Firstly, I recommend that you read some of my responses to a similar post about GPA/ECs: Confused and Torn Pre-Health Student
I am in a very similar boat as you, as I will be graduating with my RN this upcoming spring, and plan on applying the following cycle. I can’t stress enough how important everything apart from GPA/MCAT really is (proper shadowing- not just working with docs, volunteering both clinical and nonclinical, research, glowing reference letters, leadership experience, weekend hobbies, etc.).
If you haven’t seen in other posts, or have yet to read my replies in the above topic, GPA/MCAT get you in the door - everything else gets you into medical school. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this means that if you do not make the GPA/MCAT cut, then it doesn’t really matter how stellar the rest of you is. For effectively all MD/DO schools, the minimum cutoff GPA is 3.0, meaning that anything less isn’t filtered out manually, it’s filtered out before it reaches any human hands. What this means is that if you will be applying to medical schools with a GPA below a 3.0, both MD or DO, then you have a ton of work cut out for you in sending letters of intent to each school, asking (begging sounds too demeaning) that they look at your application before it gets filtered.
Find out how many classes it would take to raise your GPA above a 3.0, and consider doing a post-bacc to fix some of your past mistakes. Medical schools don’t want to accept somebody who can’t prove that they can handle rigorous coursework. Take upper level science courses, and crush all of them.
If you want it badly enough, it will happen. Don’t set an arbitrary timeline based on somebody else’s life. Medicine is far too long of a path to take without truly appreciating every aspect of the journey. One year means nothing, hell, four years really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Eventually, it will happen if you want it to.