Key takeaways:
Crohn’s disease can be tricky to diagnose, because its symptoms — like abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and bloating — can mimic other conditions.
Whitney Ramirez says grit got her through an initial misdiagnosis and health ordeal.
Now a 29-year-old wife, mom, and executive, she says she’s learned what it’s like to truly live.
I am a C-level executive, and I have Crohn’s disease.
In the past 13 years, I have been to hell and back. It has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, but one thing remains constant: my passion for my career and my family.
Facing misdiagnosis
Crohn’s is a type of autoimmune disease that affects the digestive tract. It can lead to an immune response that attacks the gut itself. It can be tricky to diagnose, because its symptoms — like abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and bloating — can mimic other conditions.
When I was in high school, I was misdiagnosed with ulcerative colitis. It’s a common misdiagnosis — both conditions have gut-related symptoms. Still, I felt like my doctors downplayed my diagnosis. They prescribed anxiety medication and birth control.
At 15 years old, I didn’t know how to advocate for myself. And I didn’t have a parent to fight for me, either. At the time, my grandmother was raising me, and she was dealing with her own health condition. She died of cancer right before I graduated from high school. This made things even more difficult for our small family, as we all struggled with mental and physical ailments.
The crash of college
I was accepted into the school I had always dreamed of going to, the University of Oklahoma. College is supposed to be the time of your life, right? The late-night studying, the football games, the frat parties. You know — college!
My dorm room was set up, my roommate was my best friend, and I was getting to know my dorm mates. I went to my first college classes. But my disease quickly stopped my college career in its tracks. A few weeks into my freshman year, I found myself in my dorm room unable to breathe.
My friend and dorm mate, Sam, stepped into action and rushed me to the nearest hospital. The last thing I remembered was her being unable to find the hospital and then running inside once we finally made it, gasping for air while I filled out my name on a small slip of paper.
How long was I asleep?
Two weeks later, I woke up in the intensive care unit. I had been on a ventilator for those 2 weeks, and I had not been expected to wake up. Nobody was there when I woke up, except for my nurses. I had a collapsed lung and a chest tube, which was pulled shortly after I awoke. I was so confused. I went from struggling with zoology to struggling to simply survive.
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I had so many questions, with the first being “Why?” I didn’t know what happened, and neither did the staff who had saved my life. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, and my hair was so matted that I couldn’t run a brush through it. I was devastated, in a depressive state that I had never felt before.
Finding grit to get through it
I stayed in the hospital for nearly 6 weeks, completing physical therapy each day to gain my strength back. Slowly, I was able to walk and talk again, though my voice was only a whisper at first.
I shaved my head and infamously became the Britney Spears of Norman Regional Hospital. I won the fight of my life, but I knew the road ahead would be mentally and physically exhausting. I mustered up the strength to pack up my dorm room and move back home to start over.
I enrolled at our local community college as soon as I could, found a job at a local clothing store to support myself, and wore a wig to push myself back into a new normal.
I remember getting back home and feeling like I was being treated differently. It was as if I was supposed to die back in Norman, and everyone was so shocked that I was alive and still trying to push my life forward.
Your early 20s are already a tough time, and with the added layers of my mental and physical struggle, I didn’t know if I’d have the grit to push through. I stacked job on top of job, until I found myself working four jobs while juggling my final college classes.
My path to the C suite
The third job I took while in college was at a local digital marketing startup. I was the first employee hired and spent my days posting on a few social media platforms for $500 a month.
This job was unlike any job I had before. I was working for a startup in its very early days. Eventually, my job created a pathway for me to help truly build this company from the ground up. I went from content team lead to social media director to chief operations officer to chief executive officer in the span of my 20s. Today, I’m proud to say I’m leading a $2.5 million enterprise.
‘I could never do that’
Anytime someone hears bits and pieces of my story, I get the same message: “I could never do that.” The thing is, I felt like I didn’t have any other choice than to push forward.
I saw such a bad example of what my life could be — with my mom struggling so hard to keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths — that I wanted nothing but the opposite of the life I had to live after my grandmother died.
I didn’t know if my hard work would pay off, but it did. I kept pushing.
Today, I stand as a 29-year-old CEO, mom, and wife. My story teaches me something new each day and stands as inspiration for me to lead my team and family. I pushed so hard to simply live. And I can now say, I am truly living.
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