"With a little sass, and a lot of determination, anything is possible”

With the Miss New Hampshire pageant being over, I would like to share with you all the experience through the eyes of someone suffering from chronic illness. 

For this week my goals were very different than those of the 27 other girls I shared the stage with. Many girls had the goal of leaving there as the next Miss NH.  While that is on my bucket list for someday, with the way my health has been going, I had a gut feeling that it just was not in my cards right now. With that said, my goal was to finish my talent. To literally finish it without passing out. To be quite frank with you all, doing my talent scared me to my core. Every time I practiced, I would get to the end section and would start to see black spots. That scared me. I have an irrational fear of fainting and I would do anything to avoid that feeling. I thought to myself "Carson, you have to get through this somehow," but that was just it..HOW??

The Friday before miss New Hampshire week was the last day I practiced my talent, and on that day I couldn’t finish it. As I reached the end, my face would turn purple and I would be more dizzy than I ever had been before.  This made me worry about the week to come. This made me not want to go to Miss New Hampshire. This made me have to do some soul searching, and really find out what I wanted my goals for the upcoming week to be. This frustrated me. Actually, it did not just frustrate me.  It pissed me off.  I used to dance NINE dances in a dance recital all of which were over 3 minuets long, and now, I couldn’t even finish my talent that was 1 minuets and 30 seconds long?!?! As I sat in my bed at night, at 23 years old, I started to think of what this meant for me in life; "big picture" wise. I started to wonder: would I ever be able to dance like I used to? should I throw away my dreams of being a professional dancer, or dancing for my college team? does me not getting thorough this short dance parallel my life in the future and how things would now just be hard for me since getting my colon removed?  I just do not think anyone will truly ever understand what it is like to go out on a stage knowing you cannot give your best unless you have been in these shoes too.  It almost embarrassed me (being the very competitive person I am) to know before I even arrived to the competition site that I would not be able to perform at my best potential. I knew, however, I needed to put this all aside in order to get trough the week.

I had a multitude of things (scary things) floating in and out of my mind, BUT I had no time for frustration. I had never been a quitter. I started to say to myself “what do I do now?”  The answer was simple. I had to take a step back, refocus my goals, and put my mind in a different place to do all I could do with the cards I was currently being dealt. As stated previously, I decided to change my goals from winning to finishing my talent, and having a faint free week. GUESS WHAT FOLKS!? I reached both my goals. Thursday, the first night of prelims was my talent, and I finished it. Toward the end I started to see spots, but I told myself NOPE and managed to get through to the end. I knew it was going to be hard, but I also knew how mad I would be if I had to walk off the stage with my dance uncompleted. The best part of this was though, the 5, or so, girls that dedicated their night to helping me post talent. Some of them I was close to previously, and some of them were just pure Carson supporters. To say this melted my heart is an understatement. I felt alone in this struggle because it seems common sense that no one would put a talent on a stage they knew they could not do right? WRONG. I put this talent on the stage knowing I could do it at someone point in my previous years, and was hoping that the big man upstairs accounted for the rest of the gusto I needed. Those girls made me feel less alone, and I cannot even put that gratitude into words.

I wanted to share with you these difficulties I went through this week not to make you feel bad for my struggles, but to make you think about how you, yourself, would feel going into something where you knew you couldn't give your max potential. Maybe someday my illness won’t stop me from reaching my higher goals, but this week it did. It also taught me so many things about myself. I went from laying on the coach daily for at least three hours to getting through the hardest week of my life to date. Also, I learned that it is OK to do things simply for the experience of it, and to accept where you are at in life.  I do have to admit through, that even though I conquered the new goals I had set for the week, I still feel like I came up a little short.  While these new goals were real goals they were not THE real goals (if you pick up what I'm putting down).  I keep telling myself to accept that feeling and realize that I did conquer some "real" goals.  To also tell myself that my body adapted the best way it could have during the week.  Let me just say this: It’s crazy what your body can do when you have no choice.  

To anyone else that knows what it feels like to have your dreams on hold due to your chronic illness I am here for you. It is not easy to talk about, or admit, that you know you aren’t where you used to be in life. All in all though, my week could not have been better. I will forever be frustrated knowing my potential has been lessened because of permanent health complications, but I know I was given this battle for a reason. I am very lucky, and happy, to still be alive post colon removal.  I am still learning, however, how to operate my “new” body. 

Goals are SO relative to what is happening in life at that very moment. If I ever do this again I only hope, and pray, that I can bring that Carson that was once whole back to the stage. I am here to share with all of you that “with a little sass and a lot of determination anything is possible," and that is exactly how I would sum up my Miss New Hampshire experience.