Since its release in 2016, Brain on Fire’s true takeaway continues to be overlooked by critics.

The movie is based on the true story of American journalist, Susannah Cahalen, played by Chloë Mortez. At the start of the film Mortez is a beginning reporter at the New York Post. She portrays the essence of determination and potential in telling the hard-hitting stories, until, she falls mysteriously ill. As Mortez begins to deteriorate, getting headaches, missing deadlines, hearing and seeing things that aren’t there, like bedbugs on her arms and a faucet that doesn’t actually leak, madness comes into question.

This is when the conflict of getting a medical diagnosis is introduced. Throughout the movie, Mortez is misdiagnosed repeatedly by doctors with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in response to her spontaneous mood swings, and eventual seizures. Throughout her journey to get well, we begin to see the emotional and physical toll Mortez is faced with during this time of uncertainty. She experiences times of extreme irritability, frustration, paranoia and feeling generally unwell.  In the beginning scenes of the movie over a voiceover, Mortez even says she feels trapped in her own body. This tends to be a frightening reality for many more individuals than we realize.

While some critics have criticized the poor choice in lack of character development for the supporting characters, they may fail to realize the film is meant to be centered around how Cahalen herself was feeling. The film itself is based off of the autobiography Cahalen wrote. So, it could be argued that the director and screenplay writer, Gerard Barrett, was attempting to keep the authenticity of Cahalen’s medical journey, rather than change the story completely to make it a compelling blockbuster.

This approach gives the audience the opportunity to see from a first-person point of view, how challenging and at times, dehumanizing seeking medical help can be. Too often the stories of those affected by these diseases are told through the point of views of the supporting characters, and the main character tends to get lost. Brain on Fire and its storyline should be commended for keeping the voice of the main character, even when she becomes nonvocal, Mortez remains the focus. This approach offers relatability for viewers who may be experiencing something similar, or have in the past, letting them though that there is power in telling your own story.

There is also an argument that the supporting characters lacked empathy in their performances, but the truth is, the desire for empathy is based off of our cinematic desire for everything to be great in the world. Real life, real people, do not always tend to be this way. The lack of empathy in medical professionals, serves as a source of motivation for some to continue to find an answer. For those like Mortez, motivation, determination, and perseverance, lead to a resolution.

Despite the criticisms of the film lacking emotion and character development, Brain on Fire is an empowering film for those who have experienced the hardship of finding a difficult diagnosis. By keeping the film centered on the main character and her journey, the authenticity of the experience was possibly kept intact, giving the audience a better insight on a perspective they might not see every day.

28 years after deciding to give a guide dog a shot, Karen Ann Young found herself in Hollywood accepting an award presented by Betty White for her guide dog, Jingles, exceptional service.

 Jingles was named American Human’s Hero Guide Dog of 2013, in honor of being the first service dog to work in tandem with another.

Young says the award ceremony was “an experience of a lifetime.”

Jingles served as Young’s guide dog for her blindness while Mazie, Young’s second service dog, was trained as a diabetic alert dog.

 Mazie was trained later on to signal when her sugar levels dropped too low after being diagnosed with Hypoglycemia Unawareness.

Both Mazie and Jingles retired last September after 13 years of service. Young is now in the process of training Zeke, a friendly Golden Retriever, to be both her guide and medical alert dog.

For handlers like Young who have the companionship of a service dog, their dog is an extension of themselves, providing independence from others.

“Service dogs are important because they allow people with life-limiting disabilities the chance to live a more independent life with dignity and safety. Working with a service dog partner allows for much less dependence on humans to assist or do things for us,” Young said.

Providing independence is a big task for a four-legged friend, but not impossible.

Young reiterates the importance of not breaking a service dog’s concentration when approaching them in public, because it could put the handler in danger.

“When I’m being guided by Zeke, even if it’s just in a grocery store, if a person whistles or makes kissy noises or runs up and tries to pet Zeke, it takes his focus off of his guide work and even a split second that he looks toward a distraction could mean my bumping into something, or someone,” she said.  

Encountering a service dog can be both intimidating and exciting making some wonder the best way to approach them without being intrusive.  For spectators looking to cure their curiosity, Young puts it simply:

“Always talk to the handler, not the dog.”

