Arizona Gymnastics: Danielle Spencer's Motivation Behind Her Major
10/24/2016 | Gymnastics
TUCSON, AZ – This past Sunday, October 23rd, Arizona Athletics held an event for all sophomore athletes to officially declare their majors and share their future goals with the Tucson community. All four sophomore GymCats, Danielle Spencer, Skyler Sheppard, Lauryn Mattson, and Haylie Hendrickson attended the event, and Danielle Spencer was asked to share the moving story as to why she is in the College of Engineering, and majoring in Biomedical Engineering.
First, it is important to know that Danielle Spencer has a twin brother named James who has special needs. From a young age, Danielle watched her brother struggle both academically and socially, and she decided that when she grew up she was going to find a way to help. Now as a sophomore in college, she is excelling in her classes, and is still driven by that fire which started years ago.
When asked to share her story, Danielle said, "I choose Biomedical Engineering because of my twin special needs brother, James. James was born with poor motor skills, he was slightly autistic, and had severe epilepsy. When we were 10 years old, James was hospitalized and was told he needed brain surgery. They found that his seizures were multi-focal, meaning they came from all different parts of the brain. The surgery to remove all those parts would have left him nothing more than a vegetable, so we decided not to do it."
"My freshman year in high school, his seizures were so bad that he was in and out of the hospitals and was constantly injuring himself, so the doctors recommended surgery again. We went to Phoenix Children's Hospital where a doctor there recommended Split-Brain surgery, which is where they separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain in order to stop the connection for the seizures. The doctors said that if after 18 months he didn't have a seizure, he would never have one again. It has now been 5 years without a seizure."
Danielle was driven by her brother's story to help prevent this from happening again. She considered becoming a neurosurgeon, but after watching a documentary on biomedical engineering, she saw the kind of technologies that can help future people with special needs like James, and decided that was the route she wanted to take.
Each and every day, we are honored to call Danielle Spencer a member of our GymCat family. Keep up the good work Dani, we're proud of you.
First, it is important to know that Danielle Spencer has a twin brother named James who has special needs. From a young age, Danielle watched her brother struggle both academically and socially, and she decided that when she grew up she was going to find a way to help. Now as a sophomore in college, she is excelling in her classes, and is still driven by that fire which started years ago.
When asked to share her story, Danielle said, "I choose Biomedical Engineering because of my twin special needs brother, James. James was born with poor motor skills, he was slightly autistic, and had severe epilepsy. When we were 10 years old, James was hospitalized and was told he needed brain surgery. They found that his seizures were multi-focal, meaning they came from all different parts of the brain. The surgery to remove all those parts would have left him nothing more than a vegetable, so we decided not to do it."
"My freshman year in high school, his seizures were so bad that he was in and out of the hospitals and was constantly injuring himself, so the doctors recommended surgery again. We went to Phoenix Children's Hospital where a doctor there recommended Split-Brain surgery, which is where they separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain in order to stop the connection for the seizures. The doctors said that if after 18 months he didn't have a seizure, he would never have one again. It has now been 5 years without a seizure."
Danielle was driven by her brother's story to help prevent this from happening again. She considered becoming a neurosurgeon, but after watching a documentary on biomedical engineering, she saw the kind of technologies that can help future people with special needs like James, and decided that was the route she wanted to take.
Each and every day, we are honored to call Danielle Spencer a member of our GymCat family. Keep up the good work Dani, we're proud of you.
Players Mentioned
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