Polychondritis Memoir

My memoir, like mentioned previously, is about my life long battle with an auto immune disorder and later how it shaped me to be on the path I am today. Not understanding your disorder was a very difficult thing to process as child. To this day I’m still learning about the disorder. The memoir reflects a specific memory of me struggling with the concept of taking medication and why I was not like my siblings, but has a positive twist that leads me to my destiny.
Old at the age of four
I have an old person disease. Polychondritis (Poly-con-dry-tis), is an old person disease that redefined my life at the age of 4. I’ll try not to bore anyone with the science of it all but give you the explanation my mother tried giving me that will forever be

Why do my parents always do this to me? They force me to take medication that makes my stomach queasy like I had just drank spoiled milk. And why am I the only one to take these? Why do my siblings not have to? These are the questions invading my thoughts as I lie cry into my pink fluffy pillow. I snap out of it as I hear a knock on the door. As I quickly compose myself, I open the door to find my sister, Paige. Paige is my triplet but we do not look alike as I have dark chocolate curly hair with olive skin and her with straight hair covered from head to toe with freckles. We are both the same height with the same body stature, short and petite. She asks cheerfully if I can come back downstairs and go outside. With her light brown innocent eyes starring right into mine, I reply with a kind smile on my face, putting my sorrows and unanswered questions behind me to go with

I politely obey and take my place on the rough light brown carpet. My mother with gloomy eyes tries to explain to me how important it is to take the steroids. As she talks I quickly feel the lump in my throat growing until I explode in a crying frenzy, folding myself into my own lap with my hands over my face. As I unfold, so do all my unanswered questions, pouring out of my mouth like word vomit. I always kept it to myself but at the moment, I was in complete meltdown mode. My parents try again and again to explain this disorder but it just goes through one ear and out the other. All I could think of was life wasn’t fair and you got the short end of the stick. In my frustration, a revelation happened years later when I had finally read a book called “The Fault in Our Stars”. The disorder is not what defines me. I took my frustration and confusion and turned it into my strength and direction. Now looking at it as an adult, it is funny how stubborn and upset I was about taking the most minuet pill and being different from my siblings. It’s the reason I’m going to be a nurse, so my struggle gave me a lot more than I could ever hoped for. I now go to my dream school for nursing to help others with problems similar and different than me. It has its ups and downs just like any other rollercoaster but it gave me my direction. So I guess having an old person disease isn’t so bad after