"Come sit down!" the five-year-old called to his mother, looking up from the playhouse, tiny figures clutched in his hands. Her face lit up with joy and she hurried to join him at play.
It was an unbelievable moment — because the child had never before spoken those words.
It was also "magical" and deeply rewarding for Alyshah Walji — then a student speech-language pathologist — who had worked with the family for weeks to help the child communicate verbally.
Walji will cross the convocation stage today to accept her master's in science in speech-language pathology from the University of Alberta — a personal triumph, because along with the academic rigours of getting a degree, she faced daunting health challenges of her own.
Walji, 31, grew up with low vision. Then, after her first semester at the U of A, she was diagnosed with cancer, leading to months of treatment.
She had to take time off school to focus on getting well. But she never took her eyes off her goal of graduating and launching a career to help others communicate better.
"I became even more determined to pursue this career because receiving rehabilitation services was a crucial part of my recovery," Walji says. "I just really aspire to be a clinician who can add value to people's lives."
Walji is now a month into her first job as a registered speech-language pathologist at an Alberta Health Services clinic for children.
"Nobody would have blamed her at all if she had said, 'This is too hard, maybe this isn't for me,'" says Esther Kim, interim dean of the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine. "She was undergoing treatment, she was here in Edmonton alone without family. But she was very committed to doing whatever it takes to become an SLP."
"Alyshah's persistence and resilience are extraordinary."
Optimism and determination
They say facing adversity builds empathy, and if that's true, then Walji was meant to thrive in the rehabilitation medicine field.
Growing up, in spite of her low vision, she was an optimistic and determined child who loved learning. She realizes how access to rehabilitative services at a young age could have positively impacted her life.
"It would have been really helpful to have had access to a social work team and an occupational therapist at my schools to help me receive necessary accommodations," she remembers. "Instead, I had to repeatedly advocate for myself."
During her more recent cancer journey, Walji received support from professionals in physical therapy, occupational therapy and psychosocial therapy.
"Having experienced the patient side of the table since I was young has helped me understand the importance of rehabilitation medicine in a patient's life really well. There is a long journey in a patient's road to recovery after completing direct treatment," she says.
