Shortly aer arriving, my body began shutting down. I struggled with

basic functions like swallowing and breathing. I had my rst seizure of the

day. en I stopped breathing entirely. As the doctors hurried to supply me

with oxygen, they also decided the local hospital was unequipped to handle

the situation and ordered a helicopter to y me to a larger hospital in

Cincinnati.

I was rolled out of the emergency room doors and toward the helipad

across the street. e stretcher rattled on a bumpy sidewalk as one nurse

pushed me along while another pumped each breath into me by hand. My

mother, who had arrived at the hospital a few moments before, climbed into

the helicopter beside me. I remained unconscious and unable to breathe on

my own as she held my hand during the ight.

While my mother rode with me in the helicopter, my father went home

to check on my brother and sister and break the news to them. He choked

back tears as he explained to my sister that he would miss her eighth-grade

graduation ceremony that night. Aer passing my siblings o to family and

friends, he drove to Cincinnati to meet my mother.

When my mom and I landed on the roof of the hospital, a team of nearly

twenty doctors and nurses sprinted onto the helipad and wheeled me into

the trauma unit. By this time, the swelling in my brain had become so severe

that I was having repeated post-traumatic seizures. My broken bones needed

to be xed, but I was in no condition to undergo surgery. Aer yet another

seizure—my third of the day—I was put into a medically induced coma and

placed on a ventilator.

My parents were no strangers to this hospital. Ten years earlier, they had

entered the same building on the ground oor aer my sister was diagnosed

with leukemia at age three. I was ve at the time. My brother was just six

months old. Aer two and a half years of chemotherapy treatments, spinal

taps, and bone marrow biopsies, my little sister nally walked out of the

hospital happy, healthy, and cancer free. And now, aer ten years of normal