Faith Over Fear

Take a moment and breathe for a second. Picture yourself inside a hospital with all your belongings. You're wondering why? And what’s going on? It’s your new home. Imagine yourself with scars up and down your arms realizing the pain and the soreness from the constant IV’s they stick in your arm, or even leg. Imagine the tenderness, the pain, the suffering you are constantly feeling. You have this disease: this illness. It’s taking over your body. It’s taking away every happy moment in your life. Your constantly undergoing surgery after surgery. The pain doesn’t fade, the guilt, the disgrace. Depression starts overriding your body, taking over your soul. You stop communicating with people, even the people who were there for you. You keep asking yourself more than a hundred questions, and yet you still can't find a good enough answer that makes sense to all of this. Your body is drenched in sweat on every ounce of it from the demonizing nightmares your facing on your own. This is what being ill is, and what living well is. My name is Afton Armistead and I am a survivor of a life threatening autoimmune disease. We all have things that kept us stress free, and our feet standing. Therefore, my illness took many things away from me and I didnt know how to cope with it, until I found something that I knew even on the days I was sick, I could still work through it. Generally speaking, I wasn’t the smartest kid in my classes, and I didn’t have the best grades either. I did only what I was capable of doing. I took my education very serious. I dont have the best ACT score, and my gpa dropped low when I got really sick due to a emergency surgery I had to have on October 14, 2016. I was homeschooled my junior year, and even on the days I was sick, I could still get my work done that needed to be done. Victims, just like me, take life very serious as well as I do. My academics is all I have left, and I know If strive harder and harder, It will get me somewhere in my life. Somewhere, where I can help dozens of kids, who are fighting something that is impossible for them to oversee. There’s a difference between a kid who has got a 4.0 GPA, and academically strong than a kid with a 3.0 GPA ,who’s mentally struggling academically. My grades weren’t the best and It wasn't because I was lazy and did not try hard enough. I was physically unstable to do the work, but I always attempted. I fight for my life every single day, but I am the hardest, most determined working student you will see. It takes so much for someone to put in so much effort in their studies when they have already put all their effort in fighting to live. My attitude is, no matter how hard it will be, or how difficult and tiring it’s going to be to graduate from high school, I’m going to do it. No matter the years of more hard times, I will become a doctor and help kids who are helpless themselves. As a result, I take this to heart. I’ve came across so many kids who are depressed, with thousands of questions and living every day of their life in excruciating pain. It’s inspired me to become somebody that fixes or tries to relieve their broken heart. My past and present life experiences have made me want to become a doctor or do something with my life that will help and save lives. My first hand experiences with illness, I feel that I can truly empathize with these children and help ease their burdens. Pain is a real thing, and if I can just take a inch away from a kid, even if it’s physical pain, then that’s the plan for the rest of my life.