 The misconceptions that surround service dogs can be one of the biggest hurdles for handlers and bystanders to overcome.

One of the most common misconceptions being that service dogs are only trained as guide dogs for the blind.

The definition of a “service animal” under the ADA National Network Disability Law Handbook is, “…a service animal means any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.”

Individuals with mobility troubles, sensory troubles (D/deaf, blindness), diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, autism, epilepsy, bone and skeletal troubles and post-traumatic stress disorder, could all potentially benefit from having a service dogs, according to the U.S. Dog Registry online.

Depending on the person’s disability, the training of the service dog will vary.

Desiree “Cherie” Evans is the owner, breeder and dog trainer of Top Gun K9 Training in Hollister, Fla.

Top Gun is a family-run business, that  has gained reputation for being the place to go in Hollister for training law enforcement K9’s; but after seeing a need for service dog training, Evans and her family decided to take on the task.

“I see how much a service dog can bring to their life,” said Evans.

When a dog is picked for service, a training organization usually picks the dog from a shelter, Top Gun picks their service dogs from their own litters.

“A lot of places that train service dogs, most of them don’t breed their own dogs.” Evans said. “Many times, we find several in each litter that would be great for service work.”

Dogs like the ones at Top Gun are trained for each individual person’s needs. Beginning with basic obedience training, over time, the handler will be “completely bonded with the dog the entire time.”

Some trained tasks for service dogs include, picking things up, opening things, medicine reminders, touch assistance, how to serve as a watch and a source of balance.

Depending on the person and the dog, and how well they work with the handler, training can take up to three years on and off.

For organizations like Top Gun, bringing advocacy and education to the community is a significant part of their mission.

“I think it’s good the community understands because they need to appreciate the job the dog does,” Evans said. “Even though the disability community is a large community, up against the rest of the world, it’s very small.”

When the curious students entered the room, they were greeted with warm smiles and recognizable enthusiasm. The speakers about to take the stage didn’t use their voices, but they didn’t need them to be heard.

Coming together to cure curiosity, Flagler College students and members of the local Deaf community came together at a Deaf information panel Wednesday night.

Throughout the year, Flagler College hosts a series of diverse panels in effort to educate students on important topics that don’t always get touched on in a classroom setting.

Deaf culture is one of these hot topics.

With a notable Deaf community present in Saint Augustine, the panel gave students the opportunity to be educated about Deaf culture by Deaf individuals themselves.

The panel consisted of four members; Renato Sindicic, Mohan Varthakavi, Janna Kudrick and Kim Nichols.

Sindicic, Varthakavi, and Nichols are all educators of both Deaf and hearing students.

Sindicic, works at both the Florida school for the Deaf and Blind (FSD), as a math teacher, and at Flagler College as an ASL professor.

Varthakavi is also a math teacher at FSD and Nichols is a ASL professor at Flagler College. Kudrick is a video relay installer at Sorenson Communications.  

The panelists came together to discuss their experiences in multiple topics. Things like school, work, driving and discrimination.

Though each of them has lived in different parts of the world, some of their dilemmas  as Deaf individuals were universal. One of the worst being lack of respect from the hearing world in their home countries.

“In India, growing up, of course they made fun of the Deaf. They knew nothing of the Deaf.  My friends, of course we respected each other, but society as a whole did not.”  Varthakavi said.

The lack of wanting to understand the Deaf also made it difficult for Deaf people to get an education all across the world.  In many countries, like Brazil, there were no schools for the Deaf in the past.

“Times have changed there is a lot of improvement,” Sindicic said.

Since leaving Brazil, Sindicic says the country now recognizes Brazilian Sign Language as an official language and the country also provides close captions and video relay services. 

Through their stories, it was easy to see the unique personalities of the speakers. The room may have been accompanied with more silence than the hearing are used to, but the room still erupted in laughter at the panelists well-played jokes.

“I would choose to remain Deaf. It’s the only world I have ever known, I can’t imagine another one. Now, am I curios about what it would be like to watch HGTV? Yes, “ said Nichols.

