MS diagnosis leads to inspirational tale
“I tend to use my hands a lot when I speak, so watch out,” Donna Gosbee warned, flashing her contagious grin. But while most people use gesticulations as a device in everyday conversation, the use of her muscles is a bit more personal.
Gosbee is a nontraditional Laramie County Community College student majoring in political science, but that title is only a fraction on her list of accomplishments.
Most recently, Gosbee received the Coca-Cola New Century Scholar award for Wyoming and is now a part of the All-USA Academic Team, first tier, which is the top 20 in the country. She was featured in an issue of USA Today.
She also serves as president of the LCCC Alpha Omega Zeta chapter of Phi Theta Kappa as well as the Nebraska/Wyoming regional president of Phi Theta Kappa.
But Gosbee, 52, also has multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition that causes the body’s immune system to attack its central nervous system, resulting in muscle weakness (mainly in her legs), difficulty in moving, chronic pain and a number of other obstacles.
At first glance, with her sunny disposition and apparent eagerness to learn, Gosbee—with a short, flipped hairstyle and rectangular-framed glasses—looked just as healthy as her fellow students with a day planner equally as full.
As she squared away the day’s forthcoming Phi Theta Kappa meeting with adviser Jeff Shmidl in the Andrikopoulos Business and Technology Building, Gosbee’s phone began to vibrate, and she apologized, whipped out a little red planner and answered the call. It was from the Andrikopolous family, who provided Gosbee with scholarships and had heard of her recent success, and wanted to take her to lunch. She said she sends them letters updating her progress at LCCC.
Gosbee’s involvement with Phi Theta Kappa began in early 2007, after disregarding numerous invitations. She attended a meeting, was inducted and became the vice president of service the following week.
Gosbee said the only reason she originally chose to become an officer was because she wanted to hear former vice presidents Al Gore speak in Nashville at the international convention. But, immediately following her return from the convention, her eyes were opened to what Phi Theta Kappa was really all about.
Gosbee said one of her first stints as vice president of service was Project Graduation, which collects food and children’s books for homeless or low-income family and donates them to Needs, Inc. She also worked on Relay for Life, sponsored by the American Cancer Society.
As a Phi Theta Kappa member, Gosbee soon realized how little name recognition the club had. She said that before she joined, she thought it was just a sorority or fraternity, until she realized all the scholarship opportunities offered by the organization.
“They’re lucky I’m only a part-time student,” Gosbee joked, as she explained all her intensive work in promoting the group’s name on campus.
Born in Alabama to an Air Force family, Gosbee lived in various states before her family settled down and her dad retired in Cheyenne. She lived in Cheyenne until she graduated high school when she couldn’t wait to move away. For seven years prior to moving back to Cheyenne, Gosbee and her son, David, an LCCC freshman, lived in Texas.
She worked in mortgage banking for 22 years before she became sick. “I could say I was fortunate, but truly I did work hard. I was the one who was there until three o’clock in the morning,” she recalled.
Gosbee said her first symptom of MS appeared in May 2003 in the middle of the night. Most people, she said, say they have symptoms for years, but she didn’t. By August 2003, Gosbee was paralyzed from the ribcage down.
As Gosbee discussed her life with MS, not a hint of sadness could be found in her voice as she chuckled at minor mishaps, showing how she could truly leave her past in the past.
As the vice president of a large nationally known mortgage company in Texas at the time of her diagnosis, Gosbee to work when she became wheelchair bound.
“You get so much of who you are out of what you do,” Gosbee said, with zeal. “You don’t introduce yourself as ‘Hi, I’m Donna Gosbee. I’m the mother of one’…you say, ‘I’m in mortgage banking.’ All of a sudden, that’s stripped away, and you’re like, ‘Who am I?’”
At this point in her life, Gosbee said this realization was so overwhelming she completely lost track of who she was. In turn, she and her son moved back to Wyoming and her family, thinking she was moving home to die.
Then, Gosbee said she got a little bit stronger: “When I sort of came out of this fog that a major illness diagnosis puts you in, I realized that I still had a lot of life. If I wasn’t going to die, I might as well do something productive.”
To keep her mind active, Gosbee took two online classes at LCCC. She said she was too afraid to come on campus and try to navigate, thinking she would look out of place because, at the time, she was using crutches, a walker or a wheelchair almost daily.
Without a definite plan, Gosbee said she dabbled in online classes that sounded interesting to her; consequently, she enjoyed herself and did well in them.
However, after a year of online classes, it was a friend’s kind gesture that encouraged Gosbee to educate herself from more than just a computer. Philip Slickenmeyer, a nontraditional student like Gosbee, persuaded her to take a summer class, on campus, and even offered to drive Gosbee, walk her to class and wait for her until it was over.
She said being on campus really stimulated her mind, much more than any of her previous online classes, because she could socialize. “People didn’t look at me like I was this freak, which just amazed me,” she recalled,” because I felt like I was.”
“All of a sudden, it was like the blinders came off,” Gosbee said with a grin. “If I just pay attention to what classes I’m signing up for and where they’re located, I think I can do this.” Eventually, LCCC became her home.
During an internship with the Legislature, Gosbee said she found a love for political science.
However, despite her willingness to keep herself going and attend classes, her MS would take over some days.
“It just gets to a point where my legs just stop, and I’m stuck wherever I am if I don’t have some type of assistance device with me,” she said.
As scary as it may be, Gosbee said her medication for MS sometimes flares up and ignites what she calls her “steroid fog,” which makes it difficult for her brain to register normally for close to a month.
“There’s always the fear that the brain’s not going to kick back in,” Gosbee said, “and it terrifies me when I’m in the middle of that.” But one of the ways she measures her brainpower during those episodes is by playing FreeCell on the computer. She said, at first, when the drugs kick in, she’ll lose every single game and can’t even make sense of it. Then she’ll start to win one or two an hour, and that usually signifies her brainpower is coming back.
As for the future, Gosbee said she is looking to transfer to a university, and she has already applied at Texas A&M, which, because of her position on the All-USA Academic team, would cost only $63 a semester.
But, while Gosbee continues to plan her bright future, she hardly seems fazed by her MS and wants to raise awareness of her condition.