Finding Your Inner Strengths Through Hardships

Life hits you with challenges every single day giving you the ultimate test; can you handle it? Everyone is born strong, but it isn't until you are faced with challenges that your true strength shows. Strength comes from within using the mind and the body together. Nowadays, strength is recognized as being on the outside as who has the biggest and/or most muscles, but that strength can only get you so far. The strength I'm referring to is our inner strength; the strength that makes us who we are and the type of strength that is challenged everyday. Take my situation with Crohn's disease into perspective. My battle with Crohn's disease changed a lot of aspects in my life. All throughout my life I lived with anxiety and I had a hard time going out of my comfort zone. I wouldn't go places because I was scared of shootings, bombings, etc. Yeah that may sound extreme for a young kid to worry about but that's what anxiety is. With anxiety, you worry about every single thing no matter how big or little it is in reality. I was terrified of the little things too such as hospitals, doctors appointments, amusement parks, and sleepovers. As you will see, I had to get over those things real fast.

My story all began with excruciating pain 24/7 for about 3 months of my life. It wasn't until Super Bowl Sunday where I couldn't bear the pain anymore. It surmounted from blood test to blood test, one after the other ultimately giving us no answers. I went to a GI doctor and was ordered to go for a colonoscopy and endoscopy. I had never been under anesthesia and the idea of this terrified me. Not only did the anesthesia scare me but the idea of having to be in a hospital and getting another IV. It was the morning of the colonoscopy and I hadn't been able to eat for the past 8 hours, I believe, and I was to report to the hospital for the procedure. I will never forget the support and help I had from the Child Life Specialist while I was anxiously waiting for my name to be called. The entire time he talked to me about interior design and about the show "Fixer Upper," a common interest we both shared. He had me laughing and honestly made me forget where I was the entire time. I never had the opportunity to thank him for all the help and I wish I could because he helped me through a lot and that's an understatement. I had gotten over my first procedure ever and this is when my strength started to form. I had defied one odd that I never saw myself doing.

Then came the diagnosis of Crohn's disease. Not only did it come with the news of the diagnosis but all the things that could potentially happen to me throughout my life. The words that echoed in my head were, "There is no cure...lasts forever." This was life altering for me and I didn't want to accept it but I knew I had no other choice. Along with this bad news came news of me having to get an MRI to make sure there were no complications of Crohn's that could affect my treatment. The scheduled day I had failed to continue with the procedure because I was terrified. The noises and how claustrophobic the machine was along with drinking the contrast got to me. During this time, it had become unbearable to eat and drink for there was excruciating pain in my stomach, so drinking this solution (3 bottles) was almost impossible. I went back for round two and conquered it like a champ, but the news that came along with the MRI made me break down instead. I had been told by my doctor that what they feared happened would. The MRI showed traces of 2 abscesses and a fistula attached to my lower intestine. The fistulas were taking all of my essential nutrients which explained all the weight loss throughout the months. The abscesses were on my spine and my pelvic bone. The worry now arose of what to do if there was a risk of the abscesses perforating. We were told that if they were to perforate I would show signs such as a fever and I would need to be rushed to the hospital immediately. If they were to perforate, I would have contracted sepsis which is a life threatening infection in my blood stream. Sadly, we had a run in with this scare and I was admitted into the hospital and ordered to have an emergency CT scan. The doctors wanted to see if they could drain the abscesses but because of where they were located, they didn’t want to take that risk. Due to the unsuccessful drainage of the abscesses, I was put on a medication that required me to get a PICC line which is essentially an IV but it is put into a bigger vein. The doctors wanted me to admit myself into the hospital so I could get this procedure along with introducing a medication to try and help shrink the abscesses. This was another hurdle I had to face and where I found my inner strength. As mentioned earlier, I was terrified of hospitals, doctors, etc and now I had to stay in a hospital for a week. After this hospitalization, I was to stay home with this pump that fit in the palm of your hand and administer medication every 6 hours. With this pump, I went to school every day and that was very challenging. The stares everyone gave me because of how deathly skinny I was made me feel like I was a ghost of some sort haunting the school. Everyone showed me pity in the school and during times like these no one understands that you don’t want their pity. You just want to be treated as human as possible. Inner strength doesn’t have to be influenced by others around you. It can be solely inside of you and found because of YOUR moral reasonings not because of others. I, in this case, found the strength in me to go places without worrying about the reactions. Would I see the reactions? Of course, but I knew myself what I was going through and that by me going out and not letting this horrible time in my life define me or stop me that I had grown stronger as a person.

