“Perseverance” by Brock Brown, 18
Is the doctor really certain this works? Am I really about to do this? These thoughts swirled around my mind as I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting to ingest the very thing I was told could kill me.
Growing up with life threatening food allergies wasn’t exactly easy. Every day I had a constant fear, a fear that would debilitate me at times, and that was the fear that I would one day accidentally ingest my food allergy: tree nuts. Tree nuts, to me at least, seemed to be everywhere, from the Nutella hazelnut spread my peers had every day to cookies topped with macadamia nuts. I always doubted what I was eating, and very negative thoughts always led me to more anxiety and fear. What if the food I’m eating was touched by a tree nut? What if there are nuts in my food and I don’t even know it? The fear of having an allergic reaction controlled me. It imprisoned me in a state of constant anxiety. Looking back today, these fears were mostly unreasonable, but in the moment they were very real to me. This was my life, at least before I got an amazing opportunity: Oral immunotherapy. I had the chance to overcome my food allergies and face my biggest fear.
So what exactly is oral immunotherapy? Well, to put it simply, it was an opportunity to overcome my food allergy. Oral immunotherapy consisted of going to a special doctor twice a month, and eating the very food I always dreaded consuming. The doctor started with small amounts of cashew diluted in water, and to my surprise, these first small steps toward a cure went smoothly. I would take my dose of cashew, and then wait for a few hours in the office, hoping that my body wouldn’t react to the tree nut. Over the course of the year, I would continue to go back to the doctor, slowly increasing the amount of tree nut I was consuming.
It’s difficult to put in words how challenging it is to eat something that you always avoided, something that could put you in the hospital. But there I was, twice a month, increasing the amount of tree nut I was eating slowly but surely. As I kept going through this process of eating and waiting, I realized that my fear was beginning to fade. Why was this? Why was the fear that always controlled me starting to slip away? Looking back today, the answer is clear: Perseverance.
The dictionary defines perseverance as persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success, and while I can certainly attest to this, I feel that there is a little more to this complex trait. To me, perseverance is perceiving a goal as unattainable, and yet continuing to press on despite struggles and the feeling that change isn’t happening. As I slowly proceeded through this treatment, progress was difficult to keep track of. Two months in though, and I finally was able to eat one whole cashew. Five months, three cashews. One year, 11 whole cashews. Now, the doctor has told me that my allergy is almost nonexistent, the reward of so much perseverance and hard work. While being cured of an allergy is a surreal experience and will continue to impact my life forever, I feel that I walked away from oral immunotherapy with something much more valuable. I walked away knowing what it was like to persevere through struggles, through hardships, and ultimately, I saw how months of hard work can lead to such an amazing outcome. Perseverance has been a major factor in every aspect of my life. In running 50 miles a week to train for cross country, studying for hours to prepare for tests, and strengthening my relationship with Christ, perseverance has been the reason I have become the friend, student, and son I am today. Perseverance may have been necessary in the challenge of having a food allergy, but I can confidently say that it is necessary in every single aspect of life.