A tutor's personal positive aspect example

I was tutoring full time several years ago. I had returned from living abroad only 8 months before, and I felt sort of stuck on a long-distance relationship that had just ended. One Sunday morning, I woke up feeling funny, and I could not shake off the feeling. I felt disoriented, and I decided to go for a walk. I was living in Los Gatos at the time, which is known for its hot summers. As soon as I reached the sidewalk in front of my apartment, I realized that a walk may have been a mistake, as I immediately felt worse and started to sweat.

I rounded the corner and resolved to go back home. Then, I "grayed out" (this is a term I learned later for going unconscious while appearing awake), and came to at a very busy intersection a few blocks from my house, and I was still walking away from my house. Scary. I was basically lost in my own neighborhood.

I made it back home, and I noticed that my face was numb on the left side. I made a phone call, and I felt like I was talking underwater-I was slurring my speech badly.

Was I having a stroke? What was going on? I called my brother and ended up in the emergency room after experiencing a partial frontal lobe seizure. I spent 3 days in the hospital getting probed, scanned, and x-rayed all day long.

The net result? The doctor thinks I had encephalitis, which is like menengitis for the brain. This meant I was to take anti-seizure medicine for 4 months, and that I could not drive a car for at least a month. This was not a good thing for my tutoring business!

I remember calling my tutoring parents from the hospital bed, postponing our sessions indefinitely and feeling a little helpless.

The immediate loss of tutoring income was not the worst of the problem. I had to pay almost $7,000 in medical expenses, as my health insurance was not comprehensive.
The meds I was told to take were numbing my brain, literally, to where I was having trouble speaking Spanish and slowed down my thinking in solving simple Algebra problems. I remember shooting baskets, and missing by three or four feet-it was like re-learning how to play again.

All of this was a nightmare, however, almost immediately after recovering, I made some large scale decisions that changed my life. The same week I got off medication, I started my current tutoring agency, expanding it beyond just me. I moved to San Francisco, which had been a goal of mine for some time. I put my old relationship behind me, started dating again, and met my wife a year later.

Now, all of that may have happened even if I didn't have a seizure, but when I look at it, I can't help but think it was a catalyst that got me going in the right direction. Just months after the ordeal was over (and the health bills were still pouring in) I was thankful that I had been through it, because it really helped me get unstuck in my life.

That is what I mean by positive aspects. Focusing your mind in a certain way is a power that no one can take away from you, and it is a great lesson to teach young people.