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Tag: family

A Brain Tumor: Naming The Sick Monster

Although I was born healthy, the normal-happy-kid-thing didn’t last long. At age eight, I started having trouble walking long distances and standing for prolonged periods of time. My legs would get all wobbly and the room would get swirly and I would just feel exhaustion sweep over me like a blanket covering me from head to toe. I would just want to lie down on my bed, curl up around my collection of teddy bears, and take a nap, and that was even before I developed a brain tumor.

Things had significantly deteriorated by the age of nine. By the age of ten things were so bad that I’d had my first hospitalization because it became physically impossible for me to hold down any food or drinks. I ended up with my first NJ tube and my first surgery. The diagnosis was gastroparesis. The rest of my childhood was spent … Find Out What Happens Next

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Happiness is a Choice: I Choose Happy

On July 2nd, my parents, paternal grandparents, maternal grandmother, cousins, and a few friends from my homeschooling groups, and college were all gathered to wish me a happy birthday and celebrate my high school graduation.

This was a day that back in the sixth and seventh grade no one was sure would ever happen.  Yet here we were, with me already having completed a year of college, and maintaining a GPA of 4.0.

To your average Jane Doe, completing a year of college and turning nineteen might not seem that monumental (well I’ll toot my own horn, maintaining a 4.0 GPA is pretty impressive), but when you have a degenerative chronic illness nothing can be taken for granted. I was diagnosed with gastroparesis at the age of ten and my health has just steadily gone downhill from there to the point where more of my childhood was spent in the … Find Out What Happens Next

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School Bullies and Elephant Noses

A picture of my getting ready for my fist day of sixth grade

At just barely eleven years old, I had finally crossed the finish line of a several-month-long marathon hospital admission to Schneiders Children’s Hospital due to what my parents had tried to insist were psych issues. The hospital, on the other hand, had proved it was gastroparesis and some other mystery ailments causing heightened levels of inflammation in my blood tests. Terms like dysautonomia autoimmune had been thrown around, but at that point, I had no idea what any of that meant.

My family had recently moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts. This way we were closer to our extended family, like my grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and more.   We just wanted a fresh start anyway.

When sixth grade rolled around I started up at a new school.  No one was totally sure how things would work out. It was like we had just survived an earthquake and were now … Find Out What Happens Next

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