My whole life I knew I wanted to be a teacher, and likely teach abroad. So it was no surprise to anyone that right after University, I moved to England to pursue that dream career with a plan to return back to Canada after a year or twos experience under my belt and then settle into the field on home base. But after 4 months of nothing but stress, anxiety, sleepless nights spent marking and planning, hours of commuting, tearful phone calls home and the beginning of a bad flare, I decided this was not the life for me. I didn’t know what my next steps were but I didn’t care. I flew home, moved back in with my parents, and I was jobless, sick, and without a plan.

In an effort to just recoup some of the financial loss of the excursion I started working in a preschool room at just above minimum wage, while I figured out my next move. It sounds like a sob story but I was truly devastated that this plan I had fell apart. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know where I’d be in a year as many young graduates suffer I’m sure. I threw around new career paths, going back to school, moving to a different country, or starting my own business…none of which I could passionately see panning out. I was lost, so lost. This shift in a plan affected my mental state, my self concept, my identify formation and my ambition. I no longer had motivation or was inspired to BE someone because I couldn’t picture what that was. And soon enough I had been in this preschool room for an entire year and in the same place I was when I moved home.

Then my colon flared up. I’m sure it had something to do with my emotional, stressful state but it was almost like the universe was also waking me up to a whole new perspective. “Oh you’re sad about the full time job you have?” Try not working at all. “You’re confused about which program to start in school again?” How about none. “Wondering how you’re ever going to find a partner in your small, boring home town?” Do it with an ostomy and no hair.

I thought moving home was overwhelming and confusing and I felt sorry for myself having to put together a new life. But then all of a sudden I physically couldn’t move out of my parents’ house because I depended on them too much, I had to take many leave of absences, I was battling infections, I was having bowel accidents in the grocery store, restaurants, my car and my home, I was unrecognizable from the medications, and I was lucky if I could make it a whole month without being hospitalized. Suddenly 2 and a half years later I was putting back together my life all over again…but entirely differently.

Two and a half years, and three surgeries later, I now had this opportunity to start fresh, to really look at my life and appreciate the small wins. The small triumphs like being able to work a full shift. Like being able to fit my hair in a pony tail, like spending a full month out of the hospital, like making it through a long road trip without an accident or ostomy leak, like wearing jeans. Soon enough those small victories turned into bigger ones like moving out, taking on a higher role at work, buying myself a new car, incorporating fitness into my daily routine. And with these small wins turned big successes like flying to Amsterdam, going on blind dates, adding spirituality to my life, helping other ostomates, or raising thousands of dollars for Crohn’s and Colitis Canada.

Before my relentless flare up, I was living life on my Dad’s couch, going though a quarter life crisis, just learning what anxiety and depression looked like. But fortunately for me, I became so ill that my entire perspective on life shifted. It shifted to a place of gratitude and appreciation for what a healthy life can look like. You don’t know the power you possess until you’re stripped of your ability to act on it. Now I’m independent, live a life of faith, sleep peacefully, and am motivated every day to keep improving. Who knows where I’d be without my flare up, but thankfully for me, I can appreciate my own baggage, and those of others through more compassion and empathy. Getting sick saved me from a very dark place and although it lead me through an even darker path, I’m now living in a constant state of light.

Stacey

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