The boy met the zebra and was puzzled.

Zebras don’t exist. Well I mean, they do but surely this boy could not be seeing one before him.

No, that couldn’t be the case. He circled the funny looking horse with stripes and shook his head again and again.

No, surely it couldn’t be.

And slowly, with each passing word of disbelief and shake of his head the stripes on the zebra began to blend into a gray hue and dust covered each line. A blur on the zebra's skin, but the boy was content with the image he’d conjured.

My name is Katie and in November of 2021 my life flipped upside down.

“You have Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis”.

It was like riding a rollercoaster all the way to the top and free falling to the bottom. But that wasn’t all.

“You also have epilepsy, narcolepsy, POTS, and Common Variable Immunodeficiency.”

I have been in recovery for my eating disorder for the past few months in multiple levels of care. During that time, I have learned not only about how malicious this illness can be, but how misunderstood it is. If there was one thing that I wish I could convey about eating disorders it would be this: eating disorders very well do take a toll on your physical health, but at the end of the day, they are a detrimental mental illness.

I have known something was wrong with my body since I was about 16. It ramped up in college, and now that I’m 29, it’s time to seek answers with full force. It’s difficult to explain to people, even doctors, what is going on when I don’t even have a full grasp on it sometimes.

I start my typical day like everyone else: I wake up, get out of bed, get dressed, and head out the door to work. However, there are countless little steps in between that I have to modify because of my conditions: Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia.