Helen Chappell on achieving with an illness:

I won the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship when I was 22. After the dean stopped by my office to congratulate me, all I could think about was that I’d never be good enough to deserve it, that I won it by some fluke. I stopped on the way home that day to get my nose pierced. My logic, I remember vividly, was that after shoving a needle through my face, my day could only get better. I gorged myself on chicken and biscuits as comfort for my horrible day. My horrible day where I’d just won a prestigious fellowship.