I am featured on NPR's "Unsung Hero"

The podcast went out today and it also aired on NPR Radio. If you missed the live broadcast you can listen here -

The editors removed parts of my story because they had time constraints, however I am sharing the entire thing in the article below. You can listen to my story on “My Unsung Hero”

This is me circa 1985 around the time I graduated from high school

Hi, my name is Solitaire Miles and this is the story of my unsung hero.

I was born in the late 1960s to hippie parents who gave me a groovy name - Solitaire - after the Bond girl in the James Bond novel “Live and Let Die”. They thought it was a cool name but it was a really hard name to grow up with.

I wasn’t anyone glamourous like you would expect to carry a stand-out name like Solitaire. I went to a Catholic school where I focused on academics, and good grades were my main focus.

In 1985, when I was 18 years old, after graduating from high school, I had a stroke. when it happened I was coming home from having dinner with some friends, and I started experiencing one sided numbness and weakness, and I lost my vision… it was really scary. My parents drove me to the local ER while it was happening and when I arrived the nursing staff assumed I was on drugs, probably because my name was Solitaire. I was not on drugs, but instead of listening to my mother, who was telling them about my symptoms, the nursing staff accused me of being intoxicated and argued with her… and while they argued, I collapsed and went into a coma and was unconscious for nearly 3 days.

When I woke up in the ICU the doctors finally admitted that I had suffered a real stroke, but even then the neurologist insisted that it must have been something that I DID to cause it because I was 18 years old, and my name was Solitaire.

The Neurologist ordered a toxicology screen and it came back clean.

And then instead of apologizing, he accused me of being on birth control pills which can, in some young women cause blood clots. I was not on birth control pills, but he didn’t believe me. I was barely conscious from the stroke when he did this. I was sick, scared, confused and I was being interrogated instead of getting treatment. I was too weak to defend myself…

And then my unsung hero arrived.

Sister Maura Smith was not just any nun. She had been the principal of my high school and she had been watching out for me and a lot of other students long before that hospital visit. I was one student out of hundreds in my class so when she walked into that ICU room I was really surprised to see her there. I had graduated and I wasn’t sure when I’d ever her again.

Sister Maura was a big woman with a deep, commanding voice and a VERY strong presence. At school She gave orders that were often loud and final. Nobody ever argued with Sister Maura. And once she walked into my hospital room and took a look at the situation, she started yelling. She hollered at the neurologist and called out his accusations and his treatment of me. She told him forcefully, and without hesitation, that I was a student from her school and that I was telling the truth and that his behavior was unacceptable.

Back in the day nuns used corporal punishment, and as I laid there in my hospital bed I had a front row seat. She backed that doctor up against the wall, and he was a small man, probably raised Catholic himself since it was a Catholic hospital, and he cowered. As I watched from my bed she grabbed his white coat collar in her hands and made it very clear that her student wouldn’t be abused under her watch.

That doctor was speechless, he looked away and muttered something I couldn't’ hear, and then she let go of him. He slumped back against the wall and then left the room quickly.

After he was gone, Sister sat down and smiled at me and took out her rosary and began to pray. After that the hospital staff suddenly remembered how to behave. It was the first time that anyone in that building had defended me since I woke up from my coma. After Sister Maura’s intervention the WHOLE tone changed and suddenly the doctor and the staff treated me with more respect. I became a patient instead of a suspect.

And then Sister Maura did something even more important… she stayed by my bedside while I drifted in and out of consciousness. She stayed when I was barely aware and totally vulnerable. She stayed.

Years later, I learned that my stroke was caused by a congenital heart defect called a PFO, which is a common cause of stroke in young people, and not from any personal recklessness or anything that I did wrong. The doctors who doubted me were the ones who were wrong, but Sister Maura set it right.

Sister Maura walked in the path of compassion and righteousness, not through WORDS, but through ACTION.

She showed up.

She spoke up.

And she stayed.

She saved my life and she taught me how to be a strong woman. I carry her lessons with me always.

She stayed, and because she stayed, I lived.

And that is the story of my unsung hero