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My health has seemed to always be an issue. I struggled with being sick often as a child. I suffered from IBS, had debilitating anxiety and panic attacks from an early age, chronic migraines, among many other things. When I had barely turned 17, I missed a month of school after having a 7mm kidney stone removed (in a way I won't explain here). That was followed by a stent placement that my body tried desperately to reject for weeks on end. I struggled with kidney stones for a decade after that, which had me in and out of the ER.
My lower back pain and issues with my hips started around 19, and slowly progressed from there to extreme pain in my 20's that caused me to lose sleep and live in chronic debilitating pain. I could barely walk some days, couldn't get dressed without help, yelled out in sudden pain constantly, and cried myself to sleep often since there was never a comfortable position to be found...Then, the gallbladder issues began.
It seemed like there was always something wrong with me. No one could figure out what the cause of all my pain was for over a decade, but luckily it was intermittent enough that with the help of my amazing boss at the time and an obviously insanely high pain tolerance, I managed to continue working full time (sometimes way more than full time, and some of the time while going to college).
I just kept trucking, assuming I had to do some sort of stretch or exercise or supplement, or maybe find the right doctor or miracle worker...All I knew was that there was no way I was going to feel that way the rest of my life.
I then struggled with fertility issues for 4 years, undergoing 8 unsuccessful treatment cycles. During the birth of my daughter, I suffered from retained placenta and hemorrhaging, but when she was rushed to NICU I was there by her side ready to work again in my new role, only 5 hours later. Unfortunately, I had retained placental fragments as well, and 8 weeks later had surgery to remove them, thanking the Universe that I didn't go septic.
One week after that surgery, I had a colonoscopy that found erosions in my terminal ileum and I was told (due to other symptoms somehow not already listed above, and family history) that I was most likely in the beginning stages of Chron's Disease. IBS turned IBD.
Around 6 months postpartum, my back pain became so severe that I could barely walk, and began to stiffen my entire spine as I was sleeping. I felt as if my back was broken every morning, to have it slowly dissipate over the course of an hour or so. Eventually, the right Google terms led me to a website that talked about Ankylosing Spondylitis and its symptoms, and I instantly had a knowing this was what I had.
Turns out I was right, and after a decade, I finally had an autoimmune disease to put a name to all my pain and issues. After my autoimmune diagnosis in January 2020, I decided there had to be a way I could heal myself, and I began down the long road of doing just that...But that's a story for another day.
