This year has been the best and the worst, but it is often hard to focus on the best. There have been so many ups and downs, twists and turns.  It started off great, the summer was wonderful, but as September came to an end my life took a turn for the worse. All summer I had terrible stomach problems. They were under control for the most part, but as school began, the pains increased in frequency and severity. I also started to get intense pain in my lower back. It controlled everything, to the point where I could not even get out of bed and I had to be yanked out of it. After that I never slept in my bed again until January. The pain in my back and stomach has continued since, but I have improved overall. 

I feel like I often don’t acknowledge the trauma I have from that part of my life. It was a really hard,  painful time, and I’ve come so far, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ve made any progress. Healing and growing is a long journey that sometimes feels hopeless. I still feel hopeless at times and it is hard to find the motivation to do anything. As time goes on things get better and worse, but what is important is that I am making progress.  Life is really hard when you spend most of it in pain. There is not a day that goes by where I am not in pain, and that is a very hard thing to cope with. I don’t show the full effects of this to people that often, other than the fact that “oh my stomach hurts a lot today”. It is really hard and that’s all I can say, the pain is some of the worst pain I’ve experienced in my life and it happens everyday. I often think about the book The Fault in our Stars by John Green in relation to my pain. In the book Hazel Grace Lancaster talks about rating her pain in the hospital, she often elaborates on her rationale for each rating. My pain does not compare to hers, but I often think about her experience with the number scale every time I am asked that same question. There is one moment in the book where she is in the hospital with her lungs full of liquid and she is struggling to breathe. The nurse asks her to rate her pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and young Hazel holds up 9 fingers. After she is okay again she the nurse says,  “You know how I know you’re a fighter? You called a ten a nine.” Hazel reflects on that experience after the death of a loved one that she was very close to, saying, “ I called it a nine because I was saving my ten. And here it was, the great and terrible ten…” My pain is nowhere close to a 10 at most. It’s been an 8, but I think about that part of the book several times a day. I relate very heavily to the quote even if I have not had my 10 yet. I use Hazel’s thought process every time I need to quantify my pain. To put this in perspective, I am asked that question at least 3 days a week.