Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1010198
T M C » P U L S E | A U G U S T 2 0 1 8 27 difficult, but I was determined. Many people couldn't under- stand why I never wanted to take a break from school. While in the hospital, I didn't watch movies or take naps. I studied. God has always preserved my intelligence during my many brain surgeries, and I wasn't going to waste that precious gift. My brain, at times my greatest challenge, was my biggest ally in continuing my path to become a doctor. • • • Over the past seven years, doctor's offices and waiting rooms have become my school. I've always wanted to become a doctor, but I never thought I'd be working toward a medical degree while being a patient, as well. I always hoped for the day I'd be cured, when I'd no longer be the patient, only the doctor, because for so long I was made to believe the two could not exist at the same time. You are one or the other—the patient or the doctor. I am now starting my third year at McGovern Medical School. As I sit here in the hospital waiting to see the next patient, wearing a white coat and a stethoscope around my neck, I, too, look like a patient. I carry a heavy backpack contain- ing liters of IV fluids, nutritional feedings and a feeding tube pump, heparin and saline flushes, syringes, dressings, caps and sterile swabs. (continued) Martinez, who spends four to six hours each day at her home infusing IV fluids, sits on the sofa under her "Sweet 16" photo.