After joking around, the panelists ended the night on a memorable note by telling students what they, as Deaf individuals, wanted hearing people to understand. 

If you want to be an ally, you need to see the Deaf as people and not just for their deafness.              

“Learning a language opens the door to how people think. The first step [to being an ally] is learning the language,” said Nichols.

After founding the Ability Tree First Coast in (YEAR) CEO, Joanne Alicea, has taken to the churches in the St. John’s community to spread Ability Tree’s message of inclusion.

Through her own experiences of being a Christian and being a mother of children with special needs, Alicea saw the opportunity to advocate for families like her own.

Alicea has a son with Down syndrome and a daughter with ADD and a learning disability. Her family is aware of the importance of inclusion and how  difficult it can be when the appropriate resources aren’t available.

“These families are struggling and they need help,” she says.

By telling her own story about becoming Josiah’s mother, and advocating for her daughter in school,   Alicea hopes to bring  more awareness to what exactly it means to be inclusive.

Her  goal is help educate and provide resources for people, like church families, who want to  accommodate for special needs families who might otherwise be turned away.

“It’s about establishing a culture,” said Alicea. “I want to inspire churches to have a culture of inclusion.”

For Alicea, and ATFC as a whole, the church is a valuable asset, it’s a place that reaches a diverse group of people within the community.

“You have the potential to impact people who can reach out to families that I would never reach,’ says Alicea.

But speaking to churches in the St. Augustine community is only the beginning.  Alicea says it’s like “warming up the butter.”

After getting the opportunity to train one church leadership team in the past, Alicea wants to dedicate more of her time to these trainings. The hope is that the churches begin to feel like they can meet the needs of special needs families, and the families feel welcome and accepted.

Awareness is only the first step, providing the support of mentors and training is what will make a difference. “I want it to be ongoing relationship we have with them, not a once and done kind of thing.”

One student’s drive to give back combined with her love for running has inspired her to do something big with her upcoming summer.  She’s running over  4,000 miles across America.

Her avid hobby for running started at just 12 years old when she decided to run her first Turkey Trot, and has since then progressed into something that’s helping her better the lives of cancer patients and their families.

Haley Kenyon, a Flagler College sophomore, 20,  has taken the leap and decided to take on her biggest run yet.  Through the 4K for Cancer, Kenyon wants to pay tribute to both her father and grandmother who endured their own personal experiences with cancer.

Kenyon’s father, who has been credited for motivating her love for running, was diagnosed with skin cancer when she was  14, and her grandma with stage  four lung cancer close to three years later.

While her father made a healthy recovery, Kenyon lost her grandmother after she battled the disease for six months.

“That was my main motivation to do this. I thought it was a good cause and that I would do it for her, and since my dad is pretty much my motivator for running, I thought I would do it for him too,” said Kenyon.

The 4K for Cancer is a marathon put on by the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults (UCF).  UCF’s mission is to “Change lives by creating a community of support for young adults, and their loved ones, impacted by cancer,”  according to  UCF’s website.

The run will be comprised of three teams, Team Boston, Team Baltimore and Team New York.  Each team will have 30 runners between the ages of 18-25. All participants will start in San Francisco on June 17, and end in one of the three cities the teams are named after 49 days later on August 4.

Kenyon is one of the 26 runners who have signed up so far to be a part of team New York who will be running across the northern route of the United States. Some states on the New York team’s route include: ID,  UT, CO and PA.

In addition to her 20-week long training program to complete the run, Kenyon and all 90 runners are looking to raise money for the cancer patients they wish to help.

 So far, Kenyon has raised  $2,733.17 of her final goal of $4,500.

The funds Kenyon is hoping to raise all go back into the cancer community to provide things like scholarships, housing and treatment programs for those affected by cancer.

During the 2017-2018 school year so far, she has hosted local fundraisers through chain restaurants like Panera Bread and Chipotle, but is looking to do more on-campus fund raising when the opportunities present themselves.

Recently, on campus, Kenyon has sold flowers for Valentine’s Day and she hosted a bone marrow transplant drive in effort to add more names to the national bone marrow registry.

