Scholarship Winner Erika Amlet

Stony Brook University

“There’s only been 20,000 diagnoses of this in the United States.” When my doctor said this to my mother and me, I sat there in disbelief. It was the middle of the day and I was being poked and prodded by tools because I had lost the ability to walk out of nowhere. I could feel myself getting overwhelmed almost instantly blinded by a light I had to follow, while the blood pressure monitor tightened around my arm, and the overlapping voices of nurses and my mother trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Most nurses admitted this was the first time they had seen something like this. Obviously, this would be too much for a child.

Once the voices finally stopped, another doctor approached me. She had that smile that every doctor gives so they don’t worry their patient more. “You must be Erika, right?” I nod. “How old are you?” “I’m ten.” She then held up a picture in front of me. “Can you tell me what this looks like to you?” I stare at the picture for five seconds before saying, “It looks like a tube.” The doctor nods. “Very good. This kind of tube is called an MRI machine. It’s a machine that’s used to take pictures of the inside of your body. That’s what we’re about to do.” I didn’t respond. I don’t get how they expected a kid to fully understand that, but I slightly did. I looked at my mom and she turned to me and nodded. “Okay.”

The MRI machine was extremely noisy, even though I was provided earplugs, it couldn’t block the whirring noise that could be compared to a plane’s engine the entire time I was in there. What the MRI did was rule out the possibility of a neurological disorder causing my inability to walk, which led the doctors to my diagnosis. Guillain-Barre syndrome. My lead doctor, Dr. Protesa, explained to me that Guillain-Barre syndrome is a condition where my immune system mistakenly attacks the nerves in my legs, causing my near-paralysis and dehydration.

From then on, the main focus was to build up the strength in my legs and prevent full paralysis, which wasn’t hard since my mother did the right thing and took me to the emergency room at the first sign. For a full week I was “exercising” by walking up and down the hospital hallway with a walker and walking up and down stairs. Once that week was up, I was deemed hydrated and strong enough to go home and strengthen my legs there, soon following actual physical therapy once I was able to walk without a walker. It made me feel like I got stronger than before I was admitted.

Looking back, I can see how resilient of a person I am after all of that happened. After my time in the hospital, I now take any situation I feel stuck in and use that experience to remind myself that if I could get through that, I can get through anything else. Did you also know that in very rare cases, Guillain-Barre syndrome also affects animals such as dogs and cats too? I want to use that resilience I got and become a veterinary technician and help animals and their families to gain that strength the way my doctors helped me.