I remember when I first heard the diagnosis. It was a routine checkup, I was concerned about the pain I had been feeling recently. I had to skip a class to get to the appointment and parking had been a nightmare. I was behind on my essay and needed to finish it when I got back to my apartment. The doctor walked in and I was expecting a prescription for antibiotics. “You have a terminal illness,” he said.

5 months remaining. 2 months since that horrible moment. You imagine this scenario occasionally in your life. You’re given a short time left to live so you abandon all your inhibitions and you start living, really living.  Many in my situation would go out and live life to its fullest for the rest of their time. The only problem is, I’m sick. I can’t enjoy life like I always wanted to. So I sit, in bed, alone for almost all the time talking to only the nurse who cares for me.

In my pensive contemplation, I reflected on life. What is time? Why has my entire existence gone to waste preparing for a future I am never going to have? School, education, resume building, all for nothing? I spent all my time studying in order to prepare me to study for the rest of my life. Now I know there won’t be a rest of my life. I just wish I hadn't wasted so much time.

I’m twenty-four. I was studying to get my Ph.D. in marine biology and research and now I all I can focus on is that fact that I’ll be dead before next Christmas. I can't hold a pencil anymore. I can't stand up for too long at a time either. I was going to change the world, be called “doctor”, travel, shake important peoples hands, be called “a scholar” and reinvent the way the resources of the ocean are utilized, but someone else will do it instead. My plans and aspirations that died in that instance.

People wonder when they are going to die. For me, I don't have to wonder, I just have to wait.