As we were warned, third year has taken a toll on all our personal lives. No student at Feinberg can say they are unfamiliar with struggling to make time for friends and family. But I don’t think I truly understood how hard medical school would be on my loved ones until I started spending 10, 12, sometimes 14 hour days at the hospital six days a week. Guys, my cat really misses me.

Unlike all the other cats you see on the internet, Badger really is special. I can just see in her cold, unblinking cat eyes that I matter to her. She would be lost without me to put kibble in her food dish. And when I get home from the hospital, when she lifts her head up from where she’s napping on the corner of my bed and sort of squints at me and then goes back to napping, I know how distraught she’s been all day without me there.

Sometimes I wonder what she does all day without me. I mean who does she watch study quietly at my computer, who does she watch watch TV, who does she watch sleep when I’m not there? When I leave for work in the morning she barely acknowledges my presence – it’s like she’s too hurt to even interact with me when I’m home. When I try to scratch her behind the ear, she’ll either swat at me with her paw or even turn and bite me. She’s so distressed she’s turning to physical violence now. Although I guess she did that before third year started. But I can hear something new in her howls of protest – something like betrayal.

Some mornings I’ll wake up with her face looming over mine. She’ll reach out and bat my face with a paw. Four minutes before my 4:30 alarm goes off. And I just think, sure we all complain about how hard this year is being on us. But how often do we really consider how hard it is on our closest friends and family…and on our cats?

Follow Badger on Instagram @kellia_jane