Jasmine Whiteside still struggles to articulate all of the amazing aspects of her story. That’s understandable—she only recalls pieces of it.
Today, The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) alumna and Hattiesburg native is a successful graduate student at The Ohio State University, well on her way to a doctoral degree and a career in a field that will benefit communities across the country. But as she progressed toward her USM graduation in 2013, she contracted a rare and life-threatening illness that left her in a coma. And when she awoke six months later, before she could think about the graduation stage, she needed to learn to speak and walk again, to read and write again, and to take care of herself again.
She’s done all that and more. This is her amazing story.