Everybody has challenges growing up. It might be family issues, it might be health problems, it might be social conflicts. For most they are a bump in the road, for some they are more consequential. But in most cases the general trajectory stays the same save for course corrections as needed. For Annie Pingry, however, those bumps in the road turned out to be mountains to climb.
For sure there were some of the not-unusual growing up challenges: her parents separated, she moved from urban Charlotte NC to rural Waynesboro VA. But then came third grade and her first seizure. A diagnosis of epilepsy followed, treated with increasingly larger doses of medication. Things took a turn for the worse about the sixth grade as the seizures got worse and more frequent. It turned out that her growing brain started bumping against a benign tumor in her skull. That caused two grand mal seizures, the kind that causes loss of consciousness and body-wide convulsions. More often she had less severe attacks on a weekly basis: "My whole body and my head would shake. Then I would forget the entire day, whatever I learned in school. And so it was a constant state of catching up."
By the eighth grade she was on "a crazy amount of medication. Some of them weren't even epileptic medications, and it would just basically zone me out." Her doctor came to her family with a proposal. He had discovered an experimental surgery that four other people had had with good results. No promises, but it had the potential of easing her seizures. Her folks gave her a choice, and without hesitation she said yes: "I was like, I wanna be able to drive a car."
She was admitted to Virginia Commonwealth University's VCU Medical, and hooked up to an EEG for a week as they waited for a seizure to happen so they could pinpoint the location in her brain. After the surgery she spent two weeks in the hospital and the rest of the summer in bed recovering. "You can only recover from brain trauma when you're asleep. That's why people with brain trauma are always tired a lot and they're just like, ‘I need to sleep.'"
Come fall she was physically well enough for school even if she was academically behind. This was the time of "No Child Left Behind," and she was pushed to ninth grade, ready or not. She was constantly trying to catch up, but just kept getting shuffled along. She graduated on time with her class, but with a GPA of just 1.5. That, plus the reactions of people around her, caused her to doubt what she could do: "I always really wanted to be a student, but I was told I wasn't very smart because of my epilepsy for so long that I really was discouraged. People in my life were just, it's okay. You can't do school because you're not smart. You don't understand things. You're not gonna get it. And I really wanted to go to college because I wanted to be a part of something normal. But it was just impossible."
If she couldn't handle college, Annie decided that being normal at least meant being independent. She moved to Richmond, and went to work: a nanny, a dishwasher, an ice cream scooper. Seeking a change, she packed her car and did a cross-country road trip to Seattle, where she had some family. She lived there for four years doing more of the same, then crossed the country once more and came to New York City. She kept up the odd jobs, even trying to learn floral design. Eventually one server job paid off in an unexpected way, as she met fellow worker Ben and fell in love.
In the middle of the pandemic they moved to Philadelphia for Ben to pursue a graduate degree in music. Once he graduated they figured they needed to get on firmer financial ground, and moved home with family to save and figure out their next move. Ben eventually landed a job here in Westchester, and they moved to a sunlit apartment in Hastings-On-Hudson and got married.
But while Annie's personal life was working out, she still wasn't settled. "I was really tired of being on my feet. I know that I'm smart. I know that I can do something, I have the patience and the ability." She figured out a plan: community college, then a full degree, followed by graduate training in social work to help kids who were like her. She and Ben talked it over and punched in the numbers: "My husband's really math oriented, and he was like, ‘Okay. If we don't eat out for four years we can do it.'" And do it she did: this spring she graduates from Westchester Community College, already has one acceptance, and is waiting to sort through all her choices.
Annie doesn't think her story is inspirational, she was just a person coping with what life throws your way. "It's never too late, and there's so many people that wanna see you succeed. You have to just keep looking for it. People want people to better their lives. I've lived a really big life, and I wouldn't have been able to be where I am right now had I not given myself that time to live that big life."
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Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks everybody has a story. His column appears weekly via email and online on Blogspot and Substack as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
