The Medical Dorm

            We are both college students, and in college we have had both good and bad professors.  Some professors are amazing, while others make you want to hide in your room and never leave your bed.  Sadly, we have had a few of those in the later category.  We decided today to discuss some memorable quotes from professors in both of those categories.  We are not doing this to be cruel, and we are not including any names, or descriptions.  We are doing this to show how tough college can be for those with chronic illnesses. THE WORST:             These are some things that were said to us over the past few years.  While not all sound rude, or insensitive at first, the meaning behind them are not great.   “It’s so nice that everybody here [in this class] is healthy” The first thing you have to know about our class is that multip...

People often ask me (Tremors) what I think my life would be like if I did not have a chronic illness.  They always say something along the line of, how I must have had goals and dreams prior to my diagnosis.  That I was not born with this illness, and that I was diagnosed in high school.  To tell you the truth, I haven’t dreamed much about my life without my chronic illness.  Call me crazy, but I don’t think it does me much good.   Maybe I’m just not that much of an imaginative person.  I did not grow up with a dream school, or a plan of what I thought my life would be.  I never dreamed of how my wedding would look, or where I would travel if I had the ability to go anywhere.  To this day, I do not know why younger me decided against dreaming up my future.  Honestly, I am almost glad looking back.  I don’t want to dwell on what I cannot do.  I do not want to be stuck in the never ending cycles of what ifs, or if onlys.  I w...

          It is weird to think of being defined by one thing but the reality is that my life is and always has been controlled by my disability. As a little girl all my friends played sports while I sat on the sidelines and watched. This was nobody's fault. I don't expect everyone to live with my restrictions but I do wish I knew what it was like to be able bodied even just for one day.           Would I have grown up playing sports? To this day all I remember about sports is trying to be like everybody else. What always ended up happening is that I would fall and get really hurt, often times winding up in a cast. Now we know this is because I had undiagnosed Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.          Would I still want to go in to medicine? My whole life I have wanted to help people the same way that others helped me when I was little, but without my health issues I would have never needed that help. What degree would I...

           I was born with a heart defect, actually multiple heart defects. It was so rare, what else could be wrong, I already got my misfortune with that diagnosis.   That didn’t stop anything though, why cant life just be a little bit more fair. I volunteer and try to help as many people as I can, I don’t deserve to have my life controlled by illness.             With the diagnosis of Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome I lost the dream of ever having biological kids, and gained the reality of one day needing a heart transplant. With the diagnosis of Ehlers Danlos I have to face that fact that one day I might be in a wheelchair, and gained the ability to dislocate my thumb by doing something as mundane as opening a microwave. With the diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome I lost by right to be a nurse, and gained the ability to get dizzy and faint when standing up. With my diagn...

I don’t know about you, but we certainly have noticed quite a few books / movies that are about individuals with some sort of illness.  Now, if you look at these books / movies closer there is something pretty obvious about them.  They are pretty much all romances, and let’s just say the two of our life experiences do not match up (at all).  Today we decided to examine a little deeper how little our lives relate to these stories that are beloved by many.  We aren’t saying don’t read these books, we are just saying from the point of view of someone with a chronic illness, there is not a lot of things in common.   Chronic Illnesses aren’t glamorous: Chronic illness is more than a label.  It is something that takes over your life, and the lives of everyone around you.  It is days of feeling too sick to get out of bed.  Days of taking a crazy amount of medications, and some including some not so fun side effects.  There are countless a...