The Story

The first few weeks of sophomore year at Madeira High School I noticed that I started to feel awful and sick to my stomach almost everyday before and during junior varsity soccer practice. I just ignored it for a while and tried to power through, believing it was just a little issue that would pass. I could not have been more wrong.

About halfway through the soccer season was when the worst of it hit me. I woke up Saturday morning, September 29, 2012. It was game day for me on the soccer team. The pain in my stomach had risen to where it felt like it was on fire. Doctors and nurses always ask you how your pain is on a scale of one to ten. One is equal to no pain and ten is equal to the worst pain you have ever experienced in your life. To this day, that Saturday morning was a ten and nothing has ever been close to that in my life.

That morning I did not dress for the game. Instead we headed to the doctor’s office for a diagnoses. My usual doctor was not there, so I had to see a different doctor. I sat in the examination room doubled over while he went through all the possibilities, but nothing could be decided until I went into the main Children’s Hospital for tests and further examination.

So we went to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital emergency room in Clifton, completely unaware that it would be my home for the next few weeks. We spent the rest of the day in the emergency room. I had to do a variety of tests like ct scans and ultrasounds. I would go from the emergency department to somewhere else in the hospital for a test, then go back to the emergency department, wait a while, then repeat. At first, the doctors thought there was a problem with my appendix. I would have to have surgery to remove it. My story could have ended here with the surgery being successful and me leaving the hospital without pain, but that did not happen.

After a few more tests and waiting around the doctors found that the problem was not my appendix. They decided I should be admitted to the hospital. After a day or so of pain and my room constantly flooded with nurses and doctors, we were given the official diagnoses. I had an inflammatory bowel disease, IBD. My type was Crohn’s disease, a chronic disease.

The next few weeks were absolutely unsettling for me and my family. Every day brought a new challenge as I got more tired, losing energy and strength. I did not think about what was happening at school, I was only thinking about my survival.

Life got worse for me every day in the hospital. Firstly, I was not allowed to eat or drink anything since I was admitted to the emergency room and this went on for 20 straight days. Instead I was fed through an IV into my veins. It was hard to sleep or even take a nap in the hospital. There were constantly nurses and doctors pouring through the hallways and in and out of my room, beeps and alerts of every pitch to the ear, and noise from the hospital. All in all it was brutally uncomfortable.

For more than two weeks the battle went on against my Crohn’s disease and there was no real solution yet. One possibility that some people diagnosed with Crohn’s do is to not eat real food and instead drink dozens of protein drinks everyday for a few months. At one point in my stay in the hospital it looked like this would be the only solution and I would be going home soon. The nurses saw on their computer that I was on the upcoming discharge list and that it usually meant I would go out soon. I was told that I could “go home tomorrow,” but then things took a turn for the worst. I would have to have surgery in a couple of days to remove part of my small intestine where there was a lot of inflammation.

On October 17, I had surgery as the last solution to control my inflammatory bowel disease. I had 18 inches of my small intestine removed in a procedure known in the medical community as an ileocecal resection. It was a slow and painful recovery for me after surgery. I had the sharpest, most horrendous pains all over my body as I tried to move around, even just moving from my bed to the chair a few feet away was too much. Eventually I was able to walk again, though extremely painful, I was able to walk down the halls of the hospital with my IVs and look out the windows. I had to do breathing exercises as part of my recovery, just to get my lungs back to normal. It wasn’t until a few days after surgery that I was finally allowed to eat and drink. I had a water and apple juice to drink, they both tasted amazing, then my mother stopped by Chipotle to get me a bowl of rice, I wasn’t quite ready for the whole burrito, to eat. It was a favorite of mine that I hadn’t eaten in almost a month. It tasted like heaven.

My mother took me home from the hospital the afternoon of October 22nd. We drove up Interstate 71 North. I was completely unaware of what life would be like, especially at school. At home my father had taken the day off to welcome me home, and my little brother would be home from the middle school in just under an hour. And just like that, it was back to the old grind. At home I struggled to do even the simplest of tasks like taking a shower or taking out the trash. I was too weak to walk up stairs without help or even lift a carton of milk and pour myself a drink. I did not know what to expect at school.

The rest of my sophomore year at high school was a huge struggle. I was always tired and often felt pain in my stomach which sometimes led me to leave school. Fitting back in the classroom and with my friends was another issue for me. There were two objectives: the first to finish my sophomore year making me valid as a junior, the second was to pass my Ohio Graduation Test. I accomplished both, but not without missing 35 days of school.

