Caroline Clemens knows Allen. For 13 years she has worked here, grading essays, analyzing sentence structure and reading books just like any other English teacher. But there was a painful blip in Clemens’ timeline, a blip that once made doing what she loved, teaching, an impossibility due to her scleroderma.

“Everybody had been rooting for me, and [there were] lots of prayers because a lot of people in my situation wouldn’t have come back,” Clemens said, “either because they would’ve gone on disability or they wouldn’t have made it, but I did, and I got really lucky.”

Scleroderma is an autoimmune rheumatic disease, with symptoms that range from mild to life threatening. First described to her as similar to arthritis, Clemens was diagnosed in 2005, with her condition quickly worsening from 2007 until her stroke in 2010.  Clemens was the 2010 Love Week recipient.

“[The Love Week nomination] was a godsend,” Clemens said. “I didn’t want to accept it because I thought that someone else would be more deserving, but I wound up being kind of pressured into accepting it. I was so sick that I couldn’t work, so I lived off of that money.”

Clemens said that she could cry just at the thought of how generous people were while she was ill, with one card from a cafeteria worker sticking in her mind.

“He said, ‘I saw your struggle in the news or in the newspaper, and I just wanted to let you know that we’re thinking of you and praying for you,’” Clemens said. “This is a guy I had never seen before in my life. And that’s what you need to hear when you’re so, so low.”.

While Clemens was ill, a co-teacher was hired to work with her at a time she would often have to leave school by 11 in the morning because she felt so weak and lethargic.

“I think I would be a different person without all of this,” Clemens said. “I know I would. So it’s not all terrible. A lot of it was terrible. I have battled a lot of pain, but the way I treat people and the way that people treat me, [it] just changes your outlook on life.”

Clemens continues to teach and travel in addition to attending physical therapy to build up her strength. She said that the school’s community and support of her coworkers and students helped her pull through.

“My students, they are a big, big reason, they are really the only reason I fought so hard to come back,” Clemens said.  “I could be on disability right now, [but] I need to have purpose, and this school gives me that purpose.”