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When I Close My Eyes by Lexi Uslu
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When I close my eyes, I grow wings and fly; I use my wings to fly towards the sky. I abandon my reality of chronic illness as I soar towards freedom. Tonight, I am safe in my bed – away from it all… Away from my dreaded wheelchair and even more, away from the pain of…
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Growing Up Sick
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By Lexi Uslu I plunged into the deep dark depths of disparity that is chronic illness early on in my life. It didn’t take me long to realize I was different than all of my peers. The casts, the wheelchair, the trashcan next to my desk that was constantly in use due to my upset…
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The Biggest Lesson that I Learned
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By Michaela Sullivan May is Ehlers Danlos Awareness Month. As everyone with a chronic illness knows, one of the hardest things is that you never know what the next day will bring. It could be a great, low pain day or a terrible day where you can’t even leave your bed because the pain is so…
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Taking Chronic Illness to College
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By Michaela Sullivan College is a chance to start fresh. For most teens, you’re going to a place where very few people know personal details about you. You start your first semester as a freshman, and you have a clean slate. For some, this is good. The mistakes made in high school don’t follow them.…
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My Biggest Accomplishment
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By Felicitas Tschurtschenthaler My whole world shattered into thousand little pieces when I became sick on October 3, 2010. Little did I know at that time that a sprained ankle would take over my whole life within a matter of days when I developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. Soon after that, I entered a…
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The Calm AFTER the Storm
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By Michaela Sullivan Almost everyone has heard or will use the expression “the calm before the storm” at some point in their lifetime. It’s a popular idiom, used to illustrate the moments before chaos ensues. But what about the calm after the storm? The strange feeling of Zen that comes across you when a disaster is over, and…
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Chronic Illness VS Senior Year
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Senior year, or as I was going to call it, “Year of Michaela”. After all I’ve contended with in the past, I figure I finally deserve a good year. And it was really setting up to be a great year too. I’m in so many amazing classes. Newspaper production (!!!!!), AP Psychology (isn’t that ironic…
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Finding the Light
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By Michaela Sullivan Over the years, many people have said to me, “There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel”. But what I want to know is, what happens when there’s no end to the tunnel? If you have a lifelong chronic illness, you’re eternally damned to that tunnel. So you have to find light…
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Elevator Girl
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By Michaela Sullivan As a teenager, all I want is to be normal. As a teenager living with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Scoliosis, my life is anything but normal. Have you ever heard the saying “Why fit in because you were born to stand out”? Unfortunately, it’s true. While I’d like nothing more than to…
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A Not So Normal, Normal Week
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By Karen Richards Some things are just so ridiculous to imagine we cannot possibly comprehend them. My life is one of those things. I am fourteen. I would like to say I’m beautiful and smart, but that might be pushing it. People see me and they think that I am normal but that’s the thing… I am not normal at all. I have…
