On February 1st 2010 my life changed and my dreams seemed to come true.
Before going into what happened on that day I should back up a bit. I currently work as a Paramedic in a larger city of 150,000 people. I've been a paramedic for just about 7 years and for the most part I enjoy it. It can be an easy job at times - waiting for calls to come in we can frequently be found napping ("maintaining a constant state of readiness"), cleaning, reading, washing the truck or our cars. It can also be an incredibly hard job - lifting and carrying people out of what is usually an awkward position, working in the heat/cold and in all extremes of weather. After all, we are usually most needed when the weather is not the best.
Four years ago I started volunteering my time at a wildlife rehabilitation facility. It was the best decision I have ever made. I have always had a love for animals and this put me up close and personal with them and helping them. I spend alot of my extra time there especially in the summer when we have many animals in our care. Most of the animals come to us an unintentional kidnappings or orphaning as people think they the animals have been abandoned. Mother raccoons are commonly trapped as a nuisance animal from attics without realizing that she has a litter of babies. So a few days after the mother gets released far away from the house, the babies start crying and get discovered.
Through my volunteer work my childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian became reignited. I decided that I would have a look at what was needed to apply to veterinary college. I quickly found that for the only college in Ontario I needed to have an undergraduate degree. I have completed some university courses but not in a true full time status and that's what was required.
I decided to check out what other options I had and stumbled upon Australia. Other than knowing that almost every creature in Australia could kill you I thought maybe I'll apply there. Unfortunately I had missed the cut off for applications for this coming year.
Browsing my favorite forum site I found a post that said that the University of Edinburgh was accepting late applications. I had no idea where it was but I was going to find out. The University of Edinburgh is in Scotland. I thought why not, i'll put my application in if only to learn more about the application process.
I didn't realize what putting in a professional academic application entailed. I had a week to put together an educational cv, find someone to write a reference and write an outstanding personal statement.
On Feb 1st 2010, I received an email stating I had been offered a conditional acceptance to the 5 year DVM&S program. I was flabbergasted (probably the only time that word fits completely). I don't think I truly believed I would get in. I was sobbing, jumping up and down, shaking all over and hyperventilating.
Feb 1st was also my Mom's 61st Birthday. What a gift I gave her. It took a couple of tries of me trying to say that I got in before she understood my message.
That day will forever stand out in my memory. It was the day my whole life changed.
