You Are Tougher Than You Think

It was during a 3 hour drive home that I heard "Save Myself" by Ed Sheeran. I've heard it many times before but this time it hit home. It hits home because it's time for me to take my own advice for once. I haven't been okay for a couple of months. I'm not sure what triggered it but while my anxiety is manageable, my depression started to take it's toll. I had a bad day, which turned into a couple of bad days. Those bad days turned into a bad week and so on. To be completely honest, right now I'm not sure where the good and the bad separate. I was about 16-years-old when I faced my first serious depression. I turned into a person that I never want to be again. I was suffering from illness and struggling every day to find some reason to get out of bed. I wanted everyone else to suffer with me. I destroyed my relationships and pushed everyone away. Partly because I knew I was being an intolerable person, other part because maybe if I pushed them away s...

Another year gone since my transplant and it’s still crazy. This past year I traveled to Israel for 2 weeks and came home with a new family.   This year I was featured on Buzzfeed. This year I fell in love with myself again and found my voice. I always tell people that I'm an open book. I mean think about it, on this blog alone I've talked about everything from relationships, friendships, medical being, depression, anxiety, the list goes on. Being shy was never something I was good at. It's still weird looking back and everything I've written and remembering everything I went through 7 years ago. I came so far from a girl that couldn't bear to look in a mirror to the person I've decided to be today. Traveling wasn't easy, I'm not going to lie about that. The stress of traveling alone is one thing to put my body through. Then you add the difference in foods, lack of sleep, the summer heat, and everything else that would effect a normal person's ...

With my 25th birthday right around the corner I feel like there is no better time to do this. Everyone keeps telling me this is a milestone birthday, and yeah I get it. A quarter century is something to celebrate. It's just weird to look back at my last 25 years. I was diagnosed with UC 21 years ago. It's not just a disease to me, its who I am. You don't really know me unless you know my past. Some of my best, most prominent memories are from my sick days. I sometimes feel bad when I talk about them because to me they're happy memories, but to others they're kind of depressing. So here we go... 5-year-old Sammi: You are forever my hero. I know every kid is super excited to grow up into this amazing adult but I am half the person you are. I promise you that (and no its not because I'm missing more organs now then I was then, but that too). You aren't afraid of what your future holds. You live every day in the happiest of ways. I know being in the hospital i...

People always talk about how pets take after their owners. Now I'm finding this to be incredibly true. A few months ago my soon-to-be roommate and I were talking about wanting a dog when we finally moved in together. We started doing research on dogs that were available for adoption before we even found a place to live. After a few days (okay maybe weeks) of looking at dogs to adopt I was talking to my mom about our plans. That was when she asked if I had seen the dog that a family friend was fostering. Needless to say, within 3 days of seeing his picture on Facebook my friend and I decided he had to be ours. Fast forward to now, he is living with my parents until we move into our new dog friendly apartment. Now, you're probably wondering why I'm sitting her rambling about my dog on my medical blog. As you know I have Ulcerative Colitis. My best friend has GI issues as well. Luckily for her, we became friends in time for her to finally start seeing a doctor and getting on...

I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to write about for my anniversary post. I started listing off different options and finally settled on it. But now that I've come to actually writing it, it just doesn't feel right. Don't get me wrong, it is a topic I want to talk about some day. Right now, with everything going on around us, it just doesn't feel like the right time to preach about something like that. Instead I want to use this to reflect on the past couple of months. I'm not going to preach politics. It's not what I do here, that's not the purpose of this blog. This blog was built to be a support system to anyone who is in need and right now, I think everyone needs a little love, support, respect, and understanding. I'm not going to go into specifics because that's not the point of this. Instead I want to say that no matter what happens, you, yes you reading this, belong. I care. I will fight with you and fight next to you. ...

To my biggest supporters, Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t think even this will show you how much I owe you guys. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. I would have given up a long time ago. Thank you for you supporting me, holding my hand, and being my voice when I was too young or sick to speak up for myself. Mom- I know I get on your nerves and I seem unthankful for everything you’ve done for me. That is the furthest from the truth. I know the sacrifices you have made for me. Like that one time my cat got run over by a car and you had to stay back home to take care of him while dad and I went to Boston for a surgery. We joke about this now but I know you barely slept for those days. I’m sorry for worrying you, I promise I’ll always be okay. Thank you for being my rock and my backbone. Dad- while I could be sarcastic and thank you for the UC gene, I won’t. As twisted as it is, I’m kind of grateful you passed it on. Not for the sick part or any...

As the title suggests, here is my Thanksgiving “what I’m thankful for” post. Thanksgiving has always been very special to me. Whoever knows me knows that my grandpa was is my hero. He was the first one of the family to be diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis so him, my dad, and I always had something significant in common. No matter how horrible it was we always knew there was someone around to understand how bad we felt. Thanksgiving was always his favorite holiday. He loved having the whole family together around one table. He never failed to make the family cry with his speech before dinner. Today I feel closer to him than I have in a while. Not only because his favorite holiday is right around the corner but because yesterday morning I woke up feeling terrible. Later I realized why, I had a minor blockage in my digestive system. This is pretty normal for me and is usually pretty tolerable. Although its tolerable, its insanely uncomfortable. It made me think of the times I would ...