One day I woke up sick and never got better. I had Crohn’s disease and didn’t know it at the time, but it would completely change my life. I was suddenly a spoonie with no idea what that meant. I had no clue how many spoons I had or how to use them. It took time and a lot of trial and error to learn how to live with my illness. It took those around me a while to understand it too.

My family is Peruvian, and like most Latinos, we didn’t talk about illness, but not talking about something can’t make it go away. There are a lot of misconceptions about chronic illnesses and mental health, which make them harder to talk about. But the more we talk about them, the easier it becomes.

Latino families often have people that speak only Spanish, only English, or a mixture of the two. I want to make my story as accessible as I can to my readers and my family, so everything has a translation. Chronic illness is something that not only affects the person with the condition but also everyone around them.

I’ve been extremely fortunate to have a wonderful loving mother who has been with me through everything. She’s gone to appointments, taken me to procedures, and spent multiple nights at the hospital with me. I may be the one feeling all the symptoms, but my illness affects her just as often as it affects me.

I’ve been hospitalized 15 times, tried 8 treatments, and had surgery to get a loop ileostomy. I’ve been through a lot with my illness and there are a lot of things I had to learn through trial and error that I wish someone could have helped me with. Even though I struggled through my journey to learn things I hope that by sharing my own experiences and what I’ve found to be helpful, someone else doesn’t have to struggle as much as I did.