My life has been a roller-coaster since my last blog post.
I went through a really awful season of an activity that I loved, I buckled beneath pressure to be perfect, and I've now learned of two new chronic illnesses that have taken residence within me.
It began in the summer during the marching band season, when we got a new colorguard coach. I felt a lot of pressure from her, and although she was incredible at her craft, the pressure we received from her was too much for me to handle.
Those few months were really tough on me emotionally. I felt a constant pressure to be what everyone wanted me to be. It was no longer about my own happiness, but instead the happiness of others. I don't remember when exactly I buckled, but I remember how difficult it became to continue.
I fell back into a depression that I hadn't experienced since middle school. My anxiety was uncontrollable. My mental state became so disheveled that I to this day still have to work to bring myself back to my happy medium. It was as if my mind saw this experience as traumatic, and I suppose it was, in a way. The toughest part about the whole season though, I believe, is the fact that I fell so far out of love with something that I truly believed was my sole passion.
Throughout the season, I began to get sicker again. I experienced many spouts of "celiac attacks" that were triggered by stress instead of gluten. It was well within the season that I realized I wasn't just experiencing my normal pain anymore.
When my body began to ache, it wasn't of too much concern. I was doing a ton of physical activity. I was working my body really hard, so of course there was going to be some kick-backs to the extraneous activity. I found it strange that I was no longer able to run with the rest of the girls for numerous laps without feeling pain within my knees. Simply bending my knees during choreography became a task.
I remember constantly having to take Advil and use heating patches for the pain that I felt throughout me. There are no words to express how frustrating it was becoming to constantly be in pain during this season. I began to hate colorguard so intensely that it was a chore to go back every single day. It was no longer just frustrating mentally, but physically. I believed my body was beginning to fight me back for allowing myself to succumb to the pressure that was being put on me.
We went to the doctors to try and figure out what could possibly be wrong with me, and they ran blood tests. This resulted in a positive ANA test, which was terrifying to say the least. This confirmed the belief that there was something else wrong within me - another autoimmune disorder to live with. After lupus was ruled out, we were left at what we thought was another dead end.
Hope grew within me, however, when a rheumatology office in Atlanta allowed me to schedule an appointment with them - regardless of my young age. When I went to my rheumatologist for the first time, I remember noticing how I was noticeably the youngest one in the waiting room. It was not even by a few years, but an obvious age gap when it came to the other patients in the waiting room and I. My mother and I made jokes about it, since there was no way we could change the situation.
My doctor is incredible. I can honestly say that she was the first doctor that has truly listened to everything that I've said and taken them all into consideration without brushing it off. After the first initial appointment and the blood tests came back, I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. The skin condition that I've had since birth was now in my joints.
I now had an explanation for why sometimes my fingers locked up so bad when I was writing that I dropped my pencil. It explained why my knees get red and swollen after too much physical activity. It explained why my wrists were always aching. I was given an anti-inflammatory to take and sent on my merry way.
Everything was fine, before it became awful again. It wasn't just my joints anymore. The pain radiated everywhere it could. I was constantly aching, even after small bouts of physical activity, or days where I did nothing at all.
Two weeks ago, my mother and I went back to the rheumatologist and my doctor confirmed our suspicions: I had fibromyalgia.
She touched each of the 'fibro tender points' on my body, and pain shot through me each time. I cried shamelessly after she finished and she asked me questions about my sleep, about my mental state, and then gave me the final diagnosis.
There is no magic cure for Fibromyalgia. There is no magic cure for Psoriasis or Psoriatic Arthritis. There is no magic cure for Celiac Disease. There is no magic cure for Anxiety. There is no magic cure for Depression.
There are only ways to control what I have. There are only medicines to ease the pains I have. I'm even recommended to take yoga classes. I am no longer capable of strenuous physical activity.
And I'm not going to lie, it's incredibly frustrating.
I'm sixteen and my health is comparable to someone in their later years.
It's easy to complain, because I have reason to. The thing is, if I complain, I'm letting my illnesses win. I'm letting them control me.
There are days where I want to give up and lay in bed. There are days when I'm in so much pain that I cannot bear it.
When I have to stop dancing at a party because my knees have swollen up, turned completely red, and made my legs so weak that I walk like they're made of jello - THAT'S when it's so easy to give up. When I'm no longer allowed to live my life as a teenager because of the challenges that I've been faced with, THAT'S when I get frustrated. That's when I want to be done. That's when I wish I was someone else.
I am here to tell you that I refuse to allow all of this to define who I am. I am not Celiac Disease. I am not Fibromyalgia. I am not my Arthritis, nor am I my Anxiety or Depression. I am a straight A student. I am a Child of GOD. I am hope. I am faith. I am Jessica, and I am ALIVE.
Here I am as a Christian. I am here before you with a love for God, children, and writing. Someday, I will change the world, and I will not allow my illnesses to stop me. This is where I am defined by my choices, not by my physical state. Where I am no longer defined by my mentality, but by the way that I choose to live. The way I choose to use my challenges to my advantage.
As I sit here and type this, my fingers are cramping up, but again, I'm here to make a difference. I'm here to prove that just because something is expected to break you down, it doesn't have to.
Let your illnesses inspire you to BE, rather than to might have been.
It's time to make a choice and I choose to fight.
Stay golden.
Jessica.
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