When You Think You’ll ‘Outgrow’ Your Chronic Illness
For some people, the high school experience is defined by sports games, high school boyfriends, friends and parties. Or maybe that’s just a misjudgment I’ve made based on high school movies. I still think even the snarkiest people have some faint optimism their high school lives will be like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” or “10 Things I Hate About You.” Heck, I wouldn’t have minded if it was “High School Musical.”
For me though, a person who’s had health issues affecting nearly every body system since I was 13, high school was defined by medical situations. It was blood tests before school and after-school doctors’ appointments. While some people missed a week of school to go away to a sports camp or a music event, I was in the hospital, catching up on work in a stiff bed and asking the night shift nurses to explain a biology concept while they did observations. When I was in classes, I struggled. Grade-wise, I was on top of the world. I could have gotten into an occupational therapy course in my country. However, it wasn’t hard to miss that I was dizzy; walking a few extra meters could mean passing out. Some days I was nauseous and didn’t eat much. One time, I remember being self-conscious to wear a bikini because of the black and purple bruise marks all over my ribs, collarbone and legs.
However, I graduated. I finished my exams. My school uniform was discarded. I was onto the next stage of life. But what is the next stage of life when you struggled through the previous one? For me, a top student and a “Type A” person, the next step was university. I packed up my suitcases, and my dad dropped me off in a place where I didn’t know anyone, at a university I didn’t know much about. However, it was the course I wanted to take.
Before I moved and before graduation, people who had known me for years asked where I would be living. I said my grandma’s house. However, when I moved out with scholarship money that could cover my rent, I decided I could be my own woman: cook my food, vacuum my carpet, sleep whenever I wanted. Hadn’t I outgrown the chronic illness thing?
In retrospect, I think the issue was that I associated being ill with a place. The concrete stairs I had fainted on at school, where they had to call an ambulance because I hit my head. How I always got dizzy on the long walk from biology to English. How every Friday I would go home on the bus, walk into my house and fall asleep, not waking up until mid-Sunday morning.
Then there were memories associated with chronic illness being a time in my life. I could mistakenly think it was something like puberty — something with an end date that I would outgrow. For example, when I got my period, I got so dizzy I almost fainted. When the first guy I really liked told me he found someone else, I was waiting to be admitted for two weeks of inpatient rehabilitation. Chronic illness, high school and growing up were all intangible concepts.
It took me a solid year to remember what chronic illness was like, and it was a year and a half before I dropped out. I tried too hard until one day, I wheeled into the student guild in a wheelchair, and my friends (who I had never mentioned health problems to) wondered where I had attained such an object. The hardest thing was realizing some of the reason I crashed was my own fault: the alcohol I drank even though I shouldn’t have, the awkward meal times with clumsily arranged food, the weird sleeping schedules. After I realized that though, I could pick myself back up. I realized I had done well managing my health as a teenager, and I could do the same as an adult.
Now, I no longer do occupational therapy but have re-enrolled in law school and am excited for what being a not-so-healthy university law student can bring.
The Mighty is asking the following: Share with us an unexpected moment with a teacher, parent or student during your (or your loved one’s) school year. If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to community@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio. Check out our Submit A Story page for more about our submission guidelines.
Lead photo source: Thinkstock Images
Rhianne can usually be found with her head buried in a book, drowning in university work for her law degree or at the beach. She talks as fast as the characters on “Gilmore Girls,” loves cheesecake and has an irrational fear of mice. She lives with her partner in a haunted apartment, and she blogs and tweets about writing, her experiences with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and whatever else is going on.
rhianne-conway