How St. Elizabeth of the Trinity’s Journey with Addison’s Disease Has Helped Me with My Own

 Because 1 in 100,000 people have Addison’s disease, it’s considered a rare condition. In the 1800s St. Elizabeth of the Trinity was one of those rare people. Since at least 2020, I’ve also been one of them.

Reading St. Elizabeth of the Trinity’s biography (He is My Heaven by Jennifer Moorcroft) was both beautiful and painfully real. I was diagnosed with having an adrenal insufficiency almost two years prior to reading the biography but wasn’t given the official Addison’s diagnosis until a few weeks beforehand. Reading about all St. Elizabeth endured in the last months of her life echoed what I experienced in the summer into autumn of 2020. 

The loss of weigh due to the inability to eat a majority of things. The increasingly debilitating fatigue. The eventual inability to do simple things such as walk or even sit without assistance. The pains. The lack of sleep. I knew it all too well. 

At my lowest point, in the summer of 2020, I was 98 lbs, down from 128-130 lbs at my healthiest. As someone who is approximately 5’7”, I was severely underweight and looked, as St. Elizabeth was also described, like as skeleton. My mother, who became my caregiver, had to help me get off the bed and walk roughly 10 feet to the restroom. I would get so winded and lightheaded during that short walk; my body felt so heavy and exhausted that I used to lay in bed for a long time after. St. Elizabeth also had limited physical activity and would be so exhausted from having her Carmelite habit on that they had to make her a special one of lighter fabric to help her physical fatigue. I ended up having to go to the emergency room a couple of times for dangerously low blood pressure, which is something that I’m sure St. Elizabeth also dealt with.

As for nourishment, my body slowly began rejecting all foods. I could only eat three things for months — boiled potatoes, corn tortillas, and only one type of organic chicken which a dear friend drove out to my apartment to drop off for me at least twice a week. Eventually that became only corn tortillas and the smallest bit of chicken.At the end of her life, St. Elizabeth could eat only little bits of chocolate, some dairy products, and, in her last days, only barley sugar. Addison’s affects digestion and, as an autoimmune disease, your body begins to think foods are attacking it and it starts rejecting them. That’s why we both lost so much weight. St. Elizabeth didn’t have to deal with a doctor accusing her of having an eating disorder but I did, which hurt because I very much wanted to eat and not get sick from food.

The big difference between St. Elizabeth’s Addison’s journey and mine is that I live in a time of modern medicine that could’ve saved St. Elizabeth’s life. We both seem to have had multiple Addisonian crises (that can be fatal)  only I survived mine.  I take oral hydrocortisone, a hormone replacement steroid, to make up for the cortisol that my body doesn’t produce on its own. It’s what keeps me and those with Addison’s alive. I will have to take it for life and my immune system will forever be weakened due to it, but it’ll allow me to live. During St. Elizabeth’s time, there was no such treatment. She suffered through the agony of pain and her body slowly shutting down. Addison’s was only “discovered” about 60 years before her lifetime so the best the doctors could do was try to keep her as comfortable or nourished as they could until her body could no longer endure it.

But, as much as reading what she suffered affected me, it was her beautiful faith that touched me the most.

It’s so easy to bemoan one’s sufferings and to wish we were better. We pray stubbornly for a miraculous cure, refusing to give up. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that… but, oftentimes, it robs us the opportunity to offer up our sacrifices and to unite ourselves to Christ and his suffering on the Cross.

Having lived with this disease for two years officially and, in hindsight, several years before the diagnosis, I’ve had my moments of consolation in which I can feel the intense love of Christ; his presence ever present. But, more often than not — on my hardest days — I have absolutely no consolations. There are days when I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. On these days, it’s harder to fulfill my duties as a Benedictine oblate (e.g. praying the Divine Office) but I do it for love of God. Not because I feel it — I usually don’t — but because I know my love of Him is there regardless. Here is where I can learn more about detachment from the world and myself from St. Elizabeth. 

She had such a beautiful abandonment of herself and total trust in God. She was so in love with Christ that she saw every pain, suffering, and discomfort as a bride sharing the same experience as her bridegroom. That is what I’m striving for, no matter what my vocation may be. I used to have that mentality but I lost it somewhere along the way. I hope that, with St. Elizabeth’s intercession, I can regain that ability to more closely unite my own sufferings to Christ’s.

I still pray for the miraculous healing of my adrenal insufficiency. I’ve accepted that this may be a lifelong disease and that God may be calling me to carry this cross for the rest of my life. I will do it as well as I can and know that whatever good comes from it, it’ll be with His help as I am too weak to do anything myself. Still, I will pray for a miracle if it’s His will. I will rely heavily on St. Elizabeth’s intercession and inspiration to embrace, endure, and even rejoice on this journey with Addison’s. 

I would like to thank my Oblate sister, sr. Elisabeth, for introducing me to this wonderful saint. When she told me I reminded her of St. Elizabeth, I didn’t understand why. Now with the Addison’s diagnosis, I understand… and I’m so grateful to God for giving me such a beautiful example of abandonment to His holy will, of trustful surrender, and of graceful suffering.

St. Elizabeth, happy feast day. Pray for me and all of us who have Addison’s disease.