In life sometimes you get dealt a crappy hand, and you have to learn how to make the best of what’s going on in your life.

I saw this first hand my junior year where things took a turn, and my life got flipped upside down. My first semester junior year I woke up one night with lots of pain in my chest, and it quickly started going up my shoulder. I told my parents that morning, not thinking much of what it could be. We headed to the nearest Children’s Hospital where I did a bunch of tests all day to figure out what was going on. When we were done with the tests they thought that it was a cold; however the last test (a CT scan) came back and it said  I had several blood clots in my lungs. After hearing that I was transferred by ambulance to the main Children’s Hospital in Denver, where I would then get treatment and spend a week in the hospital. While being at the hospital I learned that if I hadn’t said anything about the pain I was having in my chest, things could have been a lot worse for me. Thankfully, I got to the doctor when I did and I now take a blood thinner everyday to keep me healthy.

After that came my senior year of high school where I would quickly learn around the time of homecoming that I needed to have a major emergency surgery. Two days after homecoming I went into the hospital to have an unexpected 15 hour long surgery where they removed a lot of my colon, resulting in me waking up in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). After having this surgery, I spent another week in the hospital. Since that surgery I have had two additional surgeries due to complications; and due to those extra surgeries I ended up having another blood clot in my lungs.

Now looking at today, I have had 14 total surgeries -which will be 15 by the end of January- blood clots two separate times, and have spent countless hours in the hospital. With experiencing all of this I have had the ability to look at life through a different perspective that I never had before. I have learned there is so much more to life and that there is so much to be grateful for. With everything that has happened I’ve always had support whether that was my family and friends being there for me, to my teacher and Youth Leader visiting me at the hospital, and even my class coming to my house and comforting me after everything that has happened. After seeing how many people care about me it really changed my perspective and always made me look for the good in everything. Now since my junior year despite everything that has happened I have managed to be on the honor roll for my junior and senior year, maintain great grades, and living a great life with the people I love. So with all the bad there was these past two years I’ve still managed to see and experience the good way more than I’ve experienced the bad by weathering the storm.