Disappointment

I couldn't bear to look. I didn't want to get out of bed that day. I didn't want to awake to hear the results.

I spent the day at work fretting. Couldn't focus on the work at hand. I intermittently switched my phone on and off. I wanted to know the results, but the suspense was awful. Knowing that the results could be the worst.

Eighteen months of consistent work had come to this moment. Moving to a new city and taking on some of the most difficult exams in post-graduate medicine - well, its a hell of a ride. For myself, and my partner, its been an incredibly stressful period.

I said goodbye to a few friends before embarking on this project 12 months ago. Working fulltime and studying, I figured, wouldn't lend much time to distraction. Friends who even live in the same neighbourhood become foreign to me as I spent countless hours at the hospital, or in front of the computer screen reading and writing. Numerous invitations for live music, drinks at bars, films - all past-times of mine, rejected for the greater good.

I pressed the power button on my phone. One message from my supervisor "sorry, you weren't successful. Call me if you want to talk about it". I just sat there, slumped against the pillar in the haematology day ward corridor. My world just shattered.