Brain Tumor Action Network

Source: The Clarion-Ledger

Gary Pettus
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After the hurricane, Myrielle Segue lost her home.

Before the surgery, she almost lost her eyesight.

But, in her quest for a high school diploma, she never lost one minute.

Segue, 18, graduated from Bailey Magnet High School on Tuesday – and on time.

It’s probably safe to say that of the 90 or so Bailey students awarded degrees that day, she was the only one who had to go through Hurricane Katrina and a brain tumor to get hers.

“It was brilliant on her part,” said Timothy Speech, Segue’s history teacher at the Jackson public school.

“She never used her problems as an excuse.”

As with many people from New Orleans, Segue’s problems began on Aug. 29, 2005.

The approach of Katrina forced part of her family to flee to Monroe, while she, her mother and two aunts raced to Jackson.

“We came to Jackson because my pastor in New Orleans knew a pastor out here – Phillip Coleman,” she said, referring to the late Bishop Coleman, whose ministry at Greater Bethlehem Temple would aid scores of Katrina evacuees.

Segue would learn that her family’s house in the 7th Ward was heavily damaged by the storm. Then, it was torn down.

“They built other stuff on that land,” she said.

“But I thought we would still go back to New Orleans one day. Then my mom said she didn’t want to go back.”

By then, Segue, mother Marie Johnson and aunt Michelle Johnson had been living together in Mississippi about a year.

Segue had transferred to Bailey at the beginning of the ninth grade, swapping the purple and gold of New Orleans’ Warren Easton High for the silver and black of her new school in Jackson.

She was 14.

Kids at school teased her by imitating a New Orleans accent, even though she doesn’t have one. It was OK with her; she missed the sound.

She missed the food, too, especially the red beans and rice and the gumbo.

She had learned to cook by watching her mother; in Jackson, she began to cook in earnest, spicing her dishes with the flavors of home.

One day, she realized she was homesick for something that was disappearing.

“I’ve visited there several times,” she said. “There are not a lot of people there.

“It’s changed; it’s not the same New Orleans.”

In a way, that made staying in Jackson easier. Leaving home had upset her.

“Then I started making friends,” she said. “I started having fun at school.”

The fun lasted until her sophomore year, until she went to see an eye doctor.

“She told me there was something causing my brain to swell,” Segue said.

“I had just gone in to get some glasses.”

Instead, she got an appointment with a brain specialist, who found the tumor. It could make her go blind.

“I cried at first,” she said.

“Then I went to the doctor who would do the surgery. He told me everything. He was joking with me.

“So I knew he felt confident that he knew what he was doing.”

She came out of the surgery fine, she said, but couldn’t go back to school at first. There were only a couple of months left in the school year.

So she did the work from home. Someone turned it in at school for her.

But her teachers noticed the change.

“She was a straight-A student until after the surgery,” Speech said.

“You presented the work to her, and she lapped it up.

“But now, textbook reading was difficult for her. The surgery slowed her down.”

In the fall, as she began her junior year, Segue was having trouble seeing.

“She began having constant headaches in class,” Speech said.

Her vision improved, but as the end of the year approached, she fretted over the state test in history.

She asked Speech for help.

“I tried to keep her constantly positive and motivated,” he said.

“For me, it was knowing a student who had the potential and was willing to work through difficulties that were beyond her control.”

Other teachers helped her, too.

“I have tried to think of any other students who have had to overcome the adversity she has, but I can’t,” said Mahala Lowe, a counselor at Bailey.

“But she stayed in good spirits. I believe her faith has a lot to do with that. She worked hard; she really did.”

She prayed hard, too, Segue said.

“God keeps me and assures me I will be all right.”

She was all right, particularly by her senior year, Speech said. “She started coming back. After she found out she passed the state test, she seemed to be OK.

“We’ve had a lot of Katrina students, and many have been good kids. I can say that Myrielle seemed to be a notch above the rest, academically and maturity-wise.

“It was a privilege to have her come to my classroom.”

Her time in the classroom has made her relatives proud, said Johnson, her aunt.

“A lot of people in the family haven’t graduated from high school. It means a lot to them.”

For Segue, it means she can go on to Hinds Community College, then on to Mississippi State or Tougaloo College.

She’ll major in elementary education, she said, “because I always dreamed of opening my own day care.”

In the meantime, she’ll still visit New Orleans and see her father, Will Segue, who lives in nearby Slidell.

“He likes to cook,” she said.