A Different Kind of USC Summer Internship
September 28, 2021

Charisma Mangahas is a third year student at Cerritos Community College. She has been living with Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) for over 3 years now and recently wrote a reflection on her experience with her diagnosis for her website mindful-lei thinking.

Mangahas writes, “My mom sacrificed a lot for me to sleep in my own bed, to travel where I can, to see and experience new things. I am forever grateful for her patience, especially when I was adjusting to how I would need to live my life. It wasn’t optimistic in the beginning. There were dark periods of time when I would find it hard to have hope that life could be any better than what I had before getting GBS. But my mom feeds my hope and gives me the support I need to still be here. I owe my life to her.”

Mangahas shares openly in her reflections about the physical, mental and emotional struggles that she has experienced since the onset of her illness. She also writes about the care team that supported her in her rehabilitation: “John Margetis OTD, my Occupational Therapist, and Erin Fitzgerald DPT, my Physical Therapist, were two instruments of the symphony that kept me engaged. Having them by my side, along with their colleagues and students, kept my mind curious as I soaked up as much information as I could from being in an educational environment such as Keck Hospital of USC. I even joked with them that I was completing a summer internship at USC!”

Dr. Margetis and the rest of the clinical care team at Keck Hospital of USC see many neurorehabilitation patients each year and work together to enable those patients to continue to engage in their meaningful occupations.

Read the full article at mindful-lei thinking.

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