The Journey Continues

In 2003 we decided it was time to be moving on from Camp. As I have described earlier (somewhere) those 6 years were some of the most impactive of my life and I have many lifetime friends and memories from there.....

I knew at that point that my dream had returned and I needed to go back to school. The next step was where to go. Because we had no other real options and family was and a job offer were both in the Columbia SC area, we decided that was the next step.

Soon after that move I started studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) once more. My scores needed to be updated from years ago (1993 was the last time I had taken it). Trying to provide for a family of five and study was a task that needed time.... So it wasn't like I could dedicate hours and hours at it.... Slowly..... Slowly... Along the way I had talked with this one old doc who told me the key to getting past the board exams is note cards... 3000 note cards of anything and everything on the MCAT... Well I tried some of that... but I never got to the 3000 mark... Well then an interesting thing occurred in my journey.. In October of that year my job I had moved to Columbia for came to an end and Jennifer and I were faced with a difficult decision.. What to do next? Start our own business... or get another job. The first thing I did was call up USC school of medicine and see if I could get in in the spring semester with my grades and updated experience... No luck... I would need to re-take the MCAT again..

So with a sense of adventure and not much else (including money), we started Gatekeepers by Windermere and put out fliers and tried to get some work in the Columbia area.. Boy what a leap..... And so the non-handyman became a handyman.... I fixed toilets, garage doors.. Showers.. installed cabinets, painted interiors, painted trim, sanded floors, installed glass, and fixed all kinds of things I had no ideas about only months before...By God's grace soon after we started I landed a big job fixing up an old house downtown, and I could from there have a steady paycheck, and study for the MCAT while I worked (via tape set Jenn bought me) I listened to those tapes for hours on end and would then repeat them...

Well this job continued throughout the first winter and was a tremendous blessing.. We actually were able to keep our heads above water throughout the winter and come spring we ended up picking up some other good jobs that spring.... And Gatekeepers was rolling... We kind of developed a little niche of being a service for real estate companies where we would do different little projects throughout the Columbia area. Eventually I did some work for a lawyer and they helped me set up an LLC, so we now became Gatekeepers by Winderemere LLC..

In August 2005 I finally had the money and enough study in to retake the MCAT.. 6 weeks I found I had improved on my 12 year scores by 1 point.. I had a 25/45.. not Harvard material, but not too bad either..
The MCAT is kind of like a small test of how you will do on the boards that take place after your second year of medical school. It lasts from about 8-3:30 or 4 and is just a real wearer out and it was great to get it out the way...
Next was the application process .....Applying to medical school is a long involved process... First you have to apply to a centralized application service.. In this you have to include all your undergraduate courses and then you have to have your college(s) send in transcripts to confirm your record.. You then have to write a "Why I want to be a doctor" essay... Then you have an application fee that is fairly costly (dependent on how many schools you apply to).. All with no guarantee that you will even get an interview for the few coveted spots... If the school(s) you apply to decide you are worthy of an interview, they send you a secondary application where you have to repeat some of the same things you just said plus now you have to get 3 letters of reference to support your application.. Once all that is in then you wait.... And behold they offer you an interview..... Now you prepare for that...


Well I jumped through all the hoops and got to the interview at USC-Columbia.... And then the wheels fell off... I didn't get accepted.... Their feedback said that I needed to improve my MCAT and that I needed to interview better... I was devasted.. I thought this was the year........ and it ended in a crushing, confidence blasting, utter yuck rejection... I felt like it was deja vu all over again..... Here we go again.......

I went back to work again and forgot about it for awhile... Later on that fall a friend called me up and wanted to know what I was doing about school... I just shared with him where I was at and feeling discouraged and not really knowing what to do.... He encouraged me to check out the osteopathic medical school route... He also mentioned that he had a colleague who was an eye surgeon who was a D.O. and I could maybe shadow him for a little bit..... Well as the Lord would have it, that fall I had the privilege the day before Thanksgiving to go through a surgery with the good doctor and he after giving me the reality check of what I was in for.... said if I wanted to still go for it.... he would support my application....at a school in Missouri for the following year. I said yes.... lets go for it.... At the same time I had application at a new osteopathic medical school in TN.... Well lo and behold I got and interview at the school in TN but not in MO.... I loved the school in TN and thought, wow this is finally going to happen.. Imagine my disappointment several weeks after the interview getting the letter of sorry.. you are on the waiting list... again.... ahhhrhhhhrrrrrrrr........ I was so sick I can't express it... and I was ready not even to try again.... What are you trying to do Lord? So that year i didn't even apply, maybe I should have had more faith and just kept on but I just wasn't sure what to do.... I had went for the home run twice and came up short. Maybe it would need to wait several years.....