Kathleen
Kathleen Davila: A Life of Hope
"We don’t really know the strength we possess until we challenge ourselves to do something that we thought was impossible."
Despite the challenges of living with Crohn’s disease for more than ten years, Kathleen Davila remains thankful for each day. As she put it, "I’ll live my life until the last minute and the days when I feel good, I don’t take my health for granted."
Kathleen Davila was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at age 16, when she was a high school student in her native San Francisco. The summer before her junior year, she was too sick to turn in her school assignments; however, she completed them and turned them in the following year. Just last year, she ran into her high school teacher who told her that at the time that Kathleen had turned in all of her work, the teacher had thought that Kathleen had made up Crohn’s disease as an illness, in order to get out of doing the homework. This misunderstanding is all too commonplace, as Crohn’s is a disease that is often not viewed as serious and debilitating, especially because those who have it "don’t look sick."
It is for this reason that Kathleen supports CCFA and has regularly volunteered in the Northern California Chapter office for the past year. "This disease has caused me to feel lonely because I haven’t been able to talk to anyone I know who has the disease. But through volunteering, I’ve met other people who understand what it’s like. This has been so important to me because by talking about it with others who have the disease, together, we’ve broken the silence." She feels it is important to raise awareness about the disease among the general public who often have never heard of it, and to forge connections among those who have the disease but often are embarrassed to talk about it.
Kathleen has not had an easy time living with Crohn’s disease because of the unexpected nature of the illness. "A flare-up would arrive suddenly without warning and the recovery was always slower than the onset." Two years after starting San Francisco State University, she became sick. Over the next few years, she went through a cyclical pattern: she would become ill, be hospitalized anywhere from a day to a week, would miss school and then be well enough to go back to school again.
Having been in remission for two years, Kathleen was in some denial about the severity of her illness until last summer, when she developed arthritis. It first started out with back pain, and then inflammation of the ankles and the feet. She could not walk without a cane and eventually could not get out of bed some days without the help of her mother. For a while, she was unable to work in her position as a mental health counselor for the chronically mentally ill.
Although Kathleen admits that living with disease means she faces some limitations, it does not overcome or confine her. In fact, it has allowed her to be more compassionate toward others experiencing difficulties in their lives. Her dream is to one day go to medical school and to work with underserved populations. "I can do it" is her self-proclaimed attitude, and for this reason - and for her strength and passion for life - we honor her as a Team Challenge Honored Teammate.