Medical Zebra Anonymous

In the spring of my sophomore year, an ordinary Tuesday took an unexpected turn. After the lunch period ended, I stood up to a world spinning with severe vertigo. Soon after, my speech began slurring, and my right hand trembled uncontrollably.

Confused and concerned, my parents rushed to pick me up from school and take me to the nearby hospital. The ER was a flurry of activity, with doctors moving with purposeful urgency, mirroring scenes I had watched on "Grey's Anatomy." The doctors, with furrowed brows, ordered a battery of tests on me – CT scans, nerve conduction studies, and even a spinal tap. Each result only added to the mystery, leaving the doctors perplexed and me and my family concerned. I watched as the doctors murmured among themselves in the ER bay, occasionally catching pieces of medical jargon that I couldn’t understand.

After what seemed like an eternity, a seasoned doctor walked to my bedside and announced that I had a rare, albeit non-life-threatening condition known as "Familial Episodic Ataxia." He explained that this genetic disorder causes sudden bouts of incoordination and dizziness, triggered by stress or fatigue. Not much is known about the cause, and the onset can come anytime in late childhood to...