Empowerly

Student profile

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

In January of 6th grade, I lay in a hospital bed fading in and out of consciousness as my body fought desperately against a brain infection. At home, my brother scribbled with crayons on bright green construction paper to create a get-well card for me. Every time I look at this card, which reads, “I hope you come home!” the fear and uncertainty my family and I felt during one of the worst experiences of our lives rushes back. This handmade card is one of many objects I keep in several boxes on my closet’s top shelf. These boxes, which I’ve nicknamed “Memory Boxes,” house objects ranging from eccentric-shaped rocks collected on family trips to bright pink stuffed-animals that I’ve since outgrown. Regardless of how random they may appear, I’ve collected each for a definitive reason: every object reminds me of an experience that has contributed to cultivating my deep sense of empathy and consideration for those around me. 

My brother’s handmade card joined this collection when I returned home from my five-day hospital stay, and remained in my thoughts as I began the long recovery ahead. I’d contracted meningitis, a dangerous infection in the layers around the brain, which worsened into encephalitis when the infection penetrated my brain tissues. This infection brought a hospital stay and months of absence from school, as well as a profound shaking of the ground beneath my family’s feet as we struggled to deal with the physical and emotional ordeal that such an illness brings. It was horrible for me to not be in control of my body, and for my family to wait in worry, knowing the life-long effects that could linger even once the infection had subsided. Gradually, my headaches began to fade, and my smile began to re-emerge, but the memories such an illness imparts never truly leave a person. The vulnerability I felt while I was sick is still upsetting, and even now a small cold causes me to worry it could be the start of something more.

Despite the torment of my illness, a single moment from the day I was discharged sticks with me. As I left the hospital, I happened to glance into a room on the neurology floor and caught a glimpse of a crib-like contraption on top of a hospital bed, with bars holding a younger child trapped inside. In that moment, I realized that the pain my family and I felt was dwarfed by the challenges that child faced. As I was wheeled off the floor into months of recovery, it was startling to realize that all I felt was lucky.

My illness may have caused fear and hardship, but it’s brought passion and purpose as well. The only long-term effect of my infection was a positive one: the need to make a difference by relieving the suffering of those around me. Having meningitis has irrevocably changed a part of me and driven me to participate in new experiences resulting in further additions to my memory boxes: pictures of bacteria-covered agar plates from a science-fair experiment, an acceptance letter to a hospital volunteer program, mementos from leading my school’s dance marathon for pediatric cancer. These memory boxes are a metaphor for what matters to me, representing who I am and whom I hope to become. I believe I’ve found a future for my passion in Biomedical Engineering, an incredibly promising field when it comes to medical innovation. I know that a single image will push me to overcome any challenge I encounter in this field: the face of a child that could’ve so easily been me. Now, whenever I think of my brother’s card, it reminds me of more than just the pain and fear my family experienced. Rather than being a symbol of difficulty, this card is now a symbol of my drive to help others be as lucky as I have been.