My name is Mackenzie. I was born and raised in a super small town in southern Pennsylvania, an area my family on both sides were all from. Growing up, I was always very close with my parents. We never really spent any time away from each other. My younger sister and I had an amazing childhood and couldn’t have asked for better role models in our lives.

At a very young age, I was diagnosed with anxiety. At the time, I didn’t really understand it all, but my parents always made me feel better about it. I learned that this anxiety disorder runs in my family. As most people know, the anxious feeling doesn’t necessarily stem from one specific thing. However, there was always one thing that I was always terrified of. The issue that I had the most anxiety about was getting sick. I don’t mean being sick as in having a cold or the flu, but getting a serious illness. Any time I wouldn’t feel quite right, I always assumed the worst. I would even put off going to the doctor’s because I was so scared. I’m not really sure where this fear came from, but soon I would be faced with the scariest and most challenging time of my life.

This is my story...

It was Christmas morning in 2011. I woke up feeling sick. It felt like the flu. Cold sweats, stomachache, fatigue. I wasn’t throwing up and I didn’t have a fever though. I didn’t think too much of it. I just expected it to pass in a few days. Almost a month went by and I still didn’t feel better. Over the past few weeks, I had been experiencing some stomach pains. My stomach would feel like it was tightening up. With my anxiety about going to see a doctor, I just kept brushing it off. I would just deal with it until it got better.

Finally, on January 19th, my mom convinced me to see a doctor. Her and I went to our family doctor. We had the last appointment of the evening and he seemed to be in a rush to go home. I told him my symptoms and where I was having pain. He didn’t seem at all concerned, not even feeling the area of my stomach that was bothering me. He prescribed me with some medication for indigestion and told me to come see him in a month if I still wasn’t feeling any better.

January 22nd, 2012 I was forced to face my biggest fear head on. Little did I know what the next year and a half had in store for me.

On January 22nd, just 3 short days after my visit to the doctor, my parents rushed me to the Emergency Room at one of our local hospitals. The pain in my stomach was so intense that I couldn't sit up. After the CT scan, I was told that I had appendicitis. The twist to make this case of appendicitis not normal though was that the scan had shown a perforation on my appendix. They told me that my appendix had been leaking poisonous fluid into my abdomen for possibly up to a month (which explained why I was feeling sick that whole time). Of course, this meant I would need surgery. My surgeon told me that he was going to perform a Laparoscopic procedure, meaning he would use a camera to see inside of me in order to avoid giving me a big scar.

After I woke up, he told me that my appendix had completely ruptured by the time he was able to get to it, but that he still did the Laparoscopic procedure. At the time, I had no idea how big of a mistake he had made by doing that.

Now, to make a really long story a bit shorter, I’ll combine the next 11 months. Over the next 11 months, I never got any better. I slept all the time. I had no appetite. I had no energy. I was losing a lot of weight. My hair was falling out. I was absolutely terrified. I couldn't understand why I was still sick after my appendix was removed. And as scary as it is to think about, the doctors couldn’t understand why either.

Over those 11 months, I had 5 separate stays at the hospital, each stay lasting a week. I had 12 CT scans done. The scans each time showed that I was continuing to get fluid in my abdomen. Each time they found more fluid; I would have to get it drained. One time, the fluid they drained out of me was equal to a soda can and a half of liquid. They placed drains going into my abdomen that I had to keep in until nothing else came out. At one point, I had 3 separate drains coming out of me. An access formed on my liver that they were extremely concerned about. I formed a Fistula (an abnormal connection between parts of organs) that went around to my lower pack and was collecting fluid. I was given a PICC line, which is a small tube that went into a vein in the top of my inner arm and reached to my heart to disperse the antibiotics into my bloodstream faster than a normal IV. I had to give myself antibiotics through that PICC line every 6 hours for a month. I was diagnosed with severe anemia and had to receive IV iron therapy twice a week for 6 weeks. I had every test imaginable done and was on so many medications that I can’t remember them all.

Nothing was helping me. The doctors had no answers. I was a skeleton of myself. Down to 90 pounds, scared, helpless, and sick, I cried everyday. I was diagnosed with depression and put on medication for that and for my anxiety.

During my 5th hospital visit, my parents and I finally decided that it was time for us to get some answers. We gave Memorial Hospital 5 chances and got nothing but a prolonged, undiagnosed illness.

