Julie Shade:  

I always wanted to be a Doctor when I grew up. My family and friends thought that was a great idea. As it turns out, they were almost right. After leaving Wills to go to Pace Academy my sophmore year, I was very unhappy. I was always the smart (but poor) girl there on a financial scholarship. Not everyone there had that attitude, I did meet some great friends there. Then, my world came crashing down around me when my sister Paula died in a car accident in Feb '86. She was my best friend and more like a mother than my mom could be during my childhood. I chugged along for a couple of years, not really caring about school or my future (or life for that matter.) I just didn't really feel I belonged anywhere. I left Pace Academy and returned to Wills for the last part of my senior year, but I had been gone so long I didn't feel I belonged there, either. I finally dropped out of school altogether, got pregnant with my son Zach and got my GED. I finally started college in 1993 to get back on track from where I veered off course after I lost my sister. I enrolled at Kennesaw State as a pre-med major, but I still couldn't feel the desire like I did when I was younger. So I went to paramedic school and worked as a medic from 1998 to 2008, mostly at Grady Hospital. I found that although I was meant...Expand for more