Everyone goes through life with the mindset that they are the most important person, whether they're willing to admit that or not. Constantly, I'm asking myself "Is this what's best for me?" or "What do I get out of this?" That doesn't make me a bad person. I even consider myself a very caring person. I am in school to be a nurse after all. However, I am always worrying about myself and how the decisions I make affect my life. Even the most selfless of people have to make decisions that affect their own life because everyone views themselves as the most important person.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a medical mission trip in San Jose, Costa Rica through my school's nursing program. The trip was wildly expensive and I wasn't too keen on paying upwards of $2,000 to work in the heat of a foreign country. I also wasn't very familiar with the country of Costa Rica and their existing medical care. This trip was worth 3 credit hours and was a requirement to graduate, and the only other option wasn't a possibility, so the trip it was. My parents and I weren't too happy with basically being forced to pay this extra money, so I already had a negative mindset on the whole situation. I really didn't want to go, but it was the only way I could get the hours I needed so I bit the bullet and headed down to Latin America with 26 other students.
Our job while we were there was to complete a census based on the people living in a certain community and provide medical care and medication for them if necessary. I was expecting to see people living in small houses with colds or allergies, but nothing could have prepared me for what we were actually dealing with. The community we visited first was deep in the brush of trees, the dirt paths were cluttered with garbage and people were standing outside barefoot in their tattered clothing. The houses were built on cracked foundations with holes in the floor and a roof as big as my own room. Many people would share one house with as many as 3 families, with a total of 12 people. That's 12 people living in one house that is the size of a small two bedroom apartment. They had little furniture and unclean living spaces. In the streets, children and animals would wander, looking for a cool spot to sit.
Many of the people who visited the clinic were sick with colds, allergies or asthma, but we also saw the occasional tumor or broken bone. Those were the saddest of the cases because we had no imaging machines or medicine to treat them so we had to send them away with unresolved problems. A big percentage of the lower class in Costa Rica are immigrants from Nicaragua, where they have come to escape the poverty in their own country, but still face it due to their lack of citizenship and healthcare.
Every night, when I would lay in my bunk after a long day of working in the village, all I could do was cry. I was so saddened by the living conditions of these people and how they have to live everyday not knowing where their next meal would come from or how they would treat their sick children. The hardest part, yet also the most rewarding, was seeing the tears of grateful parents for medication for their son, or a little girl using her inhaler for the first time and realizing it made it easier to breathe. These people were so grateful for the little care they were receiving, or even if there wasn't anything we could do for them, they would smile and thank us anyways for allowing them to at least come and be seen and heard.
This opportunity gave me so much experience for my future career, but the most important thing I learned is that I am not the most important person in the world. Sure, I am important in my own life, but not the most important. I have a family that supports everything I do, the opportunity and near completion of higher education, security of being able to receive medical care when I need it and food in my mouth whenever my stomach growls. I am stable and don't need to be important because I already have everything I need. By choosing to be a nurse, I have committed my future to making others important, to ensuring they receive the best care possible and that their needs are put first.
Though I am important, I am not the most important, and I will spend my life trying to make others feel this as well. Only then will all of our world be safe and cared for by all.
