I'm a fairly private person so I feel like this will probably be my only transformation post. The photo on the left was taken in October 2013, a few weeks after the start of my senior year of college and the photo on the right was taken last week. I'm not sure if many of you know my story but at the age of 13 I was diagnosed with Crohns disease (an autoimmune disease that attacks the digestive system), I had made it through high school fairly unscathed with my Crohns symptoms. When I got to college my health had turned for the worse with more intense Crohns flares that had sent me to the hospital a few times. When I hit my senior year of college I was almost done healing from a flare, when all of a sudden I had woken up from my sleep with excruciating stomach pain. The pain was so bad that I went to the hospital. Little did I know that I wouldn't leave the hospital for another month. I was flown on a medical plane to a hospital close to my home so the doctors who had known me for years could keep an eye on me. After some time the doctors had done all they could for me and they told me that my only option was to have life saving surgery that results in a colostomy. I was distraught by the news, I felt like my life was falling a part, I had just withdrawn from my senior year of college, I was upset that I was missing out on so much, and now I was getting a surgery I did not want. It took a lot of convincing from my family to have the surgery. I felt like I was volunteering to do something that would make me unhappy. Recovering from surgery was both tough physically and mentally. My biggest battle was excepting my current reality. I used to pride myself on seeming like I was confident coexisting with my Crohns diseases. When in reality I had always struggled with depression since I was diagnosed. Having this surgery really broke me, catapulting my depression into uncharted and debilitating territory. I don't think I would have made it through that time in my life without being prescribed antidepressants. I was only able to open up to a few friends about the pain I was going through. After a few months of recovery I was well enough both physically and mentally (the antidepressants really made a difference) to go back to college. Living on my own with a colostomy brought its own struggles traversing the last two quarters of college. I was always okay talking to people one on one about my colostomy (I'd rather someone hear my story from me than through the grapevine), but I always felt like I needed to keep it a secret. I didn't want people to view me as the girl with a colostomy. It was a part of my life but it did not define who I was. Even though people have probably heard this phrase a million times, time really does heal. As the months went by I began to accept my reality, and the bad days struggling with my depression began to grow less and less. I still have my bad days but those are now few and far between. Today I am probably the healthiest I've ever been. My colostomy has helped me become more humble and an ability to look at life differently. I've learned that you can never tell what someone else is going through by looking at them, many people didn't know I had a colostomy under my shirt and that I was struggling with severe anxiety and depression. I also believe that when one door closes another door opens. That still applied to me getting a colostomy. At the beginning of senior year I had an idea of how my life was going to pan out, having a colostomy threw a huge wrench into the mix. Due to me withdrawing from my fall term of senior year I was not going to be able to graduate on time at the beginning of June with my fellow classmates. While recovering in the hospital I learned about an Ireland summer study abroad program that would fulfill my requirements to graduate. I went on the trip and was able to see places and meet friends that I never would have if I hadn't missed fall term. It was from that trip that I got the travel bug and had promised myself that I wouldn't stop exploring the world. These past three and a half years have had their ups and downs but I know I would not be the strong woman I am today without the good and bad life experiences I've been through. If you know someone that in any way has dealt or struggles with anything that I have talked about, whether it's having a Crohn's disease, any autoimmune disease, a colostomy, and/or has struggled with depression or anxiety please feel free to share this with them. I know that when I was struggling to accept my condition, the thing that helped was finding/seeing people that I could relate to. Thank you to those who took the time to read this. And thank you to those who have been there to help me over these past 12 years, I don't think I would be alive today without you. #ihaveapreexistingcondition #colostomy #ostomy #myostomystory #invisibleillness #crohnsdisease #crohns #autoimmunedisease
