One often hears people talk about “the gift of song,” but it’s no cliché for one University of Kentucky Healthcare patient.
A leukemia survivor who developed epilepsy as a teen, Celeste Shearer admits she sometimes has trouble relating to her friends’ health worries.
"They complain about taking an antibiotic for a cold. I've always been thinking, 'What, you don't take medicine every day?'" she jokes with with one of her physicians, Dr. Siddharth Kapoor, Director of the UK Epilepsy Network.
Kapoor led the team that recommended to Celeste that she undergo an experimental surgery on part of her brain. But there was a problem for the aspiring singer…
"When I was first told that surgery may be the best option for me, the first thing I did was look up what functions that part of the brain controlled and when I saw that it was pitch interpretation that would affect my singing, I was very, very hesitant," she recalls.
And so her team changed their game plan. They set about set about mapping the regions of her brain that dealt with her singing ability and then kept her awake during the procedure so that she could listen and respond to music, helping guide the surgeons’ work in real time.
"We were in uncharted territory and we always just had the best interest of Celeste in mind," Dr. Kapoor says.
Now, on the day before Thanksgiving, a seizure-free Celeste is thanking her doctors by trying out that voice in front of family, physicians, and reporters. She opts for a dose of Green Day.
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right. I hope you had the time of your life," she sings a capella in the open atrium.
It's music to the ears in more ways than one for Dr. Kapoor, who calls Celeste one of the bravest patients he's ever met.
