To the Teen Who Thinks Your Chronic Illness Means Your Dreams Are Crushed

“You are incredibly poised,” Carole King said to me.

Was I dreaming?

In 2007, at only 10-years-old, I auditioned at Radio City Music Hall and was later granted the opportunity to sing “America, the Beautiful” in the Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open. The following week, I was called back to sing a second time, and I was honored to open up for Carole King at the Women’s Finals. I felt like I was on top of the world — healthy, happy and carefree. If this is what people called The American Dream, I was definitely living it.

In 2008, my life took an unexpected nosedive. I became terribly sick with severe migraines where my mom would have to keep pressure on my head to alleviate some of the pain, and numbness in my legs. I would cry because my hair was thinning and falling out. It got so bad that I completely stopped eating and became a nightmare to my own eyes — a ghostly image of a frail, lethargic, sickly-looking figure in the mirror. 

While kids were playing, laughing and finding out their group of friends, I was home in pain and feeling depressed. Luckily for me, I was diagnosed four months later with Celiac disease. I was grateful to have been diagnosed earlier, considering the severe and deadly consequences of finding out too late.

In 2009, after being on a strict gluten-free diet, I felt much better. Never thinking I would be able to rise back up from the disease and continue my career of singing, one day I received a random call from a man associated with the New York Jets. He said he’d watched one of the videos of me singing at the U.S. Open and was wondering if I would want to sing the National Anthem at one of the games. That day I performed in front of 76,866 people. The inexplicable feeling of such a breathtaking experience inspired me to keep going on with my life.

But what I thought was over, had become my nightmare once again. I became deathly ill and felt frustrated having to deal with new symptoms. I was abnormally fatigued all the time, I had heart palpitations, I had severe dry and itchy skin, and I was missing too many days of school. Going from doctor to doctor, a year later (sixth grade), I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and put on medication for it. Although the medication helped, I still faced chronic fatigue.

Skipping ahead, I gained an interest in tennis and wanted to try out for the school tennis team. With that in mind, I spent hours every single day on the court and played in numerous tournaments, reaching the finals my first time and winning the whole thing my second time.

Working as hard as ever, the summer before sophomore year, I began to experience severe stomach problems. While other players were worried about who they were playing, I was worried about where the closest bathroom was. After many tests, the doctors finally diagnosed me with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Although they gave me medicine, I still continued to feel sick. Pushing through it all, sophomore year I made third singles and was able to bring my team to States after a long 3-hour-long match against our biggest rival.

Once junior year hit, I felt faint, dizzy and weak, and I could no longer walk through the school halls anymore with my friends. I tried all sorts of drinks that could help me, and unwillingly pricked my finger every day at the nurse’s office to test for hypoglycemia.

I directed my focus on only academics and tennis. Even with severe symptoms, I was able to win the singles’ Camden County Tournament, which has never been done in the history of my school. 

However, the symptoms never went away and on January 18 at 6 a.m., I found myself suddenly face-forward on tile floor in the bathroom. When I finally became conscious, I noticed a puddle of blood surrounding me, and I felt an unusual hardening pain on my face. Unable to move, I managed to whisper for help. If it were not for my dad that morning who heard the loud crashing sound, I do not know where I would be today. 

After a whole year of having to pull through severe symptoms, the concussion led me to find out that I have dysautonomia. The combination of my diagnoses made it much harder for me to play tennis on a consistent basis. I contemplated whether I should tryout for team again.

Considering my three years of hard work and dedication to my teammates, I decided I was still going to — not for the purpose of getting a good position on the team but to prove to myself that I was strong enough to overcome this disease and my injury. It also would be my last year on the high school tennis team, and I did not want to miss it for the world. I was honored to be chosen as captain and play #2 singles; stepping on those courts again, I felt right at home.

After all this, I have a message to fellow teens who may be going through something similar:

I hope my story inspires and gives you the courage and strength to keep moving forward despite health problems. While you can easily let your health issues deter you from striving to reach your dreams, you can also choose to fight those struggles and achieve goals/dreams you never thought you could accomplish.

The Mighty is asking the following: Write a letter to your teenaged self when you were struggling to accept your differences. 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.