The day before Thanksgiving of this year, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, which is a disease that causes inflammation in the lining of my digestive tract. Its symptoms include extreme abdominal pain, diarrhea, fatigue, joint pain, fever, weight loss, skin lesions, and other not so glamorous things. It’s not curable, just treatable with various medications and lifestyle changes.
It all started a few weeks before the start of my sophomore year of college. I started getting mild stomach cramps after eating, and was using the bathroom a little more than usual. I passed it off that the excitement of going back to school plus the fact I would be rushing in the fall was just making my body react a little differently. I told myself that it would probably be that way for the first weeks of school anyway as I adjusted back to college food. Only it didn't stop; and instead, got slightly worse. Soon, I was going through recruitment while also having worry if something was seriously wrong. Despite this, recruitment was a great experience and I found my home in Kappa Delta.
As time went on, my symptoms got worse, and it was harder to hide my yet-to-be-diagnosed disease. While my friends from last year knew what was going on, I felt embarrassed to tell my new sisters. As someone who adjusts to friendship slowly, I didn't know how much I could share. I downplayed my symptoms, saying I just got stomach aches when I ate, or that I had to study instead of attending a mixer when really I was lying on my couch, too fatigued to move. I stopped going to meals at the house, usually because my stomach hurt too much to eat or because I was so exhausted from the day that I slept through dinner time. When I did go, someone would comment that they never saw me around anymore. I would laugh and play it off that I was just too busy with schoolwork to make it over for meals.
When I received the diagnosis, the doctor immediately rushed to tell me not to get depressed, and reassured me that I was going to live a long and healthy life. And the thing was, I didn’t feel depressed. In fact, I almost felt relieved. Not because of the diagnosis, but that I would immediately be able to start treating it. Because after over three months of just having to “just deal” with nearly unbearable symptoms, I was ready to try and fight this.
And for a few weeks, I did, until my symptoms flared up even worse during finals week. I lost even more weight and could barely bring myself to eat. I started to improve slightly over winter break, only to get sick with an infection due to Crohn’s. Christmas morning, as I awakened with a fever, I wondered if I would ever not be sick. It seemed like every time I started to improve in one area, something else got worse. Only then did it sink in that I had a chronic illness I would be dealing with this for the rest of life. So what to do? Besides retreating from life and giving up, my only real option was to try my best to not let it define me.
Although I am in the early stages of my diagnosis, I am trying to be optimistic. Through this whole process, I've become a stronger person. The bad days make me appreciate the healthy ones. I've also realized people can’t help you if they don’t know what is going on, which means instead of dealing with things on my own like I normally do, I need to learn to ask for support when I need it. I don’t know what the future holds; I’m still figuring out which foods I can and cannot eat and I won’t know for a few months if my current medication plan is working or not. There are a lot of unknowns in my life right now, but if the past few months have taught me anything, it’s that I can handle whatever comes my way.
