The brain that changes, the woman who inspires
A 10-year-old girl shivered, as the mountains seemed to loom over her. Along with her four younger siblings and her parents, Sesook Yu trekked across the mountainous range. Stitched into her coat were wads of cash, hidden from the view of thieves looking to capitalize on the desperate travelers. The journey took several arduous days on foot, but this girl eventually escaped amid the Korean War from what is now known as North Korea and made the journey to South Korea, her new home.
Years later, encouraged by a biology professor at an all-women’s college, Sesook would grow up with aspirations to pursue a PhD in botany, but she selflessly gave up those dreams — her dreams — to go to a foreign land, the United States. While closing the door to her own opportunities, she moved to the U.S. with her husband to open doors for their six daughters.
Many more years later, Sesook became a grandmother — my grandmother, my halmoni. In the same year I was born, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. When I was little, whenever my sister and I would visit, she would always hurry to the door in that characteristic Parkinsonian shuffling gait and rush to prepare food and cut fruit as if we hadn’t eaten in days, even though her hands would tremble when she held the knife.
As I became older, I watched as the same grandmother who loved cooking eventually became banned from the kitchen out of fear she would hurt herself. The same grandmother who loved traveling to visit her 12 grandchildren slowly became weaker to the point that she needed help standing up from a couch. The same grandmother who loved meeting people became more confined to the house — a safe place that became less safe as her conditions worsened.
Medication only helped subside the symptoms a bit, but as the dosage increased to combat her declining physical condition, the side effects such as hallucinations and a lack of mental clarity increased with it. There is no cure for Parkinson’s, so to my younger self, there was no hope her condition would improve. It broke my heart that the same woman who sacrificed her dreams so I could chase my own would be told that she would decline physically and cognitively and that there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.
That mindset, however, began to change when I read Dr. Norman Doidge’s The Brain that Changes Itself. In the first chapter alone, Dr. Doidge recounts the story of Cheryl Schiltz, a woman who, for five frightening years, felt like she was perpetually falling. Due to damage to her vestibular apparatus, the part of the inner ear responsible for balance, Cheryl’s life was hijacked by this feeling of perpetual free fall, and she was told “it was permanent … [it] was never going away.” To most, Cheryl was doomed, but through a team of engineers and scientists who concocted a contraption that acted like an artificial vestibular apparatus — a team that never gave up on Cheryl — the feeling of free fall disappeared for her for the first time in five years.
From the first few pages of the book, to be honest, I was crying and I was hooked. I read real-life accounts of the blind seeing with their tongues, of the once near-paralyzed learning to move again, and of engineers and scientists who created the devices that made all that possible. This sparked my passion and determination to become one of those engineers and scientists who sought to both better understand and treat incurable neurological disorders, such as the one my grandmother (one of the strongest people I know) suffers from.
Each discovery of the complex inner workings of the brain brings us one step closer to better understanding it and developing treatments for when the brain does not act as it should. Today at Stanford, I am on my journey to become a neuroengineer. A dream that started as a small seed, planted by the love of my grandmother and family, is quickly blossoming. Each day spent attempting to decode the language of the brain brings me one step closer to making this dream a reality.
To me, the beauty of neuroengineering is this: Even when it feels like hope is lost and there’s nothing anybody can do, there’s a field of people who believe that even helping one person is enough. To the world, the impact of these actions may seem insignificant, but to that one person — like Cheryl — their world is forever transformed.
The work of those engineers and scientists is never wasted. It means people like my grandmother — who celebrated her 85th birthday in March and who has literally crossed mountains and given up so much for others already — don’t have to give up on themselves as well.
Hannah Lee (2023 cohort) is pursuing a PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford School of Engineering. She aspires to use electrical engineering to enhance understanding of the brain and to develop interventions to treat those suffering from neurological disorders.
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
