“I volunteered over the summer for a chiropractor. And there was this one patient. She came in with a cane, and if she’d waited one more month she would have had to get her hip replaced. She was walking so slowly it was almost as if she were standing still. At first, she could only lift her leg slightly, [about 45 degrees]. But every day the doctor made adjustments, and every day she would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know my leg could still do that!’ or ‘I haven’t moved like this in 25 years!’ She still needed him to lift her leg every time. But by the end of the summer, he moved in [as if] to push her leg up, yet when she finally lifted it, it was all on her own. He hadn’t been [touching] her at all. It was amazing because it was all neurological. She hadn’t believed that she could lift her leg her by herself, and that’s why she couldn’t do it. It was amazing. [It also amazed me] that the patients even wanted to help me in my aspirations to become a doctor. They believed in me more than I believe in myself. And I feel like I’m on this journey with them.”

“People always want to explain to me what an eating disorder is. [They] want to tell me what my own disease is about. They tell me, ‘Eating disorders are about starving yourself; it’s about the media.’ But for me, it was never like that. [I] used to exercise after every meal. I used the rowing machine in my grandparents’ house, I ran on treadmills, I was breathless all the time. I had to stay moving, I had to not let anything really settle in my body. People would laugh and say, ‘That’s so OCD, you’re a health freak,’ but inside I felt like I was being set on fire or something, and I’m running from [it], and I knew I was hungry but I also knew how I’d feel after eating. Like I was a jigsaw [piece] with the corners bent in. In the end, reading about nutrition and about health didn’t help me. But it did tell me something was wrong…and over one winter break I decided to tell my [pediatrician]. I talked to him for over an hour…and the whole time I was thinking, ‘Someday this will all be a terrible memory.’ I don’t really think that will happen, really, but I’m so glad I wasn’t someone who waited until it was too late to hope for that.”