My own medical history during my hospital stay was readily available to me through literally thousands of pages of medical records that outlined everything from my 'bowel releasing' schedule to the minute details of my brain biopsy procedure.

Youth and health are supposed to go hand in hand. And it was only when I got to a point where I was so weak, it was a struggle to walk up and down the stairs that I found myself in an emergency room. And within 24 hours I was on a plane back home to upstate New York, and I got the bone marrow biopsy that led to my actual diagnosis.