When I was 17, I came to Israel the first time, on a youth group program for 6 weeks.  It was a dream come true for me.  I fell in love the first time, two ways.  First with a boy, who I was with for 5 years-long distance, and secondly, with Israel, where I have lived the past 25 years.

I went off to University of Texas at 18, the first time really living away form home.  I went thru lots of changes. First of all, I found out I had Ulcerative Colitis.  Secondly, I started to question EVERYTHING, including Israel.  (That is why I think it is important to put some distance between yourself and your parents, you need the space to really grow and decide what you want out of life).   Where I use to think something was white, I now thought it was black, basically I was spinning around and around in my head with all the questions of youth, what is it al about, do I really believe this etc.. At one point I just had to stop myself from thinking in order to stay sane.

But one thing I did realize, was I had this dream of Israel for 4 years and that I really should make an educated decision on whether to move there or not. In order to do that, I would need to go there, live there and then see how I felt after a year.  I did not want to just give the dream up, but I also did not want to follow it blindly.  Maybe my direction was changing.  I was the kind of person that could change directions, but I always had to have a direction.

So I came home during Thanksgiving vacation and told my parents why I had to go and study a year in Israel my sophomore year, so I would know what was my direction.  They supported me 100%, and I think secretly hoping I would decide to change my direction and not move away. I signed up for the one-year program at Hebrew University.  It was perfect, I would receive credits for all of my courses, but they would not count the grades.  Now what more could you ask form a year abroad.  It meant I only had to pass and I would go back a Jr. Wow, now that was just what the Doctor ordered!

Speaking of Dr.’s, I had to have one of course, for my disease had been getting progressively worse, with a few flare-ups’ under my belt by then….

From my experience, when I let those around me in, when they understood what I was going through, life was easier.  It took off a lot of stress; I did not have to explain why I went to the bathroom every hour, or if I did not make it to class.  I was never good at hiding stuff !

I will never for get my History professor; although I did forget his name I am afraid.  I had gone to several of his extra hours for students that needed help, and boy did I need help. My first grade in his class was a big fat D.   The next test I improved to a C then B and for the Final,  I actually managed an A.  At that time, you could leave a self-addressed envelope and the teachers would send you your grades, because most of us went home for Christmas vacation.

I was in shock when I saw that he gave me an A for the course, and gave me the Horatio Alger Award!   (Many of Alger’s works have been described as rags to riches stories, illustrating how down-and-out boys might be able to achieve the American Dream of wealth and success through hard work, courage, determination, and concern for others.)

He was telling me to never give up and I will succeed.  It is something I continue to live my life by until today, and a value I also try to instill upon my children.

At the end of my trip In Europe, I started to have very bad stomach cramps.  I was suppose to stay in New York for a few days to welcome my little sister back from a cross country bus trip, but I was feeling so bad, I decided to go home early.  A few days of rest, my mothers cooking  and I felt much better.

After a couple of weeks, I was off to the University of Texas, to start my freshman year.  As one can image, the excitement of going off to University, moving 1000 miles away from home, and making all new friends, was great.  I came to Austin 2 weeks early to go through sorority “rush”.  Now, I really did not have nay idea what all of that was about, but I was told it was a great way to meet friends, and as I went to Texas with out knowing anyone, except my older sister, who was at school there as well, I thought it was a good idea to see what it was all about.

After a week in Austin, I noticed that when I went to the bathroom, I had blood in my stool.  I called my Mom, who was concerned immediately.  As I was not feeling bad, I didn’t understand why she was upset.  She had been diagnosed with Crohns Disease 7 years earlier, so she had a better understanding of what might be ahead of me.

I went to the Gastroenterologist to do some tests.  My Mom decided to fly into Austin to be with me when I went in for the diagnosis.  Little did I know what the causes of rectal bleeding might be.  Thank goodness, it was not Cancer, but I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.

I was put on high doses of prednisone to get it under control.  With in a month, I had blown up, in more ways than one.  My face became round, what is called the Cushing look, in the medical world.  The steroids play with your hormonal levels and that is one of many side effects.  I often thought I suffered more from the side effects of Prednisone than from the disease itself.

