Triumph Through the Storm: My Battle with a Kidney Stone and the USMLE
The air in my hostel room felt heavy, almost alive with anticipation, the kind that clings to your skin and makes every breath feel like work. For over a year, I had poured myself into preparing for the USMLE Step 2 exam, the exam I believed would open the door to my future in medicine. My weeks were laid out like a blueprint, every day carefully planned, every hour a deliberate move toward my dream. I lived in a hostel near Lady Reading Hospital in Pakistan, a place where the hum of ambition never stopped and the weight of expectations pressed down just as constantly as the sweltering summer heat. My roommate slept peacefully at night, unaware of the storms inside me, while I sat at my desk, a fortress made of textbooks, notes, and highlighters, burning the midnight oil. Then, four nights before the exam, a sharp pain ripped through my left flank and jolted me awake like a cruel alarm. It wasn’t the kind of pain that allowed negotiation. It was relentless, searing, radiating from my ...