“When we can no longer change circumstances, we are required to change ourselves.” ~ Viktor Frankl
I smiled when the doctor told me that I had a disease that I would live with for the rest of my life.
He called with my biopsy results, and the word he used was “Crohn’s disease.” I didn’t know what that meant. But after months of pain that I couldn’t explain to anyone, hearing its actual name felt like someone had finally turned on a light in a dark room. It wasn’t scary. I felt relieved.
To understand why, we need to go back to the beginning.
It started with pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. Appendicitis runs in my family, so that’s what I thought at first. I kept telling the doctors that it must be my appendix. They kept saying it wasn’t.
The first doctor looked at me and asked, “Are you under a lot of pressure?”
At that point in my life, several things were going wrong at once and I felt like I was being attacked from all angles. So I said, “Yes, a lot.” He nodded as if he had explained everything and suggested we relax and take a vacation and travel for a few months.
So I did. I’ve been traveling for 3 months. The pain didn’t go away. In fact, it got worse.
I went to a second doctor. Same answer. That’s stress. Exercise more, work less, and rest more. I did it all. However, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and couldn’t go back to sleep.
A friend recommended a third doctor. I came in with a little hope. Interestingly, he said the same thing. stress.
By then, I was starting to realize something. “It’s stress” is a phrase we sometimes hear when no one can figure out what the problem actually is. Everyone has stress in their lives, so the explanation is always relevant enough to end the conversation. I don’t mean it maliciously. If the real answer isn’t obvious, it’s the easiest place to get to. But I was the one who woke up in pain at 3am and I knew this wasn’t in my head.
So this time I pushed back. I told him, “No, it’s not stress.” Something is really wrong.
He paused and said, “Okay, then let’s do a CT scan and take a closer look.”
That one word changed everything.
The scan showed that something was happening in the lower part of my intestine. He referred me to a gastroenterologist and recommended a colonoscopy so I could get a biopsy and finally find out what was going on. I did the procedure. A few days later, the phone rang. On that phone call, I heard the words “Crohn’s disease” for the first time, and to my own surprise, I smiled.
The feeling of relief didn’t last long.
As it turns out, it wasn’t that simple. Crohn’s disease is a chronic disease. Simply put, your immune system attacks your digestive tract when it doesn’t like something, causing inflammation and pain as food passes through that part of your intestine.
An expert told me directly. He said he would be dealing with this for the rest of his life because it is chronic. He told me to take it seriously. Otherwise, there was a real possibility that he would need surgery to remove the damaged part of his intestine. He prescribed medication and told me that if I wanted to feel better and get things under control, I needed to change my lifestyle and diet.
This is the tricky part about Crohn’s disease. It has different symptoms for almost everyone who has Crohn’s disease, and many of them are food-related. Certain things can trigger it, but those triggers vary from person to person. Some people are perfectly fine with alcohol, but can’t tolerate something as simple as orange juice.
In my case, the troublemakers turned out to be alcohol, spicy food, orange juice, fatty fast food and coffee. I didn’t figure it out overnight. It took me about two years of paying attention, cutting things out and putting them back together, and slowly learning what my body can and cannot handle. Coffee was by far the hardest thing to give up.
Around that time, I told a friend of mine what I was going through. I expected sympathy. Instead, he looked at me and said, “You know what? “Hey, you’re so lucky.”
I was surprised. How could I be so lucky to have a chronic illness?
He explained its meaning. The way he saw it, this was going to force me to eat well, pay attention to my body, and take my health seriously in a way that most people never do until it’s too late. In his words, I’m probably going to be healthier than most people because I had no other choice.
It did not land at that time. I was busy drinking coffee and grieving.
But now, about 15 years later, I look back and realize what he meant. Most of the time, but not always, I completely eliminate foods that hurt me from my life. I have now come a long way without a relapse. The discipline my illness imposed on me didn’t stop at the kitchen either. The way I treat my body in general has changed.
I’m not going to act like chronic illness is a gift from God, and I’m not going to make any promises about adding years to someone’s life. That was my friend’s optimism, not medical fact. But let me just say this. What I feared the most ended up leading me to a healthier life than I could have built on my own.
There are a few things that have stayed with me throughout this time.
The first is to trust your body and continue to advocate for yourself. Even if something doesn’t seem right or you keep being ignored, don’t stop asking questions. I heard the words “It’s stress” three times until someone finally ran a test that found the truth. If I had accepted that answer, I would still be suffering, or even more so. You know your body better than anyone, so you are allowed to keep trying until someone else listens.
The second is that a difficult diagnosis can be a strange turning point. Not because the disease itself is good, but because it can force you to make changes you’ve been putting off for years. It forced me to confront habits I would have happily ignored forever.
And third, when you’re standing in the middle of a storm, there’s often no silver lining. My friend saw me before I did. It took me a decade and a half to catch up with him.
If you’re in the middle of your own version of this, waiting for answers, feeling denied, or sitting around with news you don’t want, I wouldn’t say it’s secretly great. All I’m saying is that there are some situations that cannot be changed, and that’s when life asks you back, who you want to be. You may not like the assignment. But, like me, you may look back and realize that it was something that changed you for the better.
About Armand Soltani
Arman Soltani is VP of Design at PastWisdom.com, where he combines his love of technology, design, and personal growth to create thoughtful digital experiences. Learn more at PastWisdom.com
