On Valentine’s Day, 2026, Evy and Jess were having the best Valentine’s date they ever had. They started the day with breakfast near their home in Berwyn, headed over to Wicker Park for an art class, spent some time at Barnes and Noble, went shopping for their baby niece Vida, and found some of the coolest boutiques and stores like a Japanese thrift store. About 4 hours into their time in Wicker Park, Evy started feeling really dizzy, was short of breath, and had left sided chest pain. Evy and Jess found a cafe to get some Gatorade at and sit down at for a bit. Evy wasn’t feeling much better so they decided to drive back home to rest before their dinner date. Once they got in the car, Evy felt progressively worse. She could hear and feel her heart beating, and her legs started shaking. Once they pulled up in front of their home, Evy felt herself starting to lose consciousness until her right index finger elevated on its own and she eventually lost all control and feeling in her right hand. Jess was already on the phone with 911 and an am I lance quickly arrived to take her to Loyola hospital. Within 15 minutes, a crash cart was ordered (ER version of rapid response) because Evy started losing sensation in her left arm. An EKG was done which indicated severe tachycardia. 30 minutes later, Evy had a seizure and then became paralyzed in her arms and legs. She was quickly admitted into the neurology floor, where she had dozens of labs, MRIs, a heart echo, and an EEG. Throughout the week she continued having seizures, intermittently losing the ability to speak, losing the ability to taste, significant muscular skeletal and joint pain, mixing up words (like gorilla and towel), and experiencing ataxia (to this day of her arms or legs are lifted they will stay “stuck” in that position unless someone else had wiggle her limb to bring it down. Her official diagnosis is functional neurological disorder. This is a new diagnosis, while she continues to carry her diagnoses of SLE lupus, chronic diverticulitis, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. FSD has been explained as a “software” issue between the brain and body connection. It is still widely misunderstood, but essentially it means her brain isn’t sending the messages to the rest of her body. With FSD, patients tend to experience symptoms of structural neurological disorders like MS, ALS, stroke, and Parkinson’s but with all of those symptoms possibly happening at once. The cause is still unknown, but we know physical and emotional stress, as well as infections/viruses can trigger this. Evy had food poisoning a few days prior and we feel pretty sure that this in combination with physical exertion triggered her FSD. Luckily, FSD is treatable with intensive acute rehabilitation to train her brain and body to communicate again. She is still waiting for all the paperwork to process, but she has been referred to the world renowned, number one rehab center in the entire country - the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab. Here she will be undergoing a minimum of 3 hours of intensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy every day. We are hopeful that she will be able to overcome this as she has other health challenges like her colon resection in 2023. While we are confident she will recover, hopefully in the next few months, there will be some life style changes that will need to occur- such as not driving until we are positive she won’t have seizures again, using adaptable equipment like a rolator, and continued outpatient therapy once she is healthy enough to be home. Those of you that know Evy know she prioritizes the care of others over her own, and we now ask for her community to help give back to her as well. At just 30 years old, Evy has been the first in her family to obtain her degrees including her Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and pretty soon her PhD all while working full time at the job she loves deeply as a psychotherapist at a famous group therapy practice where she specializes in providing trauma therapy to the lgbtqia+ community. She is eager to (slowly) get back to what brings her most joy through her work.