2025 Anne Stephens Viewmont HS

My Beautiful Life

Before my health challenges began, I was a successful student, a competitive figure skater, a beginner violist, and involved in service activities with my church. Then, my life drastically changed when I contracted mono in the sixth grade. As the months passed into a year, my symptoms of crippling fatigue, immune dysfunction, brain fog, muscle pain, dizziness, and inability to eat worsened. Severe back pain forced me to have to crawl on the ground or have my parents help me walk. I developed food intolerances to meat and dairy that caused me to vomit if I tried to eat them. I finally had to drop out of school and lay for hours in bed, unable to remember what it felt like to be well.

My mom’s autoimmune diseases drove my parents to find more answers from specialists at Primary Children’s. After extensive testing, I was finally diagnosed with severe food allergies, chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome, and scoliosis. I began physical therapy twice a week for two to three hours at a time. PT went on for months with only temporary improvements. My hips and shoulder blades were so uneven that my hips would lock up, making it difficult to walk or bend my knees. I could have understandably given up, but my faith and loving family helped to keep me going.

Eventually, I found a PT who successfully treated my scoliosis, and I only had to be seen once a month. Various dietitians slowly reintroduced me to the minimum foods that my body could tolerate. But as soon as we fixed one problem, another would develop. I was further diagnosed with severe PCOS and hypoglycemia after having abdominal pain and sleep deprivation that would last for weeks each month. Another two years passed as I battled constant low blood sugar, debilitating fatigue, weight and muscle loss, and cystic acne. My pediatrician recommended me to another specialist who practiced traditional and holistic medicine. Hope began to return to my life as this specialist found treatments for more of my problems. She learned that I loved to draw and encouraged me to use that as a means to healing. My artwork helped me to distance myself from my physical pain and strengthen my soul. My handicaps made painting difficult, but I learned to work around them, and painted in bed.

I discovered that I was limitless in my creativity and desire to improve and excel in art. New medications helped my health slowly improve so I could take online AP and CE classes. My resilience enabled me to gradually return to a gentler, no-impact form of skating called ice dance. For service, I co-started a crotchet club for my high school’s Teen Center. We provide handmade plushies to comfort students who have to sleep away from their violent home life. PT and finger braces helped me to play the viola again. I also gradually returned to a few in-person classes and took AP art. My health was terrible for the first half of the year, but I still created 15 pieces centered around the Homeric poem of Persephone and Hades in nine months. I used the myth to portray my fall into mental and physical illness through her being taken forcefully to the underworld, away from the sun and her loved ones. Persephone never left the underworld entirely, just as I will never fully recover, but we both learned to be resilient and be happy with what we had and, appreciate our time in the sun.

My doctor was unsure if graduation was possible, but I will in May! I even maintained a 3.9 GPA and got into BYU Provo for this fall. I lost many friends along the way but found new ones who bore me up. I still have a long road to go, but my life is growing steadily fuller. Art has given me the possibility of having a life as an illustrator and being able to support myself when I am an adult. Even with these improvements, life is still hard for me. Last month, I received additional diagnoses of VCD, where my vocal cords close off when I try to exercise, making it difficult to breathe, and Ehler-Danlos syndrome. This connective tissue disease causes hypermobility in my joints. I am always in pain, but I have learned how to adapt my life around it and be resilient. I know that success depends not on your circumstances but rather on your determination to succeed.