Personal Narrative: I Am I M Disease

My identity can be defined by moments in my life. Moving to Canada, learning English and going to high school are three major moments in my life. Going through these experiences have changed the person in me and made me more confident, stronger, better in everything.

Sometimes I ask myself how I overcame my disease. Many people with lupus experience fatigue, memory loss, loss of appetite. Usually younger African, white, and Asian men and woman develop that disease in their teens. It all started that night when I was laying in my mom bed. At that time I felt like it was my time to leave this earth. When I turn 15 years old I saw so many changes. . I experience so many symptoms while I was in my second semester. All the symptoms that I experience were hallucinations, fever, nausea, and nose bleeds. At that time I seen myself getting really sick. I caught strep throat and it was hard to focus in school because I missed so many days.

I fight for my health every day in ways most people do not understand I lay in bed struggling just to get up in the morning only to get faced with a new day of troubles. All I think about is the day that being a normal eighteen year old ended for me. I was responsible went to work every day, and was trying to figure out my first year of college until everything was flipped upside down.

There are many ways One’s identity can be defined. Only you can truly define who you are. You control what your experiences and influences make of you. When asked who am I, there could be millions of different answers depending on what you base your identity off of. To me, the question who am I, can only truly be answered in one way. So, who am I? For me, it’s an easy question. I’ve always known that I was the quiet girl In the back of the classroom by herself.

Being diagnosed with a disease is a good theme for writing a book, or creating a movie, not for someone’s life. My eighth grade year of middle school I was diagnosed with Colitis, a form of IBD. Trying to balance a normal teenage life, while forming a plan that satisfied my fed up intestines was not simple. When I figured my life couldn’t get any more surreal my skin decided to have a mind of its own and take teenage acne to a new level. The summer before my freshmen year of high school I was diagnosed with Pyoderma Gangrenosum, a severe skin condition. Both of these diagnoses in less than a year quickly put a spin on my life. At times I felt like giving up, and to this day my life is a constant battle. Being put through the bumpiest road of my life, has showed me how brave, confident and strong I am.

My health goals were to get to bed at a better time and to make sure I eat up to three meals a day.In the beginning it was hard because usually when I wake up I’m not very hungry for some reason, but then at school by the end of first period I am. It’s hard for me to eat in the morning because I'm too lazy to get out of bed. So to make sure I am able to eat, I go to bed earlier at the latest 10.

“I’m Fighting For…”; the expression defined boldly in black contrasting the white wall it occupies. A blank canvass that has since flourished into a colorful, passionate artwork of hand-written sentiments surrounding the innermost phrase that I and so many others have proudly contributed to. This, I believe, is the uttermost beautiful and raw depiction of reality that resides in my office.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

The 21st century is assumed to be the safest period in the human history. The science of medicine has been vastly improving, resulting in numerous solutions to avoid decease effectively, we have not experienced an anguish of war, we do not die prematurely either. Accordingly, we are living longer but there is something, something so essential we tend to forget about, its obviousness that we’ve become untouched and emotionless in the matters of it. We have become murders of our own life giving source- the Earth.

I remember when I started my recovery I was discharged from the detox program into a six month transitional program. Transitional living that deal with people recovering from addiction are often referred to as recovery residences. The Transitional Living Center provided me a place where I could re-establish my own self-worth. When I was at the transitional housing I felt safe from the possibility of a relapse. My recovery plan was individualized according to the determination of my needs. They taught me what my triggers were and how deal with them in positive ways. I remember when my six months were up and I was getting ready to be transferred into the supportive housing program to be integrated back into the community. Supportive housing allowed

Parents are protective of their children and at times tend to monitor their child’s every move to make sure they don’t get injured. At times, as kids, we may see our parents’ vigilance as them being overprotective until tragedy strikes. Being the youngest of my family and a girl indicated all eyes were and are on me. At times children assume they know more than their parents until the unexpected occurs. I was once in this situation when I was 10 years old I decided to clown around while my Mom was asleep and completely shattered my wrist which then led to much worse. Although that experience wasn’t thrilling I was able to gain purpose from it. I learned to be patient, remain faithful and be grateful!

It started in the 1930’s, it was the time I (Jack) had just joined the Nova Core. A huge empire rose for gambling, alcohol, and distributing other hard core drugs. The one who set up the empire was the one and only Salvador himself. He was a big gun killing happy man who liked nothing other than to kill a man with nothing but his fist. It was a cold rainy night when we were doing our normal walk around the base when we heard of a break out in A6 area. So we ran over there and it was a sick man that bit a chunk of meat out a private’s neck and was eating him fast. We surrounded him and yelled at him to stop. The man turned around and ran after one of the generals so we had to put him down. We were all curious the next day on what happened and since the core wouldn’t tell us anything. So I did some research after we killed the body. It turns that the guy was infected with a virus related to the black plague. It formed when the Nova Core and the

Hi doctor. I'm wondering if I need to be concerned. I keep getting what seems gas. The mild/dull pain is always in a different area. It bothers the most the most when lying down. Therefore, sleeping at night has been a challenge, leaving me unrested. It also bothers when pain is around the groin, it sort of feels like if I had an urine infection, but I'm urinating okay. I've been taking the Omeprazole, thinking it might help. But it has not. What do you think?

My Identity connects to my culture because it describes the way I look and the point of view I have on certain topics. My culture is the Native American tribe, Wampanoag and I am also Mexican. I have some facial features and body structures from both sides of the family like: most of my family has brown or black hair, we are taller than the average human, and our faces have an oval shape. Some topics that my family has taught me from both sides of the family is, family always sticks together and always comes first, and If you see bad things going on in the world, always try to help and do whats right. From my Dad’s side of the family, I learned tons about survival skills and on my Mom’s side I learned a lot about traditions. An example from

“But you don’t look sick!”-- Wow, thanks, am I supposed to take that as a compliment: that my chronic illness hasn’t yet affected my appearance? There is no real way to look like you have a chronic illness. Maybe when I’m in my back brace it’s more noticeable, or when I’m forced into my various other braces and supportive wraps it’s apparent that my body is in a constant war with itself. Newsflash: I am sick. I was sick when I was born, I am sick right now, and I will be sick when I die. I am, forever and always, sick.