Alice Vol. 5 No. 2

CHRONIC ILLNESS
F
or the average student, college can be hard. It’s a
complete 180 to everything you’ve ever known, and
starting over can cause a lot of added stress on top of
everything else you deal with as a college student. A
trigger for breakouts, breakdowns and break-ups, stress revolves
around a college student like the earth revolves around the sun.
Yet for some, like myself, stress can trigger something else: a
Chronic Illness flare-up.
“I try to occupy myself and my mind with something, so I
can distract myself from things that might stress me out,” said
Tayge Molino, a freshman at Messiah College who was diagnosed
with Crohn’s disease at the early age of 11. Crohn’s disease is an
inflammatory bowel disease, that can affect people in different
areas of their digestive tract. It causes inflammation, which can
lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, and weight loss.
It affects less than 800,000 people in the U.S., according to the
Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.
“I’ve had two flare-ups since coming to college,” Molino said.
“They were tough to deal with, because it was up to me to deal with
it. Mostly, I made sure to stay close to a bathroom, and I laid in
bed most of the time. My disease does not really limit me on doing
other activities as long as I’m not having a flare-up.”
Flare-ups in most chronic illnesses can be sporadic, but if
you’ve been diagnosed for a while, you might be able to recognize
warning signs of an attack. For some, that’s not always the case.
Jamie Ankney, who was diagnosed with Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome
(CVS) in 2008, spoke about how her illness caused her to drop out
of college.
“When I was attending school, my disease was in the form of
migraines, which has been proven to precede CVS,” Ankney said.
“I ended up missing so much school that I had to drop out and
never recovered enough to go back.”
CVS is an uncommon disorder affecting both children and
adults that is characterized by recurrent episodes of severe nausea
and vomiting. This alternating pattern of disease and disease-free
periods distinguishes CVS from other gastrointestinal disorders.
“The biggest consequence for CVS is severe dehydration,”
Ankney said. “I’ve been in the hospital many times with acute
kidney injury because of it.”
The cause of CVS has not been found yet, thus making the
ability to prevent flare-ups very hard. When it comes to living
on your own and being alone for the first time, it’s scary enough
to be complete strangers with a roommate, much less room with
someone and have them take care of you when you have an attack.
“The biggest concern is for someone who suffers CVS but
doesn’t live with anyone to monitor them and make them go to
the hospital when it gets really bad,” she said. With only constant
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Spring 2020