In any case, she said frankly that my brain was so different from the others’ that I could no longer be in the study. She questioned if I had actually had a perinatal stroke. Ruth Nass, the pediatric neurologist leading the research. When I was around 15, my dad and I met in the cluttered Manhattan office of Dr. Over the years, the scientists realized that I wasn’t like the other children in the study: I didn’t have any deficits to track over time. As long wires fell from my head like Medusa’s snakes, I was finally allowed to fall asleep, blissfully unaware that the researchers were searching for abnormalities in my brain waves. The next day I would stumble into the clinic half-awake, and scientists would stick electrodes on my scalp. I would sometimes stay up all night with my mom, eating Chinese food and watching Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy movies.
When I was around 9 years old, researchers wanted to see how my brain would act when I was exhausted. At the end of each day of testing, the researchers would give me a sticker, which I would keep in a tin container next to my bed. My brain was scanned several times a year, and I was tasked with various puzzles, word searches and picture-recognition tests. My childhood memories are filled with researchers following me around with pens and clipboards. Our myriad networks of neurons have managed to rewire themselves over time. Scientists estimate that thousands of people are, like me, living normal lives despite missing large chunks of our brains. My case is highly unusual but not unique. The language skills the doctors were most worried about at my birth - speaking, reading and writing - turned out to be my professional passions.
I enrolled in regular schools, excelled in sports and academics. Eager to find answers, they enrolled me in a research project at New York University tracking the developmental effects of perinatal strokes.īut month after month, I surprised the experts, meeting all of the typical milestones of children my age. In those early days of my life, my parents wrung their hands wondering what my life, and theirs, would look like. The neurologist brought her arms up to her chest and contorted her wrists to illustrate the physical disability I would be likely to develop. They told her I would never speak and would need to be institutionalized.
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