1. Be patient

Doesn't everyone has to learn that at some point? Yes and no! All life long we are waiting for sth.. Waiting at the cash register, waiting for the big love, waiting for an exam, waiting, waiting, waiting. Right now during corona , I hear  many young people complaining about not being  they able to meet  or go to clubs ..... are you serious? What I mean is another kind of  waiting. Since August 2019 I am waiting to finally be able to get rid of my stoma  in June 2020. Do not get me wrong. Having a stoma is not a bad thing at all, but I had a pretty normal life with IBD. At most one flair a year, could eat anything, do anything. For many, the stoma is a blessing because life before was hell on earth, but not for me. Even in the waiting room, many people get upset while I calmly spend time on  Instagram and Co . Like, honey, grab a drink and calm down, you're here for your health. Don't get me wrong, I was impatience in person and I am still far away from a normal people´s patience. But  if I can wait 11 months for an operation, then you can probably handle a couple of month without celebrate. Get your shit together!

2. Be intuitive

As the French writer Luc de Clapiers said, "The human mind is more intuitive than logical and understands more than it can coordinate". But let's be honest, who is as guilty as right? I definitely am. However, chronically ill people only have a limited amount of energy available every day, which is why we cannot compare ourselves to healthy people. Our fatigue cannot be eliminated with sleep. When I was young I wanted to keep up, to belong. Back then, someone should have told me not  to cycle with friends to school 3 days after a hospital stay . I noticed how dizzy I was. Did I continue cycling without saying anything? Bingo, I collapsed 2 minutes later. How many times have I asked my brother to sit with me because I already saw black spots and couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die! This has taught me to manage my time and energy.

3. Be an adult

Friends admire how I organize everything. Doctor's appointments, ostomy care, energy management, time management, daily tablet intake, shift work as a nurse ... without order the purest chaos. Four doctor appointments in a week is not uncommon. Don't get me wrong, I still hate calling the doctor.  Sometimes I would just sing into the phone: "Hello it's me. I´ve been wondering, if after all this years ( days) you like to meet..hello from the other side I must have called a thousand times ..". Our illness makes us mature whether we like it or not. The downside is that trauma makes you think differently about life. When I was 10 I had to deal with the thought of death. Can I have children? When is the time to tell someone? Why me? CED is not only a physical challenge, but also psychologically and mentally.

4. Be calm in person

At first glance, most consider me to be shy, calm or a bitch. Gurl, I'm not a bitch, I'm THE BITCH and Mrs. Bitch for you.  How often do I hear "Sorry I misjudged you, you are so different". "Wow, I like your calming effect." Silence is gold. Literally. First of all I only have a certain amount of energy available per day, so I learned to handle it carefully. Second of all I learned that the more I get upset, the more the flair is sneaking around the corner like "Hi bitch, its me.". In the past I let myself be stressed by a lot, also owed to my perfectionism, but at some point fate threw stones at me, so now I react calmly. Do I accept fate? No. I wonder every day what I did wrong to deserve it. After a short self-pity the bitch comes out of me and shouts: "Plot twist!" and takes the steering wheel again. Did I imagine my life being like this? Nope, but I will enjoy every second. Should I be stoned again, you can read on my grave: "Don't look like that, I'd rather be on the beach, too!" Just in case!

5. Be thankful!

How often do older people say: "Be grateful!". I never understood that before. Today I appreciate what I have. Believe me: HEALTH is the greatest gift. LIFE is the greatest gift and we should be grateful to our mothers for this gift. Here I am: young, sick and hungry for life. How clearly  I can imagine   my mother sitting  at my bedside in hospital and I cried  that I would not want to die yet. And I'm sure everyone with a chron. illness , has been in this situation before. When I sank into self-pity as a child, my mother used to say that I shouldn't act like that, because her patients in the hospital were worse off. Of course, there are always sick people, but my suffering is no less. Today, being a nurse myself, I see how sick some people are and these moments show me how grateful I can be. Helping others  fills me up, because nobody can comprehend more how helpless they are. Sure, there are patients I am trying to cheer up. But all that I hear  is: "What do you know? Aren't you too young, to be sick? .." Yes and aren't you too old, to be alive? "(Warning irony). I don´t want to  waste every day thinking about death. When my time comes, I have enjoyed every second. I was almost dead in  coma and guess what? Hell was too boring and I will win this battle at any time.

