Stirring pancake batter in my kitchen on a Saturday morning, I felt a sense of nausea once again. Not nausea, per say, more so a dizziness. A lightheaded confusion disguised as a headache and a roulette of hot flashes–I pour the pancake batter into the pan, placing the lid on top, and watching the condensation cloud. It was a warm day in July–possibly June… 

or had it been January?

    –And as I watched the fire warm the pan, cooking the pancake, I felt the heat rise. Rise from the stove to the kitchen fan–from the fan to the window–to my face. I place my hand above the lid handle to feel the heat’s origin–the heat creeping up to my mind. Suddenly my entity is overheated, and my vision clouds. Black static fills my sight. My eyes open, but momentarily blind. It had been three months of feeling as though my sight was being taken from me. From the moments of noticing blood where it shouldn’t be, to my vision covered in blackout curtains even in broad daylight. Three months of strange issues. Until suddenly, I am taking the pancakes out of the pan and pouring another batch once again. I add them to the stack of seven… eight…when had I made eight? 

     My memory differentiating from what evidence lies in front of me, I attempt to recall which pancakes remained unflipped. But before I am able to count, I find myself carrying the plate of pancakes to the dining table–my vision clouds once more. Jets of an inky black pool into my line of vision no matter where they look. A sea of darkness, whilst my body maintains feeling of the matter I once saw in my surroundings. A deep breath, and I step to place the stack of what I believe is eight pancakes on the dining table and–the plate shatters, cutting into the floor–a shard punctures my foot.

    I believe… I’ve fallen

    The hardwood comforts me back into colorful oblivion. I see my half cooked pancakes–now counting nine–scattered in many directions across the dining room carpet. 

    My parents rush to my side–helping me up–setting me down–asking questions–yelling answers–I look up. Worried wrinkles crease their faces, and I fade into another sea of black depth. 

                                                                            …

    Dr. Shin carefully sinks into her office chair with a clipboard in hand. A few moments of keyboard clicking on her computer whilst making occasional tempered comments in attempt to reduce the pursed lips of my parents, and my mother’s furrowed brow. Dr. Shin points to each blurry image projected on her screenshare, she circles inky blots with her cursor. Her zoom screen occasionally glitching with either our or her internet “...and we have diagnosed your daughter with….”

    Three letters cascading from my doctor’s mouth come slamming against the tense silence of the momentarily paused zoom screen. I look to my mother, her eyes glassy and distant–glazed over the laptop set open in our dining room. 

“...IBD, it also stands for inflammatory bowel disease…. Or colitis…”

    I fight a giggle. My father looks at me curiously. Confused, I think to myself, isn't that an old people disease?

    Looking back, I believe I mistaked arthritis for colitis–thinking of the medical issue my grandmother said she had–my naivety makes me laugh to this day. But in a more absurd way, I believe my parents took the diagnosis harder than I did, initially. 

    My mother squeezes my hand as Dr. Shin runs through a description of the disease.

“....it is lifelong ... affecting the small intestine ... for Zoe medication will be necessary…”

    I feel my parents slip in and out of questions and concerned answers until the screen of an ended zoom call lights my mother’s computer. Tired, dazed, and too exhausted to find the catastrophe in a formal diagnosis, I slip into bed. Warm sheets cover my cold body as I nuzzle into the heat of my blankets. After eight months of illness, three words continued to ring in my brain. 

…IBD…IBD…IBD…