An Intro to the Blog...

    To jump right into things, my name is Amariah and I've been living with Crohn's disease for four years now. Time sure does fly... I was diagnosed at sixteen, and that sure threw my life for a loop! It's been a wild, bumpy, hair-raising ride from day one.

    This blog will be dedicated to posts about two main things; a) living and coping with chronic illness, and b) living a frugal lifestyle with chronic illness. Those two things may not seem super connected, but believe me, they most certainly are! Most medicines to treat autoimmune diseases are LUDICROUSLY expensive (think $10,000 every 8 weeks!), and I want to try to minimize my debt and spending wherever possible to try to offset the horrid bills that come with being sick. I'll also be posting resources for people who, like me, are unemployed because of their illnesses. I'm currently looking for a stay-at-home job or side hustle that I can work around my bad days and flares, so hopefully in the process something may stand out to you as well!

    I want to share my journey with chronic illness because of how profoundly it has affected me and my life. I've dropped out of college in three separate semesters, broke off an engagement, and dealt with multiple hospitalizations in just the past year alone! As you can imagine, that's a lot for anyone to deal with, and it's definitely changed my outlook on life.

    But the important thing is that I will not let my illness define me.

    Too often people with chronic illnesses lose their sense of self. Their life becomes defined by their medications and symptoms, their hospital bills and lab results. Just because we've had a new challenge added to our lives doesn't mean that we automatically become "the sick kid" -- we are still us. Artists, musicians, dreamers, doers. While sometimes our symptoms may take away the things we loved to do, that doesn't mean we love them any less. We take it one day at a time, pushing through it or working around it. We don't give up our minds because our bodies are defective.

    Onto bigger and better things! Check out the My Crohn's Story tab for my medical journey so far, and be on the lookout for new posts every few days. Stay awesome, my lovelies!