I was 31. They did tell me cerebral vasculitis. Nothing at all to compare to what this woman went through, but at the same time so many parts of her story sound so familiar.
I was someone who never forgot a face. Suddenly I wasn’t remembering them instead, even having trouble, when I was tired, recognizing my own husband’s. I suddenly couldn’t spell anymore, my short-term memory was gone, and I remember the time I ordered something over the phone and had to have the sales clerk read the numbers back to me to make sure I’d read those squiggly things correctly: Tell me the name of the item back to me, too, just to be sure. Letters were far easier. Still, I could tell which numbers they were just fine if she told me first what they were, kinda hard for her to do, y’know, so we did our best. (Online ordering didn’t exist yet.)
It helped clinch my lupus diagnosis.
Read what Christine Hyung-Oak Lee can write now. She’s amazing.