ALUMNI PROFILE

New career is tailor-made

Anne Garcia McCullough, Arts ’90, left a high-intensity job as an attorney to be a full-time mom. She thought that was a major life change, but then came memory lapses.

By Mike Thee

Her friends thought she wasn’t paying attention, but she was having trouble processing what they were saying. Her vision began to blur. She experienced headaches and fatigue and then numbness in her hands and arms. Then an attack left McCullough partially paralyzed. She learned she had the early stages of multiple sclerosis.

“They call it ‘probable MS,’ which means I have a little more work to do to gain full-fledged membership,” she says, showing a wry sense of humor.

McCullough fought back with help from  a physical therapist and speech therapist,   psychotherapist and psychiatrist, neurologist, acupuncturist and Pilates instructor. The work is paying off. Not long ago, McCullough had trouble stringing two words together. Today, she is a motivational speaker.

“A few months after I was diagnosed, I went to a meeting at my church,” she remembers. “They needed someone to give a talk on Advent. All of a sudden I saw my arm shoot up in the air. To this day, I don’t know if it was a spasm or if I was really volunteering.”

As it turned out the topic of Advent, with its connection to hope and patience, was tailor-made for McCullough. She earned a standing ovation from her first audience, which launched this new career. She now travels the country as a paid speaker and talks of hope — not multiple sclerosis — defining her life. “I am a mother, wife, consultant, speaker and lawyer, who also happens to have MS.”

Learn more about McCullough on her Web site.