Kenyon also has a personal donation page where people can donate to her cause and leave comments for her to look back on. Friends and family have left encouraging compliments like:

“Amazing girl!” –Sarah Frank

“Run like the wind, Haley” You are a shining star!!” – Peter and Dorothy.

Each comment reminds Kenyon of all her loving support and commends the runner on her next marathon journey.

In addition to wanting to give back to a cause close to her heart, Kenyon says she really just enjoys running and how it makes her feel while she’s doing it.

“It’s a very strange feeling.  I’ve never felt anything before like when I ran a marathon. It was very painful, but it was a good pain. I don’t know how to describe that in normal words, but it was very enjoyable pain. Like I knew what I was doing was important to me so I felt accomplished doing it,” said Kenyon.

After participating in close to 30-40 runs ranging from 5K’s, 10K’s and half marathons over the last eight years, Kenyon most looks forward to the experience the 4K for Cancer will give her.  She’s excited to meet new people, including her teammates and the cancer patients they’ll be meeting during their planned service days at the various local hospitals in the cities they’ll be visiting.

Service days give the runners the opportunity to see first hand the impact they’re making on the cancer community they’re running for.

“I just think overall the experience is going to be something that’s going to stick with me forever, probably. I just think that that whole experience is going to be very worthwhile. “

If you’re interested in helping Haley give back to the Ulman Cancer Foundation for Young Adults you can visit her donation page here: https://ulman.z2systems.com/haley-kenyon

When Hannah Watkins first took an interest in baseball through the influence of her beloved great grandma, she never thought she would become the “baseball girl.” What once started as a family interest, blossomed into a profound positive impact on Watkins life.

Although she was born in Clearwater, Florida, Watkins, 20 moved to Atlanta, Georgia  at a young age. She paid homage to Florida by adopting the Tampa Bay Rays as one of her favorite teams in the MLB, following under her great grandma’s wing.

“My great grandma loved the Rays, she went to most of the games and when she passed away she gave me her cowbell in her will. She inspired me to be a Rays fan,” said Watkins.

Now, having been an avid baseball fan for 10 years, baseball has only influenced Watkins life in positive ways. It even saved her life.

“I was going to commit suicide, but then my phone went off with an ESPN notification saying Sam Fuld had hit a homerun and that the game was on ESPN, so I watched the game instead of killing myself,” Watkins said.

Since that life-changing moment, Watkins uses baseball as a means to connect with others who share her interest.

Through social media sites like Twitter, Watkins has made several friends who she talks to everyday. She hopes in the future to meet more people and continue to educate the public on baseball.

In the past, Watkins wrote for a local sports blog based in Tampa, The Scrum Sports. At Scrum Sports, she wrote about game stats for the Rays.

Watkins main goal as part of the baseball community is to gain public interest again.

“I’m trying to get baseball to be the number one sport in America again,” Watkins said.

One of her biggest concerns about the sport is the lack of interest by the youth. Unlike basketball and football, there is no one prominent figure kids want to look up to and aspire to be like.

“It makes me sad because with baseball you actually have to use your mind, you have to use strategy. Kids can learn something and develop better,” said Watkins.

Her interest and long-term dedication to the sport have given her a nickname by friends, family and followers she loves. She is known as “baseball girl.” It’s even in dating profiles.

In the future, Watkins hopes more players like Chris Archer, starting pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, make an effort to go out into the community and teach kids how to play baseball.

Archer is one of Watkins favorite baseball players, not only for his involvement in local community, but the personal tie she has to Archer’s background.

Like her younger brother, Kaleb Watkins, Archer is adopted and is a different race than his maternal grandparents who adopted him.

In an article by USA Today “Rays ace Chris Archer embraces it all: ‘I couldn’t ask for a better life’  Archer reflects on his life and his purpose to change the lives of as many people as possible.

Watkins admires Archer for his passion to inspire kids like her brother who can sometimes struggle with being adopted by family of a different race.

Watkins says by introducing Kaleb to baseball and Archer, baseball has given him someone to look up to. Archer gives Kaleb someone to remind him he is important and loved.  

Baseball has changed Watkins like more than she could have imagined but sharing baseball with her brother has been the best experience for her.

“I love him more than the Rays and that says a lot

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