Every scar has a story. The story of how I got the little scar on the underside of my chin begins when I was in sixth grade.

“Everybody run four backstops,” hollered Mr. Orhn. I sprinted around the baseball fields. On my second lap around I heard someone yell my name. I turned around to search for the person who called for me. While I was looking I got distracted and was no longer paying attention to where I was running. I tripped over the rusty old bike rack and hit my chin. It felt like I was being pounded with a million hammers. Blood trickled down my chin and continued down my neck. When I tried to stand my vision went momentarily black. Mr. Orhn ran over to me “Are you okay?” he asked in a panicked voice. He asked Katelyn to walk me down to the nurse’s office. When I got there Mrs. Allen called my mother and told her what happened. My mother hurried over and was at my school in 20 minutes.

When we got to the doctor’s office, the nurse, a very flamboyant man in his late 20’s, numbed the wound and prepped me for Dr. Sumeck to stitch me up. While we were waiting for the doctor I wondered If I had to go back to school later. When Dr. Sumeck came into the room I got scared. Even though she was a tiny woman, she had this authoritative voice and she spoke with an accent. She told me to lie back on the bed and stick my chin up into the air. She stood over me and expertly sewed my chin back together. While she was doing this she has a look of determination and concentration on her face. When she finished she told me and my mother I was alright to go back to school.

This experience impacted me significantly because this was the day I decided to become a doctor. I wanted to learn about all the wonders of the body. I was amazed by how I went from crying on in a field with blood running down my chin to sitting in class learning about order of operations in just a few hours.