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The Day You Find Out Why By Mark Twain Essay

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“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why,” Mark Twain. Being an avid reader of Twains works during my teenage years I had always been intrigued by this quote. It had ignited within me the flame to contemplate for my true calling. As I commenced my third year at medical school, my quest finally came to an end as I was asked to plunge head-on into the life and shoes of a surgeon. I had been called in to help with a trauma laparotomy of a patient who had been a victim of a major bomb blast in one of the busy areas of my hometown, Lahore, Pakistan. Hundreds of people had been injured rendering the city as well as the nearby hospitals in a state of complete chaos. “It is going to be a long night Asad!” muttered the surgeon as he effortlessly slipped his hands into the surgical gloves. “But I am sure, tonight will help you decide whether you belong to this side of the red line.” I eyed the redline that marked the sterile zone. Over the next seven hours my mind and body were stretched to the limits. Pain crept into every single muscle and my body hurt from contouring like a pretzel as I held the various retractors, latching onto every single movement in my visual field. I found myself captivated by the strokes of the scalpel, clicks of the forceps and precision with which the attending maneuvered inside the patient’s abdomen; a sea of red and yellow to me. It was right in those moments when all the shackles of doubt broke

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