6. You are stronger than you think!

If someone would ask me  where I get my strength from. Honestly, I don't know. When it comes down to it and you have no choice but keeping on fighting, you develop an indescribable will. When I was near the end, I begged to live, not because I was afraid to die. No, I've fought most of my life. Fought against me because I could never accept the illness as part of me and was in constant pain. That would put an end to my suffering, but I couldn't let that happen. Because what caused me even more pain would be to see my mother suffering if I wouldn´t be there anymore. This keeps me going till this day. She is not only my mother,but my best friend, my psychologist, my anchor. After losing 20 kg after the accident, I was in a wheelchair because my muscles could not support me. I couldn't say two words without gasping for breath. I learned one thing during this hard time. Nobody will fight this fight for you. Every day I went for a walk: 50m, 100m, 200m, 500m ... never compare yourself to others, they fight in another game. You don't have to be the best! It is enough to be the best version of yourself!

7. Quality, over quantity!

Many people will not accept your illness, people of whom you thought they were your friends will make fun of you. Today I appreciate my  friends. There are not many, but if I needed them, they would travel the world at night to help me. I don't waste time trying to maintain friendships. I don't hold onto those who don't want to stay, because sooner or later it will show who your real friends are. Family is also gold, no matter what happens to you, whether with stoma, scars, bad moods ... they will always stand by you. "Ohana means family and that means that everyone is together and there for each other, doesn't it?" But in the end you have to fight for your whole life and unfortunately you have to fight this fight alone. There are valuable people who accompany you and make it easier, but in the end it depends on you!

8. You don't have to be perfect, it is enough to be YOU!

I've heard that perfectionists tend to get IBD, I don't know if that's true. But I can say one thing! CED drives your perfectionism insane. As soon as you think you've got your life under control, she comes around the corner and shouts "Suprise bitch! Did you miss me?" and gives your life a little spice with a flair. At some point you have the fuck-off mentality. Life is like a road trip and, honey, you're not driving the Porsche. No, you are a passenger. Here and there you can decide when to stop and briefly press the gas, but you will never have the steering wheel. The scars are still a thorn in my eye. But, you know what? In China, broken porcelain is being repaired with gold. The fragments shine golden. Every vase that was once broken has a unique gold-colored decorative scar  that tells a story. And so my scars tell the story of my victory. Don't be ashamed of your blemishes. They make you unique!

9. You live your life for yourself, not for others!

A basic instinct is fatal to us today in the digital age: the need of belonging to a group. Once essential for survival, but today it does us more harm than good. But why does everything has to have a label these days? We are looking for a lifetime to find the one or the thing that fills our half-full glass. If I have 10,000 followers, I'm happy. If you have reached the goal, you usually have to find out that this does not fill your glass. We run to psychologists hoping they can tell us what makes us happy. If the therapy fails, it is easy to say: "He is a bad therapist". It's always easier to blame others. But let's be honest. Stop doing what society thinks is right. Get to know you! Who are you really? What are your goals? You could be perfect and people would  still point things out. I just feel sorry for them because it is a testimony to their own dissatisfaction. How insecure do you have to be to bully a sick person so that you distract from your own dissatisfaction. Let them talk. This is proof that you are doing everything right.

10. Your body is your temple

We spend all of our life fighting our bodies. For me it was already broken, worthless. But it is not. You have to spend your whole life in it. Appreciate him, take care of him, listen to him. There are certain "blue zones" in the world: Zones in which the population is on average getting older than the rest of the world, although the medical care is not as good as in the industrialized countries. For example Okinawa in Japan. They have in common that they eat more than 90% vegan, partly due to poverty. The seven days of Adventists are also part of it. Their belief contains to honor the body like a temple. What I mean by that? No, you don't have to go vegan now, but diet makes a big difference. The same applies to luxury foods, such as alcohol and cigarettes and drugs.