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May 16, 2025

Research

Higher Education/System

Health

Permission to be ill

aeon

Part of this path to acceptance was to get out in front of audiences and talk again – slurred speech, flailing tongue and all. A pivotal moment came at an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 2023, about a year to the day that I began suffering from symptoms. I was terrified of embarrassing myself, but I walked to the podium and, before I began, openly and honestly described my condition to the audience.