I never thought that I could have a brain disease. I had an unremarkable CT scan when I was 12 years old, and given the clear pattern of triggers for my episodes, I thought they might have been panic attacks. It’s the type of thing that can seem so distant, the type of thing that did not seem like it could possibly affect myself. Maybe it was childhood naïveté. Eight months ago, as I was studying for my pre-med year’s finals, I was diagnosed with a cerebrovascular disease. I went from student to patient in one phone call. The symptoms I have been experiencing were transient ischemic attacks, meaning that I was at temporarily losses of functions due to a lack of blood flow in certain parts of my brain.

The scariest part is the expressive aphasia. It was my friend who told me that the sentences I thought I was producing during my episodes were actually words of nonsense. I am lucky that my symptoms have remained transient so far. That is not the case for other patients with brain disease, such as brain cancer patients. The brain is an essential part of any human being. It governs our choices, our actions; it gives us agency, it allows us to all have our own personality. It constructs our whole identity, and brain disease can take away from that identity that we’ve grown into.

As a student in medicine, I have the privilege of being able to learn about diseases at school while being a part of initiatives outside of the classroom which aim to help treat patients affected by these diseases; as a patient, I find that the latter brings together beautiful communities, and that gives me hope.