My Journey

Hi everyone, I was 12 years old, I’ve been through hundreds of doctors and tests got the growth hormone shot every night, and wore the patch. It was a lot to handle but my family is a blessing who have dragged me to every doctor's appointment since I was 2, the only thing I wish is that my mom was a little more sympathetic throughout the process. I have graduated high school with a regents diploma and I am now in my second year of college I am going to be a veterinary technician. I have a job as a vet assistant at a hospital, it is my pride and joy to work in that field and I love every minute of it.

I was very sick as a kid but was fairly healthy except for recurrent UTIs until about 4 years ago when my first problems started with very heavy and irregular periods and then started having some abdominal pain and some constipation then diarrhea started and slowly progressed. At first, I was stable with diarrhea for a few days at a time which they thought was IBS until I had gotten very sick one day and a CT scan showed Colitis but at first, it was not known. Then I had a stool sample done and was positive for c diff and a Crohn's Disease maker(calprotection) when I originally got c diff it was out of nowhere was not on antibiotics or in a hospital when I had caught it. But overall I’ve had 3 relapses of c diff, countless UTIs, kidney infection, and had 3 colonoscopies. The first showed hemorrhoids and the second showed inflammation in the rectum, the third and most recent colonoscopy showed Colitis and I’ve now been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. And am now going to be put on Apriso.

I’ve also had an upper gi endoscopy that showed gastritis and esophagitis. I’ve had recently a surgery for cystoscope with hydrodistention and a biopsy of the bladder showed interstitial cystitis and chronic inflammation. A recent CT scan has also shown enlarged lymph nodes in multiple areas a nodule in the lung which was thought to be lymphoma when more lymph nodes have popped up that I can see one on the neck and another on the groin which has been biopsied and showed inflammation with cells and inconclusive for lymphoma and was unable to tell what is causing the inflammation and I also have a lump on my chest which I am not sure if it’s a lymph node or not. I am in the process of being tested for things that can cause immune system problems and enlarged lymph nodes so I guess we will see but still working on a diagnosis for that. Even though I am still on this journey I hope to find a happy place and hope others can find inspiration in my story it’s a very hard road and I know there more ahead.