Maddie Holiday's Patient Story

A Young Girl and Her Strong Battle

A

Maddie Holliday is a 13 year old girl in the 8th grade. She, like most girls her age, loves any cosmetology type activities. She has competed in 1 pageant, but definitely wants to do more in the future.

 

She loves to share her story, so that she can spread awareness of her disease with others. Only 1 out of 100,000 people get Behçets. Behçets is an illness that causes symptoms in various parts of the body. The more common symptoms include sores in the mouth. More serious symptoms can include inflammation (swelling, heat, redness, and pain) in the eyes and other parts of the body. 

 

For Maddie, it all started when she was little. Her symptoms would arise at different times, and then once they all arose together. When she was 11, she was at the beach and became very sick. Her family went home early from vacation, and visited their local emergency room. Maddie was immediately transferred to Levine Children's Hospital where the doctors ran different tests over the next few days. The results of these test led to the diagnosis of Behçets. Behçets can effect anywhere in the body that blood flows.

 

Since being diagnosed, Maddie has been in the hospital 20+ times. She has had 2 NG tubes placed, a PEG feeding tube in her stomach,  EGDs, multiple x-rays and scans, and the list goes on. She also has Fibromayalga, POTS, GERD, RA, Asthma . Behçet's disease is definitely a roller coaster, but she continues to make the best of it.  

 

Maddie finds courage and faith in her two friends that have stuck by her side throughout her battle! She loves getting out of the house, since she tends to be inside a lot. Each day for her is a fight. When she wakes up, she is stiff and lethargic. Maddie's routine stays the same every day; she takes her mediciation, goes to school, comes home, eats, lays down, typically falls back asleep, gathers the energy to take a shower, does chores, and goes to bed. She gets migraines on a daily basis. She courageously battles a pain level of 5 on a scale of 0-10 every single day of her life.

 

Maddie is fearless. Even though she battles Behçets on a daily basis, she continues to smile. She stays moving, and does the best that she can. In light of an every day struggle, Maddie continues to stay positive.