Sadly, after another MRI the results came back saying that the medication had not worked. The idea came back to try and drain them, but the risk outweighed the possible outcome. There was no other option but surgery and I was totally against this. This was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. Yet again I had no choice. If you were to know me personally before this, you would know that I like to have control over things in my life and by me not having a choice about this let alone my own body killed me. I wanted to chose what to do with my own body and it felt stripped from me and placed in the hands of strangers with a degree. The sad thing was that when it was surgery as the only option and I switched doctors, I had to go through all of these tests, PICC lines, and medications all over again.

When it came to surgery, my family wanted the very best for me, so we went into New York for the specialists and what a game changer. My original surgeon had said that they didn’t like to take risks and that I would have a stoma bag along with maybe 2 or 3 surgeries to completely repair my intestines. The surgeon in New York had said there would be a 5% chance of a stoma bag and it would all be done in 1 surgery. When it came down to the decision of who we would choose we chose the New York doctor. In preparation for the surgery, I had to be hospitalized, yet again, and as a result I was told that I wouldn’t be able to eat any hard food for the week leading up to the surgery. This was devastating to me and I even negotiated with my surgeon if I could eat one cookie from my favorite bakery a day…he agreed. The amount of times I wanted to eat more than one cookie a day was surreal because I wanted that normalcy and control and it was taken away from me, yet again. During the week of prep for the surgery, I had to wear this 5 pound bag of TPN and lipids to keep myself nourished for the surgery. I was so weak and down to 79 pounds that in order for me to be healthy for the surgery they needed to bulk me up.

It was the morning of May 9, 2018 at the crack of dawn. I was tired out of my mind from lack of sleep from pre-surgery jitters as I headed to New York for the surgery. I still remember the sun rising from the bottom of the Hudson River to the top of the Freedom Tower as I drove into NYC on the George Washington Bridge that morning. There was a type of stillness in the city that morning, at least from what I saw, and the sun shined a little brighter that day. The skyscrapers touched the clouds and swayed through the sky slowly, as if they were following the taxi cabs roaming through the streets. As I checked into the hospital, the beauty of my surroundings flew away as all that I could see were the bland white walls and the boring beige floors. The fluorescent lights didn’t help make me feel any better at all. The only thing that made me better was the moment with my parents and grandparents in the pre-op room. We were all remembering things from when I was little and my grandpa was constantly trying to make me laugh…typical grandpa. Before I was brought into the operating room, we all had a group hug and I will always remember that feeling that went with that hug. This family had stuck by me in hard times and never showed me any fear, only strength and that is where I got my strength from.

The surgery was 4 hours long but I recovered very fast. The next day I was walking all over the place, eating, goofing around, etc for the first time in months. It was the best feeling in the world to walk without my stomach hurting, eat without my stomach hurting, and most importantly actually laugh and be myself. To this day, certain foods take me back to that time and I cannot eat them or drink them. All of those liquid diets, contrasts, horrible medications, etc ruined a lot of things in my life, but Crohn’s was the only thing that didn’t ruin one thing for me. Having this entire experience pushed me to excel in anything and everything and to learn the value of family and friends. Through tough times you find your true values that you can choose to live by and the one I found was the strength not only in yourself but the strength and bond with your family.

I challenge you to find that inner strength in yourself for YOURSELF. You have it in you and you don’t have to go through anything as traumatic as me, but just one small thing could change your perspective on yourself. Let me leave you with this last thought. Inner strength is when you are faced with something and you don’t let that define you and instead you climb and climb until you are at the very top. Don’t stop climbing because that strength is waiting to be claimed by you and you only.