishers for keeping me in your prayers, I just ask this small favor in that you still keep me in there sometimes. I will get there by the grace of God I will get there.

-Prostudent4life

And IN this corner weighing in at .......

     It has taken me a while to summon the courage to write about my endeavors as a medical student. Since this blog is a written record of my personal journey into becoming a practicing physician I have to keep a record of my ups and downs. Since my last entry A lot of things has happened. I stopped school due to the lack of finances. Some of you might wonder "Why share this personal information?!?" It has taken me 8 months to find an answer to that and it is just simple. I WANT TO HELP PEOPLE. I want to make sure that at-least ONE PERSON does not make the same miscalculations as I have. If you have made these miscalculation, you are not alone in your struggle keep on fighting it's not over until it's over.

 Here are some useful information that you could use:
 - Please get your finances arranged before stepping off the continent. If you can have all your student loans be paid off before you go to another school out of the country please do so. Even if you have to post pone your acceptance, or post pone your application to international medical schools. Having to worry about it does take a lot of time and energy away from your studies. Medical School will be unbearable if you have to worry about it all the time.
 - Have digital copies of all your paperwork so you could just email/electronic fax. Have those copies in your personal dropbox, box, google docs, or whatever free cloud services there are available. - Have STRONG Passwords for these services for increased security - Encrypt them also
 - DO NOT Overlook your potential living expenses.
 - Visit the country to see how it is before committing to their school. VISIT the actual campus. Before deciding to go to an offshore medical school.

      As far as my current mental state concerned it is a testament to God's blessing it is where it is right now. I have shed tears of frustration, stayed up for days at a time just beating myself up contemplating all the "what if's", and yet somehow I remain hopeful. I have clung to the Bible character's story of the struggles like none other. The stories I re-read and cling too the most are the Stories of Joseph and Job.

 Joseph's story that relates to me was the despair that Joseph was in after being betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. He struggled for years, but eventually led him to be placed in Egypt to be more powerful than everyone except the Pharaoh himself.
The Patience of Job in seeing on how he persevered through the the following
     - trials of loosing his livestock, lands, production, and ALL of his Children
      - Loss of Health by having Boil cover his body
     - having friends blame you for all the events that happened (talk about moral support) it lead up to the restoration of all the things he lost 
    - Living long enough to enjoy it all

These two stories also allows me to have the strength and the Faith in God that allows me to be able to stand this 7+months of not being in school and I will see my goals achieved. I am fortunate enough to not have any siblings to betray me like Joseph, and have more supportive friends than what Job did. In short God has looked out for me by putting me with the right people at the right time. If you ask me How I am doing right now after receiving  one of life's hay-makers. Here is my reply:

 I got knocked down at the end of the 2nd round. I'm still in this fight because I have the best fight trainer in the world in my corner: God.

-Prostudent4life