Katie Nuffer: Hey everyone,
The beginning of school is stressful and exciting at the same time. It’s something that I, personally, have been looking forward to for quite some time. As I’m sure you’re all aware last school year was very, very difficult for me due to all my health complications. I had missed basically the entire year and I lost most of my friends. I failed way too many classes and got way far behind schedule. To make it even more stressful I was going into my senior year and only had one year to get caught up. As a solution, I decided that I would be going to Valley High School my senior year. Valley is alternative High School for students who can’t attend there boundary school. All together there are about 500 students attending Valley, compared to the 2 or 3,000 at my old school. Teachers are so understanding and caring at Valley. I feel like at my old school, Bingham, the teachers just wanted to meet the requirements and they didn’t really care about the students. At Valley the teachers make sure you understand what they are teaching and will do everything in their power to help you and work with you. One thing that I love about Valley is that a lot of people have similar problems like me. I met this girl her name is Hannah and she was telling me why she had switched schools and it was because she had this surgery on her back last year and was out around the same amount of time I was. She told me that a lot of her friends thought that she didn’t care about them anymore and that all of them didn’t want to be friends with her. Then I told her my story and it felt good to be able to talk about that to someone who had been in a similar situation.
This year something clicked with me and school. Ever since I remember I dreaded going to school, not only because of the pain but because of people and being so behind, going to school always has really stressed me out. Worrying about what everyone thought about me, trying to be normal, hiding my pain from everyone. I absolutely hated it, I just wanted to stay in bed and be by myself. This year I have been excited to go to school, even though I still don’t really know anyone. I have been enjoying learning new things and pushing myself. I still have straight A’s and it’s the third week of school. I’ve read almost 200 pages, and if you knew me before I hated reading, and I got really bad grades. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve accepted the fact that I have MHE and I’m not ashamed of it anymore, or if it’s because of all the support I have around me (Gina, Justin, Megan, Sills, Brody).
Some of you know I recently got hired at Rue 21 in West Jordan, Utah. I’ve been working a lot recently, and I feel so accomplished. I feel like all the days of sitting on my couch watching TV are gone. I feel like I’m not wasting my life anymore. I feel like I can do anything, be anything I want, and I have never felt that way in my life.
I still have to hide the pain, but it’s manageable which is what I’ve been waiting for, for what seemed like forever. I think part of the reason why I am doing so well is because I don’t really care what others think of me, I just want to push myself, and succeed. I am determined to not let my tumors, or my arm, or any other reason hold me back anymore. I want to prove everyone who has ever made fun of me or doubted me that MHE doesn’t describe me, it doesn’t give me any excuse to not succeed, it’s just one little(big) thing about me. I want to be able to look back and not only remember pain, I want to remember determination, memories, and all the other things that come along.
-Katie