Why I'm glad I have Crohn's Disease

When I was in 8^th grade, my family and I went to visit my dad’s military friend in Virginia (or West Virginia, I don’t remember). One morning I was standing in the bathroom straightening my hair and I could hear my dad talking to his friend. He was saying that his daughter (i.e. me) thinks she can handle anything on her own and she never thinks she’s in over her head. Having taken great pride in my independent spirit, I was pretty pumped about this description of myself until he continued and said, “I’m worried about her; one of these days, someone’s going to knock her down”.

            I was livid. I remember staring at myself in the mirror, hair half straightened, tears streaming down my face (I cry when I’m mad) thinking “what does he know? I can do anything. How dare he think someone’s going to take me down. I’m not weak” Had I thought about this logically at this point (something  of which an 8^th grader is simply incapable of doing) I may have realized that my mindset was proving his point. I was an egotistical, stubborn twerp who literally thought nothing could harm me.

    A picture from that weekend at my dad's friend's house. I don't know what about my braces

 and ridiculously high volume hair made me think I was so tough. Summer 2005

            I would love to be able to tell you that overhearing this conversation made me realize the error of my ways and I began to humble myself accordingly; however, I am not, and definitely was not at that time, that big of a person. Instead I decided in that moment that I was never going to ask for help again. I would do everything on my own and take the world by storm. You’re probably thinking, that’s really dumb and completely unrealistic. Well, what can I say? I was a brat.

            Fast forward a year and a half and we reach the point where I’m in pain. I remember starting to feel bad or starting to feel symptoms and thinking, it’ll go away. Nothing is seriously wrong with me. Then it started to be more frequent. Then every day. Finally I thought maybe I should tell my mom. I did. We went to the doctors and they said nothing was wrong with me. Besides that this is annoying to everyone, it was a particular blow to my ego. I finally broke down and asked someone for help and they told me I was wrong. “Well forget them” I thought. “See if I ask for their help again”. Luckily for me, I have incredible parents who didn’t take no for an answer. About a year later and ridiculous amounts of hospital time and different doctors, we had a diagnosis. I was young and quite frankly I only listened to half of what the doctors said, partly because I was in so much pain I didn’t care and partly because it irritated me that they spoke directly to my parents instead of me and I had convinced myself that all doctors were morons by this point, but what I understood when they said I had Crohn’s Disease was that it was never going to go away.

            They were right. I went through many different treatment options, had to take off school, had to go to school with a million wires hooked up to my chest, and sometimes had to not do things I wanted to do (most notably cheerleading camp, which is the only fight my mom and I have had to date. 14 year old girls have a lot of emotions), because my body couldn’t do it. While I’ve learned a lot from all of those experiences the best thing that had happened as a direct result is that I was humbled. Finally. Thank God.

Hanging out in the hospital during one of my 4 hour intravenous treatments -Summer 2007

            Here I had a mind that thought it could conquer the world without a single drop of help from anyone and a body that shot immobilizing pain into me at any given moment. Yup, that’s right. Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease, which means my body was attacking itself. If that isn’t humbling, I don’t know what is. My mind eventually caught up. I wasn’t all powerful. I couldn’t do everything by myself. I needed help.  I think that realization is what allowed me to later become open to the idea of allowing God into my life. I needed to be humbled. I needed to learn how to ask for help before I could let God take over my life. He met me where I was, upset, broken, and prideful and started to pull me out and thank goodness he did. Turns out, I make some pretty crappy decisions on my own.

            I’m not saying I’ve perfected the art of being humble. Far from it. I still tend to try to do too much on my own and try to take on too much, but then when I get too stressed or try to do too much my body stops me, puts me in pain, and reminds me to calm myself.  I thought about this the other day, after I had to leave work early because I was just feeling too sick, and I was sitting on the stoop in front of my house and thought, “how blessed am I that God gave me a body that tells me when to slow down”. 

            So when I tell you I’m not feeling good one day, or I have to go home because I’m in too much pain, or I pass out in public, don’t feel bad for me. Learning to be humble and asking for help has allowed me to become a more generous and more gracious person. Having an invisible disease has allowed me to recognize that everyone has their own struggles that I don’t know about and it has allowed me to be sensitive to that and that is far better and far more important to me than having a healthy body. 

           
To learn more about Crohn's Disease and find out how you can join the fight visit : www.ccfa.org