It was two years before anyone found out what was wrong with me. My symptoms were endless, and eventually I just thought I was crazy. I believed it was all in my head, life got very difficult. I wanted to be the same person I had been. So I was. I danced and cheered my heart out and pushed my way through my senior year. I did not quite realize how bad I was feeling until that year was over. 

 

I have lyme, mast cell activation syndrome and allodynia. These three things have affected my health in unimaginable ways, but they have also made me a much more caring and compassionate person. I know what it feels like to be judged, and what it feels like to be in agony and try to lead a normal life. 

 

I had a plan for my life. Go to college, continue my cheer career, graduate, get a job. But even though my “plan” didn’t pan out, I’m still happy. I am doing things now that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I went to college. My senior year was not what it was meant to be. I still had amazing friends and fantastic teachers, but I was very sick. I missed well over 60 days of school and was frequently vomiting in the school restroom just to return back to class and act “normal”. I lived every day with a headache and I was even lucky enough for some of those days to be taken over by migraines. Although, I am eternally grateful to the few teachers and friends who really took care of me my senior year. 

While I have accepted my diagnosis completely, I am not only it. I did not really go through a period of denial or emotional angst and I honestly was relieved when I was diagnosed because now I could finally say that I was not crazy. People still don’t “get it” though. I think people just have trouble empathizing because they don’t fully understand what I’ve been through. They don’t understand how I look absolutely fine on the outside but that I am not okay on the inside. I wish that for just a second I could turn my body inside out and then maybe they would understand the turmoil my body is going through. 

 

There is still a part of me doing backflips across the lawn and screaming cheers at the sporting events. There is still a part of me that loves when the spotlight hits my face and I pour out my emotions during a routine. I am still Emily. The kind girl people said had an “old soul.” The girl who was cheer captain and held positions in both yearbook and newspaper my senior year despite having her health fall apart before her. I am Emily and Emily is me. I am a reader and a baker. I love crocheting and cross stitching and nothing makes me smile more than the love I have for my furry friends. My health is complicated and compromised. I know that and I accept that. The thing that isn’t complicated though and will never be compromised is the simple fact that “I Define Me.” 

 

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