On November 12th, 2012, I was transferred by ambulance down to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. That hospital is full of Angels on Earth. I was given 1 CT scan at Hopkins. That same night, a doctor came to my hospital room and told me exactly what was going on, how she was going to fix it, how long of a recovery process I would be facing, and most importantly, that she was going to make me myself again. She told me that I was an extremely lucky girl and that she couldn’t understand how I wasn’t even more sick with as bad as my scan looked.

What had happened was that my small intestine had a leak and my colon had attached itself to the wall of my abdomen. The surgeon that removed my appendix never fully cleaned out all the bacteria from when it had ruptured, so that fluid just kept coming back, causing me to keep getting abdominal infections. It was impossible for him to properly clean out my abdomen by doing a Laparoscopic procedure. He was too worried about me being too “young” to have a big scar instead of doing the proper surgical procedure.

My surgery couldn’t be done until my blood count levels came up. I was put on a strictly liquid diet and provided with nutrition through my IV. I spent Thanksgiving in the hospital that year. On November 20th, 2012 Dr. Rushing removed part of my colon and I was given an Ileostomy (An opening into the ileum, part of the small intestine, from the outside of the body. An ileostomy provides a new path for waste material to leave the body after part of the intestine has been removed). After spending 1 night in the ICU, I was told that I would have to wear the ileostomy bag for at least 5 months. The incision that was made on my stomach is about 1 foot long and a 2 x 2 x 2 inch square was cut out of my lower back where the Fistula had been connected and collecting infected fluid. I had sutures holding the long, stomach incision together, but the square was left open, to heal from the inside, out. My mom had to pack the hole on my back with saline-drenched gauze twice a day, which was extremely painful. I was in the hospital for about 1 month before I finally got to go home.

Being a 20-year-old girl with 2 huge scars and having to wear a “poop bag” wasn’t the best feeling in the world and I was very self-conscious most of the months that I had it, but I knew that I was on the right path to recovery now. After the surgery, despite the surgical pains, I started to feel good again. I was so excited. In March of 2013, I went back to Johns Hopkins to have the Ileostomy reversed. The surgery went well and I was able to go home a week later. Since then, I’ve had once scar revision surgery that was recommended by my surgeon due to the amount of scar tissue that I had. That went great as well and I’m very happy with how my scars look.

January 2012 through March 2013 was the scariest time of my life. Throughout that time, I was forced to drop out of college and lost the 2 jobs that I had. One thing that never changed though was the support and encouragement from my parents. My mom stayed with me every single night that I spent in the hospital. As scared, as they must have been, they never let me see it. They always knew how to make me feel better. I don’t know how I would have made it through everything if it weren’t for them.

My faith in God also grew immensely during all of this. I had always been a believer, but throughout this, His power became extremely evident to me. Hearing the doctors at Johns Hopkins, a world-renowned hospital, tell me that I was lucky and that they didn’t know how I wasn’t worse off proved His part in all of this. I thank God everyday for giving me more time in this life.

I learned 2 important lessons after going through something so serious. I learned that even in the darkest, scariest times of life, things get better. Never lose hope. Everything happens for a reason and in most cases, you learn something from whatever it is. You come out being a stronger person. I also learned that being self-conscious of my scars is silly. My scars prove to me everyday that I beat that illness. I shouldn’t be ashamed of them. This past summer, I proudly wore a two-piece bathing suit for the first time since my surgeries. Yes, people stare and it’s uncomfortable sometimes, but knowing my story and what I overcame makes it alright.

Going through this somehow made me more independent than I ever had been before. Maybe because I got a glimpse of how short this life can be? I’m not really sure, but I couldn’t be happier. Since then, I went back to college, finished, and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and I was promoted to Co-Manager at the job that I had.

With my newfound independence boost, I moved to California. I work for an incredible company 3 blocks from the beach, in Santa Monica and I live with my amazing and loving boyfriend, Anthony who encourages and supports me everyday to be the best version of myself (and who just happens to be the older brother of one of the ever-so-awesome her well-wisher creators). I’ve never been happier.

Facing my biggest fear head-on was a blessing in disguise. I hope that my story helps other women realize that with a little bit of hope, anything can happen. Never give up, even when it seems like there’s nothing else you can do. Setbacks happen, but they can be overcome. Everyone has a story. It makes us who we are. I can’t wait to share mine and hopefully encourage other women to do the same.

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Sending love, luck & calm vibes.