Stars Can't Shine Without Darkness

Three weeks after starting tenth grade, the pounding in my head woke me up before my alarm. Warm cloths, Excedrin, bag of frozen peas—nothing dulled the incessant hammering—and as my mom shuttled me from walk-in clinic nurse practitioner to general practice doctor to head physician to the Pediatric ENT, and as the treatments escalated from Z-Pac and Amoxicillin to Toradol and Oxycodone, I began to feel hopeless. Nothing dulled the pain, and during one visit, as the doctor dutifully patted me on the shoulder while explaining that I may live with this pain forever, I told my mom I was done.

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I was wrong. Being done was too easy, and while for over 365 consecutive days so much pain surged through my body that I cried silently (sound was too much energy), I was too stubborn to let go. In defiance of the pain, I fought back. I fought to find a diagnosis, and then I fought to defy the odds of recovery. Along the way, I learned the value of strength, determination, humility, and compassion. As I battled for my life, my community, and amazingly, people I have never and will never meet, rallied around me, raising me up in their prayers, thoughts, and through their love and generous gifts. Reading aloud to me was one of my favorites of these gifts. Closing my eyes, the words fluttered effortlessly into my consciousness. During those moments of escape, I was Ellie again. Thinking, dreaming, enjoying. The books transported me, and having someone so close by me, holding my hand—the warmth sparked my internal fire. I found happiness despite begin surrounded by an impossible darkness. Inspired by these moments, I am writing about what it meant to be Ellie through all of this. While ordered chronologically, my essays are not intended as a detailed account of my illness; instead, they serve as my emotive outlet—my illness, my terms.