Laura Kate Hrom
My testimony!
Diagnosed at 15
Leading up to my diagnosis, I genuinely had no clue what was wrong with me. I had never heard of Crohn’s disease, and the foreign symptoms I was experiencing caused me to keep to myself. Not telling anybody about what I was going through was my biggest mistake concerning my diagnosis. I struggled to be the happy, bubbly girl everyone knew me to be. Aside from this, twenty pounds underweight, my body reflected what I was feeling on the inside. I felt that people could see what I was going through by looking at me, so I resulted to social isolation instead of turning to someone I trusted.
After months of this my body could not take any more. I could not leave my room or even move my body without chronic pain. We decided to seek medical help, where I was sent to a gastroenterologist.
Road to Remission
After much testing, my GI diagnosed me with Crohn’s disease, but this label was unimportant to me at the time because of my fragile physical state. I had no clue I would have to live with this title the rest of my life. My doctor put me on predisone, a steroid with many side effects.
As a teenage girl, I began to get many snarky comments about my changing physical appearance. I was commonly asked if I had gotten my wisdom teeth out, as a symptom of prednisone is a swollen face.
Even though prednisone worked to heal my body, I felt a personal hatred for the drug. It was the deciding factor of who I was friends with.
Another reason I was miserable was the toll Crohn’s disease took on my athletic ability. As a track and tennis player, I was often crying to my parents about if I could ever perform as well as I could before my diagnosis.
Remicade
After being put in remission by prednisone, my doctor, family, and I had to decide on a long term treatment. We concluded that Remicade was the most convenient for me and my lifestyle.
Since I started Remicade over a year ago, I have been doing very well. I am beyond thankful for a support group that I can trust, and I hope Teens with Crohn’s can help prevent situations involving lack of awareness, such as what I went through.
