Quote

When I was ten, I caught glandular fever and had to have a year off school. My parents arranged for a tutor to keep me on track with my studies.

I have always had school sickness, as others have seasickness. I cried when it was time to go back to school long after I was old enough to be ashamed of such behavior.

I can remember being home from school with tonsillitis and writing stories in bed to pass the time.

When the headache persisted, I checked myself into an emergency room. When the doctor used the term 'brain tumour', I feared the worst. My whole world shrank around me.

Sophomore year, I got hit in the stomach playing football, and I was out of school for four months. I was in the hospital for two and then out of school for two.

I used to get really sick. I would go to the doctor with all these ailments, and they would tell me I needed to be at home. I didn't even really understand what that meant because since I was a baby, I've always been moving, moving, and then touring.

Still today, I cannot cross the threshold of a teaching institution without physical symptoms, in my chest and my stomach, of discomfort or anxiety. And yet I have never left school.

I was a pretty delicate kid. Anything that was going around I'd get it and I'd generally get it much worse than other people, so I spent a lot of time out of school.

When I was in fourth grade, I had a lot of upheaval in my life. Both of my parents remarried, and we all got new houses. That was also the year my older brother got very sick.