Lying in bed wrapped in my blanket like a baby feeling warm, not being able to get up, I barely open my eyes to see the sunlight through the window. A dark figure at the door. She walks in with a cup of water and some Nyquil. As I sit up to take it from her hand, I feel very drowsy. She walks out to let me get some more rest then returns about an hour later to tell me to get up to eat breakfast. I go out to breakfast and discover it's a warm bowl of avena. I slowly eat it because I will start to feel nauseous if I eat too quickly. When I finish eating, I head to my room to lay back down. A few hours pass and she comes back in to give me more medicine. In the afternoon, for dinner, she makes sopa de coditos con tortillas. After eating I go to the living room to watch a movie. I end up falling asleep but then I am awakened and told to drink more medicine. The next morning, I feel better and I am able to run outside with my brothers. She did it again!

My grandma cured me once again, like she always does with everyone else in my family. She is our family doctor. When someone is feeling sick my grandma is there to the rescue. She has the ability to cure you in a day. My grandma has a bunch of different ways of curing you. One of her remedies is honey with lemon, which helps clear your throat and stops the cough. It’s my favorite.

When my grandma was younger, she had always dreamed of being a doctor and she maintains that dream today, at the age of 65. Luckily, I am the grandchild who happens to share that same dream. My grandma only went to school up to the 6th grade. The reason she stopped at 6th grade was because her mom wasn't able to continue paying for her to go to school. She's from El Salvador and over there you have to pay for lots of things including education. My great grandma, her mom, came from a rich family but she was the only one who didn't have money like the rest. She didn't like to ask for things, especially when it came to money. My grandma always begged her mom to ask for help so she could continue school and start her medical journey. My grandma had a tia that was chief of surgery, and she would try to convince her mom to ask for help to get into medical school. Unfortunately, her mom refused to ask out of embarrassment. My grandma never got the help she needed to become a doctor.

Although she never became a trained doctor she is still somewhat of a doctor for my family. When my grandpa was diagnosed with brain cancer my grandma quit her job so she could take care of him. They offered to have a doctor at home to take care of him so she could work and get things done but she refused. During the time she took care of him she did everything a doctor would’ve done. She showered and changed him, fed and looked after him. Along with my mom she took care of him for 8 months before he eventually passed away.

She receives phone calls from my tios and tias to ask her what medicine to take and/or how much to take. I hope that one day I get to take care of her like she did for my grandpa. I'm going to achieve this goal of becoming a doctor, not only because it’s her dream but because it is also mine and I want to make her proud. This is for our legacy.

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