Invisible Illness

      As I sat waiting, I watched young children playing with toys brought out by volunteers or standing mesmerized by the rather Finding Nemo like aquarium at the left side of the room. While kids my age played games on their phones or i-pads and text messaged their friends. We all look like any kid you would see on the streets or in school, but we all had one thing in common. We are in a waiting area at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
      You see we are all fighting or have fought a serious illness but by just looking at us you would never be able to tell. That is because most illnesses are completely INVISIBLE. In passing we all look perfectly healthy, but if you where to turn us inside out you would see a body at war with itself. You would never see the fact that we could be in debilitating pain, or that we struggle with nausea so bad it makes the world spin by just looking at us.
      This leads to a lot of misunderstanding, judgement, and sometimes even harsh words. There are people that don't believe me when I say I am sick because I look perfectly healthy. Classmates and even teachers assume that I am skipping school when I have been gone for a week, when in reality I am too sick to get out of bed or have been admitted to the hospital. Kids make fun of or stare at me for always carrying around a backpack, my one visible sign of illness, when that backpack in my lifeline, my equivalent to a lunchbox slowly feeding formula into a feeding tube.
      With that said school is about to begin for me or for other has already begun, my one request of you and your children this school year is to not judge. Don't assume something when you have no clue what is really going on inside someone. They could be fighting an Invisible Illness. Fighting for their lives. Instead offer a hand if you see a classmate struggling with something, offer to share notes with them if they have been gone for a while, ask questions instead of staring because for most of us Invisible Illness Warriors we will be more than happy to explain.