Guest Appearance: Behcet's

My Life Shortly Before Behcet's...In a Nutshell





I was born and raised in Naperville, Illinois. A pretty affluent suburb of Chicago. I played basketball, soccer, and had a very brief love affair with cross country running. I attended undergraduate at Northern Illinois University, where I majored in Psychology and minored in Sociology. I had to take so many statistics courses that I almost minored in that too, but I quickly wisened up.

I was unsure of where my life was headed. Although I was sure that I wanted to pursue psychology further, I had no direction in terms of where I wanted to be. I decided to move out to Arizona and start over. It was difficult to leave everything I knew behind, such as my family and friends, but it was something that I had to experience.

While in Arizona, I quickly applied to Argosy University/Phoenix. Argosy University, previously known as the Arizona School of Professional Psychology, is a private school focused on providing education in the field of psychology (obviously). I will never forget that phone call notifying me of my acceptance. It was the first day of the rest of my life. Or so the saying goes. I was so thrilled, this was everything I had ever dreamed of. I was always told that Clinical Psychology was the toughest area to get accepted into within the field of psychology. Flashback to high school.....My guidance counselor informed me that I would never even get accepted into undergrad. Boy do I want to go back and slap that doctorate on his desk. I digress....I began school at Argosy. I was loving it. Classes were tough, but I thrived on the challenge.

I quickly made friends with my small cohort of classmates. I made a life for myself in Arizona and was extremely happy. I was getting straight A's, and passed my first of two competency exams with distinction. This was something that was difficult to accomplish. I was proud of myself, felt good about where I was headed, and had no clue how my life was about to change. During my third year of grad school, I was working on coursework, my second practicum (which is half time internship), and was working part time at a pizza joint. To say that I was stressed is an understatement. To make matters worse, my grandmother suffered a stroke which she ultimately did not survive, I broke up with my boyfriend, and failed my second comp exam. I was working with abused children, and they often came in off the streets, thus bringing with them a host of illnesses. It was then that I got strep throat for the first time.

It took 3 rounds of antibiotics to clear up the strep throat. Shortly after, I noticed that my tongue started getting all these bumps on them. They were swollen, and looked like those infected taste buds you get when you eat too many sour things. The little bumps quickly turned into what looked like canker sores. They were extremely painful and I would get them anywhere in my mouth and throat. Numerous sores appeared simultaneously. I started going to doctor after doctor. Some said it was a virus, others said it was associated with hormones. Regardless of the cause, every doctor said that it would "just go away." What started out as me being ill once a month quickly manifested into feeling sick more and more frequently.

Thus, my relationship with Behcet's began....and I had not even known it yet. In retrospect, I can see this is the point that my life quickly turned into the "before and after" point.