Hello. I'm glad that you're reading my story. My name is Emily and I am 12 years old. I'm really fun to be with and I love hanging out at the beach and going boogie boarding with my friends.

My favorite things are sea turtles, pink, doing yoga, reading, and spongebob...I just love them all!

I live with my big sister, Sarah, my little sister, Rachel, my mom and dad, and my puppy, Dandi.  Sarah and Rachel help me a lot when I don't feel well. Sarah always makes me laugh and Rachel always gets me things that I need and draws pictures for me.  I also have three grandparents that help me a ton!  Are you wondering why I need all of this help? Well, keep reading...

You see, I have a few problems. First of all, I have stomach motility or movement problems. Things just don't move very well. Since things don't move very well, I can't eat a lot so I have a tube that goes in my stomach. I have a pump that I hook it up to that gives me a special mixture of nutrients, kind of like a milkshake. It seems kind of weird but I'm used to it.

I also have something called hypercalciuria. What that big word means is that my kidneys put out too much calcium into my urine. When the calcium builds up, it forms something that's sort of like pieces of gravel. This makes me have blood in my pee, but I am taking medicine for it, so it's not too bad now.

I also have somethings called Tourette's syndrome, and OCD. Tourette's syndrome causes me to have quick jerky movements called tics that make me do things like shaking my head or my hands, or even smelling my hands a lot. I can't help it and it makes me embarassed when people ask why I do these things. The OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is similar to tics but a little different. OCD makes me do things like wipe the counters a lot and bang my legs on on the wall and shake the mouse on the computer.

At school, kids don't exactly tease me but they sometimes say stuff like 'why are you shaking your head so much' or 'stop smelling your hands!' This makes me upset and really hurts my feelings especially when people stare at me!!!!!!!! If I were in charge of the schools, I would make all the kids at the begining of the year watch a video about differences in kids. Then people might realize, no matter if you can see it or not everyone is different in some way or another. Nobody chooses these differences, and despite the tough ones, it's our job to live life to the fullest!

I try to live by the quote, "Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react".  I think that every one should try to follow this because it can make life a whole lot better!!!!! Thanks for visiting my page and reading my story. Emily

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