From a very young age, I have always been told that my use and knowledge of words was one of my greatest gifts. While I struggled pretty heavily in more STEM-based subjects like calculus and chemistry, I found that my talent with words was unparalleled.
I never thought that I would have to one day confront what life would be like without this particular gift until the morning of October 30, 2023.
The morning started out very normal: I woke up in my single dorm room and made myself my usual breakfast, as well as a full glass mug of iced coffee to keep myself running for the rest of the day. Despite some minor health setbacks that I had faced as a result of my worsening Lupus, including an ER visit two days before my 21st birthday a couple of months before, I was feeling better. Almost normal.
After I had finished eating my breakfast, I began to get dressed for my internship Zoom meeting and decided to partake in another one of my morning rituals: my annual rewatch of “Glee.” At this point in my life, I had seen every episode of the show so many times that I could recite almost all of them by memory alone. As I hummed to a performance of the Glee club singing “Some Nights” by fun., I looked down at my phone only to realize that I was met with a screen full of words that I did not understand. Do you know that feeling of confusion when you say a word so many times that it begins to lose any and all meaning in your mind? It was like that, but with every word on my screen.
Knowing that something was seriously and unavoidably wrong, I attempted to read along with the captions of the show I knew to the point of memory, only to be met with a series of weird groans and grunts. In a state of disbelief and panic, I sent my mom a text that read “Idk I think I might have a stroke know” (thank God for muscle memory because I have no idea how I managed to send something with even a fraction of coherence) and she begged me to call an ambulance. An ambulance seemed too embarrassing and expensive, so my rector was kind enough to take me to the hospital.
I spent the next three days in Beacon Memorial Hospital as the “youngest patient in the stroke ward” (at least according to my nurses) being succumbed to various tortures like getting my blood drawn in the middle of the night, having to do memory exercises and receiving more testing than I ever knew existed. Have you ever heard of a cerebral angiogram? Yeah, me neither. It’s not fun.
At the end of this hellish stay, it was determined that what I had most likely experienced was a transient ischemic attack, more commonly known as a TIA or a “mini-stroke.” I can’t lie and say that I didn’t feel a little beam of pride for being somewhat correct in my diagnosis.
What still stands as (arguably) the most traumatizing thing that has ever happened to me additionally strikes me as almost deliciously ironic: the English major who usually always had something to say was rendered completely and utterly speechless.
I can’t say that I am at all grateful for this particular experience for drastically changing my perspective on life, or making me do any kind of 180 from the way that I was living. But I can say that it certainly made me realize that I had been taking my precious gift for granted. Ever since then, I made myself a promise to write well and with intent as a form of gratitude for having this gift returned to me, rather than permanently taken away.
So, tri-campus, I implore you to consider my message when you’re burnt out and exhausted by even the mere thought of working even one more second on whatever assignment you have to complete in the pursuit of your gifts: what would you do if that gift was taken away?
