I don't even think I went to the first
week of school my junior year. Sick to my stomach and sick of my situation, I
was confined to my bed, living off of antibiotics, day after day.
"Gastroparesis," (a partial paralysis of the stomach) the doctors
diagnosed, after what had seemed like endless tests over the past three and a
half years. I had grown accustomed to the doctor's smell of rubbing alcohol and
the sound of beeping monitors rather than the typical teenage experience.
"You still go here?" acquaintances would ask when I was able to
attend school.
"Sometimes!" I would joke
back, making light of an unavoidable situation I was not fond of. Following the
awkward reunion, most questioned my explanation; and although I knew the
answer, "I just get sick a lot," was always my response.
However, I didn't simply just
get sick frequently. I contracted this disease following sleepless months due
to post-traumatic stress syndrome. I still imagine, as if it were yesterday,
the lifeless body drifting in the depths of my pool, screams from every
direction as I lifted this dripping, innocent, six-year-old girl's body onto
the concrete and began CPR. "One, two, three," I counted aloud as I
compressed on her weak, colorless chest. It wasn't working. After what had
seemed like an eternity, I finally heard the sirens come closer for the help I
had just recently called. "Get in the ambulance," I was told. Where
was my family? I arrived at the hospital, shaking, struggling to catch my
breath, awaiting the final verdict. The little girl was dead, on that glorious
Sunday afternoon.
Our kind intention of helping
the homeless—a good meal and clean clothes--turned into a tragic horror. I
arrived home to my family as the sun was setting. They were not alone.
Policemen, detectives, doctors, therapists, and more swarmed throughout the
house investigating. It was endless. Closing my eyes meant revisiting the
horror in a perpetual loop— sleep was not an option. My immune system weakened
and my body broke down over the following months.
I waited for the doctor to return to my
patient room, probably to tell me I had the flu again. Not only was I not
getting better, I was getting worse. What was wrong with me? “Chronic
pneumonia,” the doctors unsurely concluded. I quickly obtained a team of
doctors that went straight into testing. I was admitted into the outpatient
center in the hospital, a place I visited no less than twice a week. I soon said
good-bye to my friends and teachers as I had to leave school in order to
improve my failing heath. We expected my first round of blood tests to return
quickly to confirm the pneumonic bacterium and uncover the reasons I wasn’t
getting better. According to several blood examinations, my tests returned negative.
My doctors couldn’t think of another explanation.
At this point and for the next three
years I would undergo countless tests, diets, surgery, medications, and
probiotics, all of which didn’t work. The sound of beeping monitors and the
smell of sterilized supplies became my home. We were running out of approaches
when the bittersweet crisis arose. Finally, my doctors had discovered the root
of my illness, Gastroparesis. Unfortunately, this disease is extremely rare and
not curable. “Your health will continue to deteriorate,” my doctor confessed
with heartbreak in her eyes, meaning that within months, I would need to choose
between a feeding tube for the rest of my life, essentially confining me to
life within a hospital, or slow starvation to death. I couldn’t accept this
choice and decided with my parents to work harder and do more.
After months of searching and
excruciating illness we discovered a Gram-negative bacterium called
Helicobacter pylori evolving within my stomach lining. With the presence of
this infection, my Gastroparesis was likely to develop much quicker. Fortunately,
there are procedures to terminate H. pylori, and I was freed. Following surgery
and several weeks of heavy medications, my infection was gone and my
Gastroparesis plateaued. Shocked by this result, my doctors applauded my
diligence and explained that they had never seen nor heard of any Gastroparesis
patient ever plateauing.
Although simply getting out of bed
every morning remained an enormous struggle, I learned to cope with my
condition while I slowly recovered my losses. Pale from lack of sunlight and
bruised from IVs, my mother encouraged me to fight. “This hour is hard, I know,
but the next hour will be a little easier, and the next easier than before. Keep
pushing and you will win,” she told me every morning, with tears in her eyes,
as she could see my struggle. I am now able to live without the fears and the
sadness, to look past the negative and find the positive, to "work a
little harder to be a little better," as Gordon B. Hinckley wisely spoke,
professing a motto I immediately adopted.
Throughout these trials I have
learned to be resilient, to not allow obstacles to keep me down. Upon returning
to my more normal schedule— school, tennis, church, and extracurricular
activities— no one couldn’t believe my turn around. “Congratulations on your
win,” my rival’s coach admitted to me with defeat, glaring down at my IV scared
arms that held the CIF Championship trophy. Although the memory of that tragic
accident and the resulting challenges have often been trying and painful, I
would not be the young woman I am today without them. I have gained a better
understanding of myself and have become a deeper, wiser, and more resilient
individual.
Oh my goodness! It was so fantastic to be home!!!!! I rushed straight from the plane to the warm sand at seven o'clock at night. Yes, warm sand at night. As I left Salt Lake City it was a whopping 23 degrees and snowing, but as I exited the Los Angeles Airport the California breeze of 74 degrees rushed throughout my body. I was home. After my quick jump into the Malibu ocean, I hurried home, just a minute away from the sand, to see my beloved best friend, Bella. Bella is my puppy, even though she's eight years old, a mom of seven, and only acts like a puppy in spurts of excitement.
