Chronic health conditions affect the lives of millions, including many MHS students, but they don’t let their health limit them from living their lives to the fullest. Whether it is physical or mental, health conditions often make things a lot more difficult, from school to sports to jobs. A few students who are fighting chronic health conditions spoke to The Union about their experiences.
Senior Allie Klaydman has faced chronic migraines since she was 8 years old but was only diagnosed with them when she was 14, she said.
Chronic migraines are classified as having 15 or more headaches within 30 days for over three months, with eight of those days having the additional symptoms of migraines, including nausea, brain fog, head throbbing, and sensitivity to light and sound, according to “What Is Chronic Migraine?” by the American Migraine Foundation.
“I’ve had migraines for the past nine years, and so I’ve experienced over 1,600 of them in my life,” Klaydman said. “But they really aren’t regular headaches. … I just wish more people understood the severity of them.”
Klaydman works 20 to 28 hours weekly for her part-time job, is the co-editor-in-chief of the MHS yearbook, and has been taking advanced classes during school, she said.
“Managing a schedule such as that with my health condition is often really hard,” Klaydman said. “As soon as I’m faced with my triggers, such as light, noise, or smells — which are my top three ones — I’m often not able to move. It makes simple things like reading really difficult.”
To reduce the chances of having a migraine, Klaydman avoids her triggers, takes medications, and has safety procedures for when feeling faint, she said. However, since there is no cure for them yet, migraines aren’t something that she can escape from, she added.
“For me, I try to separate myself from my health condition,” Klaydman said. “Obviously, follow your doctor’s advice to the best of your abilities. … But overall, don’t let it limit you and make sure to value your health while still inching towards your goals. Every small step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.”
Senior Krystal Nguyen has autism and the inattentive subtype of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), she said. Before her ADHD diagnosis in middle school, her family was frequently frustrated with what they assumed was simply laziness, she said.
“It’s hard to focus, especially when it comes to things that you’re not particularly interested in,” Nguyen said. “But also, there’s something called hyperfixation and hyperfocus where you get really engrossed in your activity.”
Many times, the hyperfixation can be beneficial — Nguyen doesn’t have to worry about forgetting to finish assignments or procrastinating, she said. Especially after she started taking Adderall, a prescription drug that helps improve focus, she became more efficient with school work, she added. However, at one point in eighth grade, she faced anxiety, panic attacks, and delusions as a result of an Adderall overdosage, she said.
“That era of Adderall overdosage — although terrifying — led me to finding my passion in reading online articles and journaling, as I did those things to help calm myself down and make sense of my thoughts,” Nguyen wrote in an email.
The Individual Education Program (IEP) accommodations have also been helpful for Nguyen since it used to be difficult for her to catch all the verbal information and visual details given in lectures and presentations, she said. The IEP is an “individualized document” that changes the way educational content is taught to match the needs of students with disabilities, according to “A Guide to the Individualized Education Program” by the US Department of Education.
“One of my accommodations was for teachers to print out or send a link to their class presentations, so I can spend more time taking notes,” Nguyen said.
Nguyen also faces autism, she said. Autism spectrum disorder is “a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave,” as defined by the National Institute of Mental Health.
“I struggled a lot with it back in elementary school,” Nguyen wrote. “As with one of the symptoms that comes with autism, I was socially inept and didn’t know how to make friends.”
Nguyen has been focusing on engaging in more social activities by joining new clubs and making new friends, she said. She is better able to manage her ADHD and autism now that she is a senior, and she is proud of how far she has come; now, she has clear aspirations and goals for the future, she said.
“I’m thinking of creating this entire, really ambitious web comic,” Nguyen said.
Freshman student-athlete Mileya Funches developed asthma around fifth grade, but only discovered it when she started to play sports in seventh grade, she said.
Asthma is a chronic condition that causes shortness of breath and chest tightness due to the inflammation and narrowing of airways in the lungs, according to “What Is Asthma?” by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Funches currently plays flag football, basketball, and track and field, all of which require running, something that often triggers her asthma, she said.
“To prevent it (triggering asthma), you have to do a lot of inhalers and build up your endurance while running,” Funches said. “In track, it gets bad because I also have allergies. The pollen and grass affect me, so I have to take other (additional) medications to counter my asthma.”
When asked about her advice for students battling chronic health conditions, Funches said that because everyone has different conditions, it’s difficult to assess others’ physical capacities.
“All I have to say is: don’t let it stop you from doing what you love and just keep on enduring it,” Funches said.
