When you're a teenager, you're supposed to be worried about kissing boys and what to wear to prom, what scholarships and colleges to apply for, or where you will go for your next road trip with your friends. You should not be worried about doctor appointments and blood work, surgeries and medicine, side effects or even the very real possibility of dying. It seems that after a diagnosis that's all you can focus on. How can I fight this? How can I get better? Feel better? When you have Crohn’s disease, there isn't a whole lot you can do. There is no specific cause, no cure, and treatments are just starting to be discovered to help with some of the side effects. And those treatments suck.

I was diagnosed in September 2015, not a long time ago, but since then my world has been flipped upside down. I get injections every other week that feels like you're injecting boiling water into your leg. I have anemia so I'm always cold (yes even in my 110 degree Vegas heat). I get migraines that last for days and my appetite sometimes disappears to the point where I'll barely eat sometimes.

Crohn’s disease is known as an IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disease that attacks mostly in the colon but could affect the person anywhere in the digestive tract. The lining of the intestines become infected in some areas or weak in others making digestion painful and sometimes not even possible. Crohn’s disease, to me, can be summed up as a lifelong stomach ache. Food is not our friend, but rather a foe. Any food at any time could suddenly be very bad for our intestines and could make us very very sick, very quickly. In general, having Crohn's just flat out sucks.

But I gave up the pity party I was having for myself a long time ago. I woke up one day and decided that complaining about how my life is awful and how frustrating it is that there's nothing anybody can do to help wasn’t worth my time. I moved on and I'm so much better off. I had a new found drive to continue doing what I am passionate about: theatre. I love participating on stage as an actor as well as backstage as a technician. Devoting hundreds of hours of time to the shows we were working on and focusing on the family that was created there. I also continued to do volunteer work, specifically for the American Cancer Association in which I worked as a lead at their Relay for Life event. I also threw parties and dinner nights, went to the movies, and planned more outings with friends. I was determined to not let this disease control my life.

There is one specific moment that I remember that has been my biggest motivator along the way. My friends and I were hiking in the desert to these hot springs in the middle of a canyon, something my doctor told me I probably couldn't do. The hike was long but going into the canyon was fairly easy. It was mostly downhill and there were not a lot of rocks around so there were no complaints from me. However, the trek out of the canyon when we were done in the hot springs was much harder. It was a steep, uphill trail with a lot gravel and rocks, plus it was boiling in the hot sun with no shade in sight. I thought I was going to pass out or fall off the edge or worse. My boyfriend kept offering to carry me out of the canyon, but I wouldn't let him. I wanted to get myself out of there on my own two feet. I walked in on my own, I could certainly walk out of it on my own, too. It took a couple of hours with a lot of water breaks, but I did it. I was able to make it out all in one piece. I turned around and looked back over the way we had came and thought to myself “I did that. I beat that!” I conquered something that people had told me I couldn't do.

The moral of this story is this: your disease doesn't define you. You can rise above it and be the person that you want to be, not the sick tired person everyone expects you to be. I have plans to go to college in the fall, travel to many places, get married, have kids, and be happy. I'm not worried about dying young anymore. I'm worried about not enjoying my life while I still have it.