"Tug of War"- Lauren's moving poem capturing a tumultuous relashionship with chronic illness.
Some mornings, I wake up and stare at the ceiling for what feels like hours. My body feels heavy, like I’m made of wet sand. Even breathing feels like a task. I lie there, caught in the same war that’s been waging inside of me for years. I can’t let this illness ruin my life. But I have to listen to my body and rest. It’s a cruel world of tug-of-war. On one side, there’s this version of me that still dreams. The one who wants to work, see friends, laugh, and have a normal lif
Chronically Me
4 days ago2 min read
"During the very first injection, everything went black and I passed out...functioning became harder and harder..." - Keira's story on living alongside chronic illness young.
For most of my life, I thought headaches were just a normal inconvenience. Throughout middle school and early high school, I would often come home after long days of staring at screens with bad head pain. It was annoying, but manageable. I never imagined that a few years later, migraines would completely take over my life. Everything shifted in the summer of 2024. I was doing a stressful CIT overnight camp program, and looking back, I truly believe that that stress triggered
Chronically Me
Feb 114 min read
"I went from playing soccer and cheerleading, to being curled into a ball crying in pain..." - Amanda's story of dismissal, and searching for a root cause.
My name is Amanda and I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, sjogrens, and fibromyalgia. Life knocked me down early. My chronic illness symptoms started at just 17 years old in the middle of my senior year of high school. I went from playing soccer and cheerleading, to being curled into a ball crying in pain. My symptoms were very vague and only happened occasionally at first, until it became a daily struggle of joint pain, severe fatigue, muscle and bone pain, and a burning s
Chronically Me
Feb 22 min read
"When you spend your whole life as a normal kid, you never expect to wake up one day and be sick" - Aubrie's story grappeling with the unexpected
When I was twelve years old, I began experiencing severe stomach pain and started throwing up everything I ate or drank. I couldn’t sleep, and the pain was constant. One day it became so unbearable that I finally convinced my parents to take me to the emergency room. The doctors believed it was my appendix and scheduled me for an appendectomy the next day. I hoped the surgery would finally make me feel better. The surgery itself went well. My appendix was removed, but it was
Chronically Me
Jan 115 min read
"I woke up in the ICU after a 15-hour surgery, expecting to go home in a week. Instead, I spent 130+ days in the hospital, had 17 surgeries..." - Sydney's story navigating the unexplainable.
On August 8, 2023, I had jaw surgery and that was the day everything changed. My surgeon did everything right, but my body didn’t. Within days, my jaw shifted so far over, no one knew why. Braces kept falling off. Arch bars failed. I chipped all my teeth. A shift that should take five years happened to me in months. That was just the start of a nightmare I never woke up from. Since then, I’ve had 23 surgeries, developed 10 chronic illnesses with no cure, and been told ove
Chronically Me
Nov 16, 20252 min read