{"id":377,"date":"2019-02-15T11:55:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/?p=377"},"modified":"2019-02-15T14:44:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T22:44:30","slug":"cross-cultural-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/cross-cultural-disability\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross-Cultural Disability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Kameron Bryn <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I grew up in the fourth biggest city in\nNorway, Stavanger, which has a population approximately twice that of Redlands,\nCalifornia. The entire country\u2019s population is around the size of San\nBernardino. Norway is associated with democratic socialism, free healthcare,\nwinter sports, oil, and fish. This is where I spent the first decade and a half\nof my life. \u201cWhy would you move here?\u201d is something I hear a lot. In theory,\nNorway is the better place for someone with my condition: free healthcare,\nexcellent social security, liberal laws, etc. And, while that is all true, it\u2019s\nonly half of the picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 16, I moved to Redwood City, California\u2014warm weather, excellent healthcare, diverse culture and population, friendly people, and a large LGBTQ+ population. The perfect escape from a cold and frigid Norway, and yet, it did little to ease my suffering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May 2014, I started suffering from\nchronic headaches and fatigue and was diagnosed with anemia. However, being the\nsmart cookie that I am, I decided to not take my iron supplements as they\ncaused even worse headaches and nausea. This led to a complete iron depletion\nin October. My entire body stopped functioning, I was hot all the time, I\ncouldn\u2019t think, and I barely had enough energy to move. I was a mess. I started\non the iron tablets again, and while it helped a lot with the fatigue, I\nstarted experiencing aches. First once or twice a day, then several times a\nday, and then non-stop. My sister recognized it as Fibromyalgia. I was\ndiagnosed in the spring of 2016. It was a long and harrowing journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Black<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fibromyalgia is an old person\u2019s disease. I\u2019m chock-full of those. I got diagnosed with arthritis this summer at 19, and low tear production at nine. I was always too young. I often wondered if there were ways it could\u2019ve been prevented. At my eighth birthday party, I was playing in a play-house and I suddenly I felt as though I couldn\u2019t breathe. I was lying on my back, gasping for air. I had fits of nausea throughout my entire childhood. I got headaches frequently; it felt like tiny men doing construction inside my head. But these were things to ignore. That\u2019s the Norwegian way\u2014to ignore. Even when we went to the family physician, he seemed to have a hard time believing me. When my sister suspected fibromyalgia, it was dismissed. \u201cI don\u2019t want to diagnose you with that\u201d. I was sent to psychiatry, and they confirmed it wasn\u2019t psychosomatic, but he still refused to do more tests on me. There were reports of Norwegian teenagers who were put into induced comas due to paralyzing pain from over-exertion. Before my iron-depletion, I was in the rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program<\/a> , choir, Model United Nations and fencing twice a week. Pain is something to be ignored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My (undiagnosed) fibromyalgia made it so I only barely graduated from Middle Years Programme (MYP<\/a>\u00a0), and my mother took me to see specialists. As specialists aren\u2019t covered in free healthcare, it cost a couple hundred dollars for each test they did. The treatments were just as limited as their knowledge. They agreed that even though it’s likely that I have fibromyalgia, the diagnosis wouldn\u2019t help much as the treatment would be the same, either with specialists or be put on a waitlist for one to three years for treatment by public healthcare. Stavanger is one of the best places to have a heart attack. Chronic illness? Not so much. Fall 2015 I started treatment at the Pain Clinic at Stanford Medical Center. They still refused to give me a proper diagnosis, but I was being seen by a psychologist, physical therapist, psychiatrist and acupuncturist. The treatment helped, but school\u2026 was a nightmare. I was doing the same IB program at the American public high school I went to, but IB at that school was IB on top of regular school. I left the IB program within the month. I was still very ill, and the concept of doing six hours of homework every night on top of eight hours of school didn\u2019t agree with my fibromyalgia. I asked for accommodations, but the only thing they could grant me was homework extensions and a permanent hall pass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That didn\u2019t make much difference when I could barely get out of bed. After three months of brick and mortar, I unofficially dropped out. I transferred to an online school, but there was still a requirement of nine hours of schoolwork per day. No one had told me the American Dream translated to \u2018grind until you die\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I unofficially dropped out of online school\nin the spring and then studied hard and tested out of high school in the fall.\nJust in time to move to Southern California as there was nothing left for me in\nthe Bay Area. My sister was attending the University of Redlands and was my\ngreatest support system at the time, and it was great to be with her again. I\nspent the next year in limbo, trying to figure out what I could possibly do in\nmy current state in a country that didn\u2019t seem to want me, from a country that\ndidn\u2019t seem to want to help me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have since paved my own path and worked\nwith people who did want me and did want to help me. I think a lot about my two\ncultures and how they\u2019re ingrained in my DNA and psyche, as much as I try to\nwithdraw from them. I take no pride in them, but I have great interest in\nthem\u2014in how they shaped me, and how they treated me, and people like me. How\nthey helped me and how they hurt me; how my experiences are unique and how they\nare universal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Kameron Bryn I grew up in the fourth biggest city in Norway, Stavanger, which has a population approximately twice that of Redlands, California. The entire country\u2019s population is around the size of San Bernardino. Norway is associated with democratic socialism, free healthcare, winter sports, oil, and fish. This is where I spent the first decade and a half of my life. \u201cWhy would you move here?\u201d is something I hear a lot. In theory, Norway is the better place for someone with my condition: free healthcare, excellent social security, liberal laws, etc. And, while that is all true, it\u2019s only half of the picture. When I was 16, I moved to Redwood City, California\u2014warm weather, excellent healthcare, diverse culture and population, friendly people, and a large LGBTQ+ population. The perfect escape from a cold and frigid Norway, and yet, it did little to ease my suffering. In May 2014, I started suffering from chronic headaches and fatigue and was diagnosed with anemia. However, being the smart cookie that I am, I decided to not take my iron supplements as they caused even worse headaches and nausea. This led to a complete iron depletion in October. My entire body stopped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[26,32,34],"tags":[51,52,50,49],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":389,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4nl.bfd.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}