I wish I could say I had an easy first year of law school. I didn’t. Tragedy came into my life with full force that year. Starting in June, my grandfather’s health started rapidly declining as he battled congestive heart failure. That August, my little sister returned from Tanzania. She spent six weeks dodging malaria while she studied abroad, and two days before she flew home, she contracted it. She spent a couple of weeks quarantined in Abington Memorial Hospital a few floors above my grandfather. That September, I started having attacks again. I can’t remember when I experienced my first attack. I do remember I was finishing up my junior year of college. The pain was so intense, I couldn’t sleep through the night. I called a close friend to bring me to the hospital, certain that I’d be diagnosed with appendicitis. I wasn’t. They couldn’t find anything wrong with me. So, they gave me some aspirin and sent me home. Yet two years later, during my first year, the attacks were back with …