YA Featured Review: One in a Million (Claire Lordon)

In this graphic novel style memoir, we see the health problems that Lordon had to deal with in high school. Once an active lacrosse player, she was plagued by a wide range of troublesome symptoms that doctors struggled to diagnose. Among these were extreme fatigue, weight gain, headaches, hair loss, brain fog, and the attendant anxiety and depression. Going to doctor’s appointments and for testing made her feel that she was taking too much of her parents’ time, and caused her to miss a lot of school. She takes a lot of comfort from her art, although she is irritated when the art teacher doesn’t think that she can succeed in an honors class. She didn’t let her friends know what was going on, and blamed her absence from the lacrosse team on a fractured ankle that was slow to heal and required surgery. Eventually, she is referred to the Mayo clinic, where they find a tumor on her pituitary gland and recommend surgery. Cushings disease, while rare in people in their teens, is also an issue. The surgery for her tumor is painful and the recuperation drawn out, and the surgery didn’t even get all of the tumor, causing her to go back for more. While not actively suicidal, the thoughts were there, and being dead sometimes sounded better than dealing with so many issues and feeling so horrible. Despite all of this, Claire manages to get through high school with academic honors, play lacrosse again, and get into the Rhode Island School of Design. Eventually, the doctors were able to make some progress on treating her disease, and an end note tells us that while she still has health issues, she has managed to run a marathon and is pursuing art as a career.