Last August, Courtney Engel stood backstage contemplating a violin recital she was about to give in Eau Claire, Wis. A crowd of maybe 100 people would be nice, she thought. But after the first hundred took their seats, people kept filling the lobby and entering the concert hall.
They arrived from Washington, D.C., San Diego, the Twin Cities and all over the country. Some hadn’t seen Courtney, 29 at the time of the recital, since college, and a few hadn’t even known that she was an accomplished violinist. By the time Courtney took the stage and played her opening notes, 300 people were in the audience.
Word of the recital had spread and Courtney’s friends and admirers responded enthusiastically. It was her first time on stage as a soloist since she’d suffered a devastating loss of vision after developing neuromyelitis optica (NMO).
Sometimes called Devic’s syndrome, NMO is an uncommon autoimmune disease similar to multiple sclerosis. NMO sets the body’s own immune system against the optic nerves or the spinal cord, resulting in inflammation and often life-threatening damage. Its cause is unknown.
Courtney and her husband, Jake, had many reasons for deciding to give the recital. Preparing for the concert lifted her spirits and gave her a creative goal after months of fighting the disease. She wanted to reward her friends and family members who had endured with her while the outcome of her condition was uncertain. And she loved the music — she has played the violin since the age of four.
Most of all, though, Courtney committed to the concert out of gratitude and a deep desire to raise awareness about NMO. With the help of her caregivers at Mayo Clinic, she received an accurate diagnosis and underwent treatment that halted the unchecked advance of her NMO. Mayo Clinic is one of the world’s leading centers for the study and treatment of NMO, and Courtney’s recital raised $14,000 for its research. Her yearlong odyssey with NMO had left her, at last, ready to give back and move forward.