MARY LOU JEPSEN SEEMS TO HAVE lived many lives. In her twenties, she created the first hologram video system, played in a band, hung out with Lou Reed and Andy Warhol and began a doctoral degree at Brown University. Then she was overtaken by a mysterious illness that not only left her physically bedridden and wheelchair-bound, but also rendered her unable to do the high-level math she needed to do to complete her degree. Even simple arithmetic eluded her.
“I was utterly defeated,” she says. “I went home to die.”