Now it was time for me to resume my education. How I had made it through each day before diagnosis is beyond me because now it seemed even tougher. Maybe in part because I had gotten behind in my classes. I was a decent math student until I had to take Algebra. My math skills went downhill from there. Add in an illness and subsequent absences from class, and I became terrible in math. I was taking an Honors Algebra 1 class. It seems like I passed the class with a low D. This is no reflection on the school system or the teacher by any stretch. More so, I believe it was a reflection on just how hard it was, and still is, for me to understand more advanced math. Even base level equations pose a struggle for me to this day. All of my other classes I did fine in.
There was an incentive to doing well in the classes I guess you could say. If a student could keep an A average throughout the term as well as stay within the number of days allowed to be absent from school due to illness or whatever the case may be, the end of course test could be omitted. I could meet the grade average requirement (except in math of course). But I'm not sure I ever met the requirement regarding absences. I'd easily miss school with the ups and downs of my (then thought to be) Ulcerative Colitis. Regardless of the grade I managed to end the term with, I still got the joy of taking that last big test. I'm sure it seemed unfair at the time; to be able to keep my grades up while being sick and being absent from class because I was sick or at appointments. But those were the rules. Now, I can see and understand that there are those that possibly would miss class quite often if such rules weren't in place and thus enforced.
Regardless of how well I did with my class work, getting up and going to school was challenging. When I was on prednisone, it made me feel crazy and weird. Plus it made my outward appearance change which was hard for me to deal with; the acne that seemed to take over the majority of my body, not just my face; the swelling that changed my clothing size quickly so that I would have different size clothing depending on where I was in the cycle of illness and remission. And those heart palpitations that would hit out of no where and make me feel like my heart would bust out of my chest before it passed.
There were times that I just didn't feel well. Particularly, this would be the case after the prednisone had been tapered off, and the medicine had left my system. This medication seemed a guarantee that my IBD symptoms would remain silent. But when a flare up would occur, it was as if the symptoms would return with a vengeance.
It was hard facing my peers everyday with these changes. I was fortunate to never be bullied for my differences. But then I wonder how many people actually knew that something was going on with me. And if they knew something was amiss, did they know what it was?
I was carrying around a seemingly invisible disease; apparent to me of course as I was the one going through it and to those closest to me who had either seen my struggles first hand or had been informed of my situation. But to the person on the outside looking in, would they know unless I or someone else told them? It wasn't something I really wanted to announce. "Yes, I'm sick and I have bloody diarrhea everyday, multiple times a day when I'm having active symptoms due to a form of IBD." Yea, I don't think so. There was a guy who did actually ask questions. I just couldn't build up the self-confidence to tell him the truth of the situation. I tried to play it down. Basically, I guess you could say I lied. Eventually the holding back was hard and would lead to some lonely times.
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