I fainted for the first time when I was ten. I was sitting in my fourth grade classroom taking a math test, when I suddenly woke up, my body falling halfway out of my chair. I looked around, but no one had noticed that I had just collapsed, so I pulled myself up, ears still ringing, and went to go tell my teacher that I had just passed out. Next thing I remember, I was sitting in a chair as the school nurse spoke on the phone with my mother. Dismayed, I watched as she told my mom that she thought I just “took a little nap during class.” Even then, I was infuriated. I loved school, and I had worked too hard to sacrifice a math grade to take a “little nap.” More importantly, I knew that this was not normal for me. What I didn’t know is that this would be the first step in a long, arduous pattern of medical professionals ignoring my failing body. For a while, the incident slipped my mind. I took ballet classes, quit those classes to swim competitively on a club team, and took weightlifting classes. I was playing three different instruments, and excelling at all of it. But then I was fainting again, and I started feeling light headed during workouts. My doctor just told me that the issue must be my changing teenage girl hormones. Except now, I was on a swim team with 30 other teenage girls, and I was the only one stopping every other set, and I was the only one who could barely do flipturns without my vision going fuzzy, and I was the only one collapsing in the locker room. But I believed the doctor, so I started planning all my meals, making sure I got just the right amount of food to be able to get through my day without feeling sick. I started seeing specialists, but they all told me the same thing: I’ll grow out of it, it’s a hormonal thing, I don’t eat enough salt, I don’t drink enough water, keep exercising and it’ll go away, stop exercising or it’ll never go away. And I did all of it, but nothing changed. So I kept doing what I could, and when I couldn’t work out anymore because I got too dizzy, I got mad. And when I started getting slower in the pool, I got furious. I hated my doctors, and I hated swimming, but I hated myself the most because something was wrong that I couldn’t fix, no matter how hard I tried. Finally, after years and years of doctors’ appointments and diets and supplements, I got a definite diagnosis. I have a chronic autonomic system disorder. It’s an all encompassing issue, which means during flare ups, I can experience fainting, migraines, lightheadedness, fatigue, brain fog, numbness in my limbs. While this diagnosis did give me some answers, it didn’t immediately fix me. So I’ve had to do a lot and learn a lot to be able to get back on my feet, I’ve learned when to say no, about how to take care of myself. I've learned how much of a refuge music can be, and how necessary it is in my life. While I have had to give up a lot, I have also realized my deep passion for music, and this has motivated me to pursue music performance in college, and beyond.

I first started playing music when I was 4 years old. My parents got me started on violin because I had an "overactive" personality, and I have been playing some sort of instrument ever since. I started viola when I was ten, then when I was 13, I started piano as well. I’ve performed at Irish music festivals, classical music festivals, bluegrass concerts, and competitions, all across the country. For a while, music was just another one of my extracurricular activities. I was also participating in weightlifting, and I was on my school’s varsity team, even making it to the Junior Olympics and Section Championships. However, I started experiencing difficulties during physical activity. I was getting lightheaded when I would swim too hard, or during workouts, and had to start sitting out of practices. Then it started happening while I was at school, or just walking around my house. I started fainting during classes, or while talking with my parents, and when I had flare ups, I would experience migraines and nausea, along with the lightheadedness. I visited a numerous variety of specialists, all of which were equally unhelpful. I was given the same, insufficient answer each time: “It’s just those crazy teenage girl hormones”. But I was on a team with 20 other girls, and none of them were passing out in the locker room or blacking out during laps. Finally, after seeing a specialty diagnostic team at a hospital in Pennsylvania, I was diagnosed with an Autonomic Dysfunction Disorder. Because of this disorder, I do not have the same amount of energy to expel each day as other people, and if I push that limit, my body starts to shut down. This meant that I had to give up a lot of my regular activities to try to limit the amount of energy I use each day. With my new found free time, I began to focus more on my music. I quickly realized how much I loved it, and playing quickly became a sort of meditative refuge from the difficulties that my health issues often brought. I discovered the pure joy I felt when I could turn shapes on a page into something beautiful, and it has become something I know I can keep pursuing and keep improving upon for the rest of my life. When my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a month ago, it took a big toll on the family. Between surgeries, appointments, and treatments, playing music has once again become my way to clear my mind, and curb the anxiety for at least a little bit. It has become such an amazing part of my life, and I am so grateful for the joy it has brought to me during difficult times.