After acquiring COVID-19 in May of 2021, I developed multiple lasting health conditions that have left a fading scar in both my personal and academic careers. Around late June, a few weeks after my infection had cleared, I developed a variety of unexplained health issues; my symptoms began with an inexplicable urge to constantly move my legs with an unexplainable painful sensation during inactivity. The sensations were more of an annoyance than an issue but rapidly developed into something more. Over the next week, I began to experience unmanageable widespread body pain, alongside a pins-and-needles feeling in my hands and feet. I was left unable to stand, nearly fainting every time I tried; my heart rate would spike to 180 or above while upright, and my adrenal system would go haywire. I was frequently experiencing debilitating migraines, often with excruciating vertigo. My head felt wrapped in cotton, leaving me unable to think, and I became incredibly distant from the world. Before my infection, I was enrolled in a selective specialty engineering school and planned on pursuing a career in the field. Even with plentiful teacher support, my health made it so that I could no longer keep up, and I had to drop out. I was a pianist of eleven years at that time, and I picked up viola and double bass around six years after I had begun. I had to stop playing string instruments entirely and was forced to leave the orchestras I was a member of, which devastated me. Piano was the only passion I could keep active during that time, and I dove into it as a way to cope. Understandably, my mental health collapsed; I became severely depressed and dissociative, and I entirely lost my sense of self-worth. My social life crumbled as I no longer had the energy to keep up with friends. My anxiety became overbearing, and I became highly avoidant of school. At my lowest, I ended up admitted to a mental health facility during the last two weeks of the school year. My mental and physical recoveries have taken extraordinary amounts of well-paced effort, but it has proved fruitful and brought me to a much better place. Through slow and careful reintroduction, I have picked up nearly all of my lost hobbies and instruments, and my physical strength is close to where it was before my infection. I've learned to adapt where I have not fully recovered and now focus intensely on my health. Over this time, I have had to reset myself and have considerably grown. I've relearned who I am and developed an even greater love for my passion of music, one of the only things that got me through the period. Now, I am months away from attending a conservatory to study piano performance and am on track to make my future out of it. Viola and bass are back in my life, and I am back playing in orchestras. While engineering is no longer my career goal, I still engage with it non-academically and keep it part of my life. While going through everything I have over the past few years has been extremely difficult, I am glad it set me on the path it did, and I am excited to see where it brings me going forward.