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Kayla Bossart

Blandford

UWRT 1101-28

8 September 2015

“The Chump”

What started as a “lazy tongue” or a speech impediment, transformed into something

outstanding. From the quiet, unpopular little boy, he caught the attention of his teachers and

peers through his new language. David “Thedarith or Sedaris” faced his disability and learned to

persevere and turn it into a strength. His lisp was his motivation; he struggled with “s” sounds

being said as a “th” sound. Therefore, he in turn learned to avoid the “s”s and further expand his

vocabulary tremendously to avoid the poisonous sound. The thesaurus, given to him by his

mom, was the key to helping him escape the title of “outcast” and persevere to become

something out of the ordinary, a boy with a lisp who did not mind to talk. His broadened

vocabulary set him aside from all of the others; his lisp was his advantage, not his weakness. He

encountered his life obstacle and rose to the occasion to overcome and make something out of it.

In my experiences, I had a somewhat similar situation. My sophomore year of high

school I was on the school basketball team. We were scrimmaging in basketball when the event

that changed my life happened. I was passed the ball while my defender was playing too

aggressively. She lunged at me, taking us both down to the floor. However, we did not spring

up like usual; instead, the whole gymnasium fell silent. My head had hit the wood floor, with an

echo. However that was not it, my head came up to be pushed back down by my defender, to yet

again be slammed to the floor. I laid there for what seemed like eternity. However, when I rose,

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I proceeded to play, feeling fine. It took five days, but the pounding in my head was what drove

me to the doctor. During those five days I experienced absolutely no symptoms. However,

when that Friday and Sunday came I had agonizing headaches, driving me to the doctor. And

that was the start to a year and a half long traumatic brain injury that would affect me indefinitely

for the rest of my life. My concussion was my lisp. I struggled greatly with the symptoms of my

concussion. I was experiencing severe constant migraines, trouble with concentration, trouble

sleeping, inverting numbers, difficulty with word retrieval, confusion, balance problems,

sensitivity to light and sound, nausea, irritability, unable to retain what I read, short term

memory issues, and more. On top of that, I was made fun of for multiple reasons: how long my

concussion was lasting, how I was forced to take a break in the middle of the day, how I had to

eat lunch separate from everyone in the cafeteria, and who knows what else was circulating

around. People called me “concussion girl”. Just as David Sedaris said, “…We knocked

ourselves out trying to fit in…”. I tried to be like everyone else and work to keep pace with my

classmates, but that was not enough. Teachers hated me because I was unable to take tests on

their schedule and had to have altered assignments. However, I was still enrolled in honors and

advanced placement classes during the time I had my concussion. I, a perfectionist with a dash

of OCD, did not miss a day of class because of how I felt from my concussion. I did not let it

weigh me down. It made me try harder with everything, it made me work harder than the rest of

my classmates. My grades did not fall at any time. I continued to make straight A’s with a lot of

hard work and studying on my end. I had a concussion for almost half of my high school career

and I made do with it. I ended up being in the top ten percent of my graduating class. My

concussion is something that defines me, even until today. Due to it being such a severe injury, I

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am still on medication due to what happened on that dreary day in November 2012. I persevered

through “my lisp”.

Everyone always encounters something, big or small, in their life that they have to

overcome and persevere through. No matter if it is a lisp, a concussion, a death in their family, a

divorce, a big move, or something even smaller; perseverance is what will get them through it.

David Sedaris’ lisp and my concussion were alike in many ways. Hard work always pays off in

the long run.