Going away to college for the first time is a crazy transition for almost any young adult. You have to make new friends all over again, figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life, and it's the first time you are really away from your parents. Freshman year of college is an amazing year in that way. It's the year where you can finally figure out who you really are in a place away from your childhood home. It’s a new start. For me, my freshman year of college was that and much more. It was the year I finally figured out what I was truly made of. That was the year I got my biggest challenge yet -- a challenge that I still face today.
I guess it really started the summer before I went away. I remember sitting at my graduation party with all my family and friends, eating all sorts of food, and putting hot sauce all over everything that I felt it went with. I had an obsession with hot sauce back then and put it on the weirdest things like eggs, rice, and even sandwiches. For some reason, I guess it was the amount of food I ate, my stomach started to hurt like crazy, almost like someone had punched it really hard. The pain left as soon as it came though. My family looked at me worried, and asked if I was OK. I told them I was and that it was just a little stomachache. At that time, I thought it was just a one time thing. Oh, how wrong I was.
The stomach pains started to progress over the summer. I working almost full-time as a camp counselor then, hanging out with my high school friends one last time, and getting ready to go away. I thought I was too busy to see a doctor and never really made an appointment with one. My energy level started to drop as well. There were some times where I’d come home from work and go right to sleep. I blamed my tiredness on the hot weather and on how active my job was. It was only towards the end of the summer that I began to think that something was really wrong with me.
I was hanging out at one of my friend's apartments having a toast of wine before I went away to college. It was the first alcoholic drink I ever really had more than a sip of. My stomach felt awful that night and it was too late to make a doctor's appointment. I was about to leave for college in a few days.
For some reason, I was afraid to tell my mom about how I felt. When she was 24, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic illness that causes inflammation through the digestive tract. I remember it clearly, me always trying to persuade her to get up and do things with me as a little kid. Sometimes she was too tired to and I never understood why. Although she was tired, she would still always make her best effort to do things with me. I also never understood why there where so many things she wouldn't eat, like ice cream. I can't even say I understood when I was 7 years old why she had surgery to get part of her digestive tract removed. It's hard trying to explain what Chron's is to people, especially kids. Luckily the surgery worked for my mom and made her feel better. Right now, I can say that she is the one person who understands me the most. When I first told her, I thought I had it. She didn’t want to believe me though. I didn’t want to believe myself either.
A lot of awesome stuff happened in my first semester. I made new friends, figured out that I love my major, and even experienced some new things. One of those new things was drinking. I remember the first time I really tried it. I borrowed my roommates spinny chair and was spinning all down the hallway in it laughing and acting like an idiot. It was fun, but at the same time I did it sparingly since I cared a lot about my grades. Little did I know how much I was hurting myself. Within my first week of college, I finally saw a doctor as well and thought they were going to find out what was wrong with me right away and fix it. I was wrong. That semester I visited the health center literally every week and no answers were ever found. They would just run more tests on me and tell me to come back the next week.
It was frustrating, especially when I had to quit going to the gym. In high school, I was always a very active person, running cross country in the fall, and track and field in the winter and spring. I did that all four years. Being a runner was always something I always define myself as, but exercising felt nearly impossible with the amount of energy I had. I spent a lot of time that semester just sleeping. After a bunch more tests with no answer, they finally decided it was probably best to see a professional stomach doctor, a gastrointestinal (GI) specialist. Since no GI doctor in Plattsburgh took my insurance, I had to wait until winter break to go home and see one. This drove me insane. I remember one night driving my roommate crazy. She had to deal with my hysterics when I Googled my symptoms and was almost convinced by the results that I had colon cancer. I learned that it's not a good idea to diagnose yourself using the Internet
By the end of the semester, I was a totally different person. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who was emaciated. I must have lost almost 30 pounds that semester and my clothes just hung from me. I no longer wanted to be in denial by then. All I wanted, out of everything, was to just feel better and be my old self again. It didn’t take long for the GI doctor to figure out what was wrong with me when I came home. After a single procedure, I woke up and was finally told what I sort of knew already - that I had the same illness as my mom.
I felt a little down for a while. I was happy to be treated, but at the same time sad that there was no cure. I was almost scared to go back to college too; afraid to eat in the dining hall since the list of foods I could no longer eat was enormous. No longer could I ever eat popcorn, drink alcohol, put hot sauce on anything, or even have a salad. The list went on. It took me a while to adjust to the new lifestyle I had to live, but eventually I got used to everything and I was grateful medicine was making me feel better. I was finally gaining back weight as well and eventually was able to go back to the gym again. One of the hardest things on that list for me, though, was alcohol.
The number of times in college someone had offered me a drink was enormous and the temptation was always there. I was usually pretty good at following what I needed to do to feel better, but once I felt better, I convinced myself that I was cured and fell into the temptation. This caused me to relapse and made me truly feel sad. It made it really stick in my head that this thing I have is truly for life. I eventually got tired of feeling sorry for myself though, and I no longer wanted to stop having fun with my friends so, I decided my illness still wouldn't stop me. It also got kind of annoying trying to explain to people why I couldn't drink, so I’d go out with my friends like usual and instead of actually drinking, I’d just pretend.
I remember last Halloween being at a party. I simply filled a red solo cup up with water and ran around telling people I was drinking vodka. “It’s called tap vodka,” I said to anyone who would ask and it became a running joke among my friends, who thought it was funny how deceitful I was being, but hey, when you have limitations, you sometimes have to make your own fun. I danced and had a good time just like everyone else and even played drinking games with my “tap vodka” as well. It was pretty funny too, having people be amazed at my "drunk" coordination. I didn’t mind being the sober person at outings anymore, because it was sort of rewarding as well. I could then be the friend everyone can rely on when going out. When all my friends laughed and acted silly, I'd laugh right along. That's the great thing about laughter -- it's contagious.
When I was first diagnosed, I used to think about Crohn's a lot and I felt like a truly ill person, but now I have some days where I can almost forget I have it. In the past year and a half, I really learned what I was made of. I realized that there is a lot more in life to be grateful for as well. Stressing over small stuff now seems crazy because you never know what tomorrow will bring. If you have your health, both mentally and physically, almost anything in life is possible. Even if I’m not 100 percent healthy, though, I get around and still live my life and have fun. I just do it a little differently, and that’s OK.
