I thought I was asking for paperwork.
Medical records. Notes. Reports. Dates. Procedures. A stack of documents that would help me piece together parts of my story and better understand what happened to me all those years ago.
But what arrived was not just paperwork.
It was my life.
It was my childhood, my teenage years, my surgeries, my complications, my pain, my survival, and pieces of a story I had lived but had never fully seen written out in front of me.
And I was not prepared for how it would feel.
I knew I had been sick. Of course I knew that. I lived it. I have carried the scars, the memories, the medical history, and the lifelong changes in my body for decades. But there is something very different about living through something and then reading it years later in clinical language.
The records were not emotional. They were not dramatic. They were not written like a story. They were written the way medical records are written: factual, direct, and detached. One note after another. One surgery after another. One complication after another. Words typed by doctors, nurses, surgeons, and specialists who were documenting what was happening to my body.
But I wasn’t just reading about a body.
I was reading about me.
I was reading about a fifteen-year-old girl who was very, very sick. A girl whose life changed in ways she could not possibly understand at the time. A girl who went through more than any child should have to go through. A girl who had to grow up fast because her body did not give her another option.
And yes, I cried.
Several times.
Not because I didn’t know my story. I do know my story. But seeing it all together was overwhelming. The surgeries, the complications, the words doctors used, the treatments, the decisions, and the seriousness of it all hit me in a way I didn’t expect.
At one point, I just sat there thinking, “It is crazy what I had to go through just to still be here.”
That thought has stayed with me.
Sometimes we survive something because we have no other choice. We put one foot in front of the other. We do what the doctors tell us to do. We get through the next test, the next surgery, the next hospital stay, the next hard conversation, and the next scary moment.
And then life keeps moving.
Years pass. We get busy. We raise families. We work. We laugh. We travel. We go to appointments. We make dinner. We answer emails. We celebrate birthdays. We build a life.
But somewhere inside us, that younger version of ourselves is still there. The one who was scared. The one who was in pain. The one who didn’t know what would happen next. The one who had to be brave long before she understood what bravery even meant.
Reading those records made me meet that girl again, and my heart broke for her.
Not in a hopeless way. Not in a “poor me” way. But in a deeply compassionate way.
I wanted to reach through those pages and hug her. I wanted to tell her, “I am so sorry you had to go through this. I am so sorry it was so hard. I am so proud of you.”
As strange as it sounds, I don’t think I had ever fully said that to myself before.
I have told my story many times. I have talked about Crohn’s disease, my ileostomy, surgeries, hospital stays, and the ways illness shaped my life. I have written about pieces of it. I have tried to be honest about the hard parts while still choosing to focus on the good.
But reading those records was different.
It was proof.
Proof that it really was that serious. Proof that I did not imagine the heaviness of it. Proof that my body fought hard. Proof that my doctors fought hard. Proof that my family walked through terrifying days too. Proof that I am still here after things that could have gone very differently.
There is a strange mix of emotions that comes with that kind of proof.
There was sadness, of course. There was grief for the childhood and teenage years that were interrupted by illness. There was grief for the innocence that was lost. There was grief for the version of me who had to learn about hospitals, surgeries, ostomy bags, pain, fear, and survival when she should have been thinking about school, friends, sports, dances, and all the normal things teenagers think about.
There was also disbelief. Even though I lived it, seeing it documented made me pause over and over again. Page after page, I kept thinking, “How did I get through this?”
And then there was gratitude.
Gratitude for the doctors and nurses who cared for me. Gratitude for the people who made decisions when things were scary. Gratitude for the medical care that helped keep me alive. Gratitude for my body, even though I have not always been kind to it in my thoughts.
Because my body has been through a lot. It has scars. It has limitations. It has changed. It has required patience from me in ways I never wanted to learn.
But it also carried me here.
For so many years, I think I looked at my body through the lens of what it could not do, what it had lost, or what made it different. Reading my records reminded me of something else: my body survived.
It endured. It healed again and again. It adapted. It kept going.
And so did I.
Maybe you have something like this in your own life too.
Maybe it is not medical records. Maybe it is an old journal. Maybe it is a photo from a season when you were barely holding it together. Maybe it is a memory you usually avoid. Maybe it is a conversation, a diagnosis, a loss, a divorce, a childhood wound, a season of depression, grief, anxiety, caregiving, financial stress, or something else that changed you.
Maybe you have a chapter in your life that you survived because you had to, but you have never really stopped to acknowledge how hard it actually was.
If that is you, I want you to hear this:
You are allowed to look back and feel sad. You are allowed to grieve what happened. You are allowed to cry for the version of yourself who didn’t have the words, the support, the understanding, or the strength you have now.
You are also allowed to be proud.
Sometimes we rush ourselves past the hard parts because we don’t want to dwell there. And I understand that. I am a big believer in not letting myself spiral into negative thoughts. I work hard at staying positive. I work hard at telling myself, “Not this time,” when my mind wants to go down the rabbit hole of fear, anxiety, or worst-case scenarios.
But staying positive does not mean pretending things were not hard.
Healing does not mean minimizing what happened. Strength does not mean you never cry. Sometimes strength is being honest enough to say, “That hurt me.”
Sometimes healing is looking back at the younger version of yourself and finally offering compassion instead of criticism. Sometimes gratitude and grief sit right next to each other.
That is what reading my medical records felt like.
It was painful, but it was also strangely healing. Those records told me what happened to my body, but they did not get to tell the whole story.
They do not show the life I would go on to build. They do not show the boys I would raise, the love I would find, the granddaughter I would hold, or the joy I would still experience.
They do not show the woman I became.
They only show part of the story.
And maybe that is the reminder I needed most.
Our hardest chapters matter. They shape us. They leave marks. They deserve to be acknowledged. But they are not the whole story.
If you are looking back at something painful in your own life, I hope you can give yourself grace. I hope you can see how much you carried. I hope you can stop for a moment and recognize what it took for you to still be here.
Because sometimes we don’t need to be tougher. Sometimes we need to be gentler with ourselves.
Sometimes we need to look at the person we used to be and say, “You made it. I’m so proud of you.”
Reading thirty years of medical records was not easy, but it reminded me of something I do not want to forget.
I am still here.
And that matters.
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One Response
My heart sunk as I was reading this as I tried to even imagine what those 30 years were like. I felt so sad for the young girl who endured unimaginable procedures to fight for her life and try to understand what was happening to her body. And then as you share how you felt reading your medical records, I admire the woman I know today. The woman who has succeeded and excelled in so many ways. Raising boys she wasn’t supposed to have, making a family that is kind, thoughtful, i dependent and happy. Falling in love. Through continued episodes of Crohns and complicated surgeries, she continued her education to become a successful programmer. And to be able to carry herself as if everything is ok. You are a magnificently strong and loving woman. I admire and respect and love you so very much!