All of my joints hurt me; it was difficult to go up and down stairs.  I gained 15 pounds. My skin stretched, I still have until today terrible stretch marks on my legs. Hair growth in unwanted places, exhaustion, I slept all time.  I missed three weeks of school that first semester.  I has also taking sulfur drugs, and had a bad reaction. I was basically always trying to catch up with the classes I had missed.  I pretty much stopped my social life, for any time or energy I did have I had to focus on just trying to pass.  My first round of tests all came in at C’s and D’s.  Once I realized that passing had to be my priority,  my grades started to improve, each test I went up a level. I was totally shocked when I finished the semester with straight A’s!  I had never done that before.  (See how there is always something positive in everything!) It was the year 1977 when the University went to the Cotton Bowl, with an 11-0 record . Earl Campbell won the Heisman trophy!  I never made it to a football game, but I did manage a little after game celebration up and down the drag.

When I went home for Christmas Vacation, I passed friends in the mall, and most had no idea who I was.  That is when I stopped looking in the mirror at myself, until today.

No one recognized me

It also made me start to really think about life, who I am. My appearance changed, but did that mean I had changed?  I became aware of how people related to me differently, and whether I relate to people by the way they look.  Some very interesting questions started to pop up for me.

When I was a teenager, I was over sensitive, felt things very passionately and totally did not know how to deal with anger or communicate with those around me when I was not happy.  I basically held every thing inside, most of my emotions.  I feel that this is what led to the break down in my body, and the weak link for me was my intestines.  This theory can not be proved, no one knows what is the root cause of any form of Colitis, Whether it be Crohns or Ulcerative Colitis,  but the general agreement in the medical field is that it is an autoimmune disease.  Something is making the body attack itself. The primary difference between Crohns Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (UC) is that UC only affects your large intestines, including your rectum,  and Crohns can start at your rectum and be anywhere in your entire digestive track, all the way up to your mouth. Both are ulcers in the lining of either your large bowel, or some other digestive track organ, but the type of ulcer looks different.  One might ask why is important to know which disease you have, are the treatments different?   The main reason is that it is thought if you have UC, then if you have a total colectomy,  (complete removal of your the large intestines), then you will be disease free.  Crohns seems to skip all over and many people do end up with one or more surgeries in their lifetime.

Technical issues aside, getting back to my diagnoses.  I graduated High School right after I was 18.

A girlfriend and I went to Holland to work in a carpet factory for 3 weeks, and then travel around Europe for 4 weeks with the money we earned.  This was a very good friend that I loved being with.  The only problem was, that we had never spent a lot of time together before that trip, we knew each other from a youth group from our synagogue, and it was the first time for either of us to travel like that, abroad without parents or anyone else guiding us.  And even if we had spent a lot of time together before, spending 24/7 with anyone can be stressful. The first three weeks were set up for us, as we had to be at work every day and we had our evenings free.

After the three weeks were over, we started on our road adventure.  We did not know exactly where we wanted to go, but we had bought our eurail pass and were raring to go.  Now, there are some wonderful things about not having set plans and also some stressful very things.

Beautiful Flowers

The first thing I discovered was that the medium age of the back packers was 22 and not 18 as I had thought it would be.  The majority of people we met were after college.  I don’t have to tell you what a huge gap those four years make at that particular age.

Secondly, because we did not necessarily know where we were going, every time we arrived in a new town, we had to find a place to stay.  Don’t forget, this was before Internet and before cell phones. Some times we would look for hours, not fun.  AND we did not have backpacks, another big mistake on our part.  Because we were working first half of the trip, we really need two types of clothes, so we both brought suitcases, and having to shlep those heavy suitcase up and down stairs at every train station got old fast.  There were times we had to change trains and had to go up and down a few times to change tracks.  NOT FUN! In the beginning we would laugh about it and by the end I think we were both crying.

Look at that Hair!

So with each city we went to, we had to find a place to stay, decide what and where we wanted to eat, and also what we wanted to do.  I did not feel secure enough at the time to spend some hours apart from my friend, and we did not always want to do the same thing.  Tension started to develop.  As I mentioned earlier, I did not know at that time how to communicate what I was feeling, so I just kept it inside.  I am sure that my friend had as many frustrations as I did.  I have no idea anymore what went on between us, or what it was that I was upset about, but I just know that things got stressful.  I have since learned, thanks to my UC, that the people around me can not be mind readers, so if I do not tell them what is bothering me, there is no way for them to know.  AND if I don’t communicate, then there is no solution, or at least not a positive one.

This is the KEY; communicate!