Today I am active in sports again. I play golf with my father and little brother. I play rec soccer with friends. I go to the gym five days a week to lift weights and do various cardio exercises to keep myself in shape. Keeping in shape is something that is very important to me. Even though I am not involved in any competitive sports I know that going to the gym will keep me feeling good and help me live a better life.

Life at school for me today has been normalized. I was able to keep up my grades and was accepted as a member of the National Honor Society, something I never knew could be possible after missing so much of my sophomore year. I am caught up with the rest of my class and will graduate this May.

Part of my remission for my Crohn’s disease the rest of my life will be taking daily medications and going to a hospital every two months for my Remicade infusion. Today I have two options: the Children’s Hospital downtown or the Children’s Hospital in Liberty Township. Whenever I visit the downtown hospital I have no trouble reciting my floor, unit location, and room number from my 2012 hospital stay: Floor 4, Unit A North, and room 22 or A4 North 22 for short. It is also a struggle to keep up all of my crucial levels like protein. I have to make sure that my meals are big enough and have enough things in them to keep my levels up.

Being released from the hospital gave me a different outlook on my life. I entered the hospital a sports centered kid, playing all the rec sports imaginable, and a big Reds baseball and Bengals football fan. I exited with my eyes set on computers and programming after I left the hospital in physically horrible shape. It was hard for me to walk or even walk up stairs, so athletics were out of the question for the longest time. Even before my stay in the hospital I had been interested in computers and software. I knew the basics of computing and learned some basic programming as a freshman. My 23 day and night stay in the hospital let me research and teach code to myself in my free time. I came out ready to code and immediately wanted to enter software engineering as a career.

People ask me all the time a question along this line: Noah, how did you learn all of the code that you use and work with? The answer is hard work, attention to the field, and dedication and love of the craft. But a 23 day and night stay in the hospital won’t hurt in changing your views on life and advancing your knowledge.

This is my story of how I overcame physical and emotional tolls, recovered, and became the student, athlete, and software developer that I am today. This is how I became a not so normal kid.

My Dad always stressed positive thinking when I was younger. He continues to do it today (and that is what the main topic of his book will be). He really believes in this kind of stuff: to be a different and happy person. Now I believe it, too. I can look back at pain and adversity that I overcame and see that it helped me gain the strength and positivity that I have today.

TL;DR

This is the transcript of the speech I gave at my high school’s baccalaureate.

People ask me all the time: Noah, how did you learn all of the stuff that you work with? How did you become an awesome coder? And I kind of just shrug and say ‘I dunno’. Tonight, I’ll take a few minutes to explain what’s up.

Parents, staff, and students: maybe some of you have heard this story, a portion of it, or have no idea.

I was always the typical sports centric fifteen year old. A football, baseball, and soccer fan. I played sports, too. Everything about me was normal for a sophomore at Madeira. But my world was turned upside down one month into the school year. Suddenly I was experiencing sharp, horrible pains in my stomach, and it felt like it was on fire, so we rushed to the hospital. This is where my life seemed to go all wrong.

I spent 23 straight days and nights in the hospital. Each day was a bloody struggle as I grew weaker. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink for twenty of those days. Some nights I thought: what if I never wake up tomorrow? What if today was it? The pain would be over. Would people remember me? Would people care?

I ended up having surgery before returning home. I didn’t know what my life would be like and I was freaked out to go back to school after a one month leave.

Not only was I welcomed back with open arms, but you guys wrote tons of get well cards. Even the soccer team sent their thoughts with a ball signed by all my teammates. I was a witness to the extraordinary love and camaraderie between peers in this class. It was amazing. In life, especially in business, it is said that the most important thing is not money, not power, but the relationships between people. This is evident in this class.

I never talk about this story. It does not bother me to talk about it, but I just put it on the back burner. When I talk to people, I tell them what I think they want to hear. I think it is because I strived to be normal and to fit in again, but I’ve learned in the past few years that it’s perfectly fine to be different.

Don’t live a normal life. People who are different are the ones who succeed because, to quote Steve Jobs, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” You really didn’t think I would come up here and not tell a Steve Jobs quote.

So back to the initial question. It turns out that you have a lot of downtime in the hospital. Instead of doing my biology or geometry homework, I was watching youtube videos, reading articles, and teaching myself how to code. Today, I have a programming job at a software studio. It wouldn’t be possible without this push. I think that my hospital stay was a defining moment in what I want to do in my career.

I wouldn’t be up talking here today if it wasn’t for everyone in this room. From the teachers who helped me get back on track such as Mrs. Wing and Mrs. Jordan. To my parents who have always been supportive and to other parents that helped out my family in a desperate time. And of course my peers who were there by my side. All of you believed in me. I’m happy to say that I’m a part of the class of 2015.