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A personal appeal

Paying tribute to the Children's Hospital
 
During Thursday's Chapel service, a brave Shawnigan student shared with the student body his personal connection to the BC Children's Hospital, in hopes of encouraging his peers to support Jeans Day and this worthy cause.
 

So, why are we doing Jeans Day?
 
Having attended the Children’s Hospital, I would like to give some background about my experiences – my story – to give you all a basis for this endeavour.
 
As a few of you know, but most do not, I have a condition called Crohn's. So, some background on the disease: It’s a chronic ailment, which means that it will stay with me for life, affecting my digestive system among other things. Along with other symptoms, it prohibits me from gaining weight, and in turn, makes me very sick. However, it doesn’t always affect me. Instead it will ‘flare up,’ as most doctors call it, for the average person around once every year. When it isn’t flared up, the disease has a minimal effect on me. But when it is flared up, it sucks.
 
Around the age of 13, I started getting sick and losing weight. I lost the weight so gradually that no one really noticed, until I was about 75 pounds and malnourished. No matter how much I ate, I simply could not gain weight. I also constantly got sick. If I went more than five days without being sick, it was a big deal. I remember one week, I had been bedridden with pneumonia, but my school was going to Strathcona Park. Instead of doing the most rational and reasonable thing, I decided it would be a good idea to go canoeing and camping with a bunch of grade 9's. I ended up missing nearly three months of classes by the end of the year.
 
I spent 6 months trying to find out what was wrong with me, with every doctor allocating the symptoms I was experiencing to the fact that I had a bad immune system, or that I was simply unlucky. At this time, I was also attending Brentwood (which I think is pretty fitting for the way I felt!). My parents were starting to get very worried about me. They often showed their concern by making me get my sick self out of bed and go to school, which in all fairness, I probably wouldn’t have done without them. After a while, I visited a pediatrician to properly diagnose me. When she discovered that I had Crohn's, she immediately referred me to Children’s Hospital.
 
The whole trip was made incredibly easy for my parents and me. The hospital paid for the ferry to and from Vancouver. The first thing I noticed when I arrived at hospital was the size of it. There are a bunch of different sections at the hospital, and even a Starbucks! I was assigned to a team that worked specifically and solely for kids with Crohn's, and because of this, the team was incredibly knowledgeable about the disease.
 
When I showed up, the first people I met were nurses who did a simple check-up. The nurses were very comforting and supportive. They attended to any questions or troubles we had. It turned out that I was in the bottom three percentile for weight compared to kids my age, and my whole body had stopped growing for about a year and a half due to malnourishment.
 
I then met the specialist doctor of the team, Dr. Barker, who has spent his whole life studying the disease. He laid out all of the possible lines of medication for me. The doctors at children's hospital recommended that I either take Prednisone or start an intensive diet. As the Prednisone is said to be very hard on one's body, I chose to do the diet. The diet I was put on consisted solely of a drink called Ensure, which is a meal replacement. Ensure is generally used for old people, so I was very excited to start this diet! Other than Ensure, the only thing I was allowed to have was gum and water. About halfway through my first week of the diet, I was delivered a stack of Ensure cases as high as me. The hospital had just paid for my meals for the next 4 weeks. When I was done with the 5 week diet, I had gained 30 pounds. At the end, I was scared to eat my first meal. More importantly, however, I had begun to feel healthy for the first time in almost two years.
 
I now visit Children's Hospital once every six months for checkups. The hospital has been a crucial part in managing my disease, which I’ve been able to put into remission for the full two years I’ve had it. I continue to manage my disease through the medication that the Children’s Hospital has been able to provide. I have been lucky to be treated by such a warm and professional group of people.
 
Now, my condition seems minor in comparison to what other children have to deal with. The support that the Children’s Hospital provides has been invaluable in many kids' lives.
 
I’d like to thank everyone for supporting such an essential part of our community.
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