I lay on the cold metal table, my blood pumping through a bypass machine. I had flatlined. I was only four years old. The feeling of waking up, drained of life after my ribs had been cracked open so my deteriorating heart could be salvaged left me terrified. This was the second time my body had been ripped apart so it could be saved. People always say life is full of challenges and that a person is only given what they can handle. They say this because we need an explanation--something to make us feel better about the horrors of life. I believe it’s up to an individual to make something out of a bad situation. Challenges should be viewed as a learning opportunity for character development, to take the good out of the bad and become better for it. Being an elementary school kid who endured two open-heart surgeries wasn’t easy. Classmates developed nicknames for me like Frankenstein or Zombie. My beautiful, delicate body, however, was laced with deep, honorable scars. Still, I was ashamed of them because students told me to cover them up or I would look like a freak. Recovering from surgery was hard enough, but I never knew the challenges I would face afterward. Trying to fit in like the other children, or even making friends on the playground was difficult because I couldn’t physically keep up. I felt so alone. At home, I would play surgeon with my parents. I would lay my dad on the couch and perform life or death surgeries with my toy surgical tools. The surgeries would include removing rats from my dad’s stomach because, of course, without my help, he would have died. I also performed open-heart surgeries and heart transplants on my stuffed animals. It made me feel I had more control over my health. I wanted to feel comfortable in my skin, and I didn’t want to be the only one with scars. Although I realized life would always be hard, I had to become better for it. I decided to shape my life around helping others. Since my life had been saved, I wanted to give back. In elementary school, I always saw my struggles as negative, but then I realized my heart conditions are a significant part of what makes me who I am. I became strong and determined to pursue a career as a surgeon. Since then, I’ve involved myself in medicine, and it has become a part of who I am. Last year, I was awarded a summer internship at Swedish Medical Center, and I shadowed nurses. I enjoyed being in the Emergency Department where I had the greatest exposure to medical cases. I also spent my junior summer studying my heart condition and constructing a research paper on the cognitive effects of congenital heart defects. Now I am a certified EMT. When I left the hospital at four, I had to learn how to become independent and not care about what others said. I have had to work harder than most to learn because my surgeries impaired my memory and cognitive learning. Since my heart was placed on bypass twice, my brain lost blood circulation, causing damage. Hard work has allowed me to achieve as much as I have. I am comfortable in my skin. I am confident and proud of myself. I went through something most people never have to face. It made me strong, confident, independent, and motivated. This event not only shaped me but my academic pathway. I’ve decided I don’t want to play surgeon anymore.