“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne Frank

Many of us deal with hardships that are outside of our control, and it is easy to become bitter and fatalistic. My illness, endometriosis, could have been one of those things that I let control my beliefs and ultimately, my life. The disease certainly hindered things like school, social and physical activities, romantic relationships, and work for example, but I have never been a person to give up in times of struggle.

 Initially, when I sat down to write “My Story”, I had paragraph after paragraph of all the ways endometriosis negatively impacted my life, and as I proofread it, I realized that was not the message I wanted to share. Rather the message I wanted to share was that through our struggles, we learn, grow, and overcome adversity, and in that triumphant moment of victory, hope is renewed!

In 2016, my symptoms became very severe and I kept getting sent to various doctors without an appropriate diagnosis. When I exhausted all possible medical care in my local area, I could have easily thrown in the towel and accepted that my quality of life would never improve, but there was something inside of me that told me to dig deeper. I started researching the disease and purchased a book called, “The Doctor Will See You Now: Recognizing and Treating Endometriosis”, by Tamer Seckin, MD. I did not realize it at the time, but later in preparation for the NYC Marathon Fundraising Page, I noticed Dr. Seckin had just published the book in 2016 (coincidence?).

From the moment I opened Dr. Serkin’s book, I could not stop reading it. For the first time in my life, there was a medical professional whose written words made me feel sane and, more importantly, supported in my battle with endometriosis. For such a long time, I felt alone in the disease and I never felt understood about its effects on my life, but after reading his book, there were so many women like me that battled the disease and were now healthy thanks to Dr. Seckin. I immediately thought to myself that this was the type of doctor I needed in my corner. After numerous phone calls and emails, I was unable to locate a doctor in Florida that could treat me holistically like Dr. Seckin did for his patients.

Frustrated, but not hopeless, I mustered up enough courage to reach out to Dr. Seckin’s office in New York City to see if they had any recommendations for care. When I picked up the phone that day, I never thought I would become a patient of Dr. Seckin’s, primarily because of logistics, insurance issues and out of pocket expenses. However, after explaining the gravity of my disease, his office took me on as a patient and worked with my insurance to have the ENTIRE COST covered. A month or so later, I flew to New York City, and Dr. Seckin and his team performed laparoscopic deep-excision surgery which involved the removal of seventeen different specimens from various parts of my body; all specimens contained endometriosis.

Dr. Seckin and his team, gave me my life back, something I can never repay. However, my motto moving forward post-surgery has been, “better late than never”. The physical and mental improvements post-surgery have been life-altering, including setting three state records as a master’s athlete in Olympic weightlifting and obtaining my dream job. Without giving too much detail about my profession, my experience with endometriosis empowers me daily to invoke change in others. So many people that I work with often come from troubled pasts, but my experiences with hardship related to endometriosis helps me to empathize with their situations and provide them with hope for a different way of life.

So, it is with an extremely grateful heart that I am running in the NYC Marathon for the Endometriosis Foundation of America. I pray to be a testament of hope for so many women and their families that struggle with endometriosis, to raise awareness about the disease, and to encourage women to seek early detection and treatment. Additionally, I know many women in my family also struggled with the disease, and for them, I will run too!