It began with a fleeting moment of holiday magic that quickly devolved into a nightmare. When Judy Batalion was 12 years old, her family embarked on a celebratory trip to New York City to ring in the New Year in Times Square. Standing proudly on the crown of the Statue of Liberty, sipping an extravagantly priced cup of hot chocolate purchased by her parents to combat the bitter winter cold, she gazed out at the dazzling metropolis below. Then, without warning, she was overcome by a sudden wave of nauseating dread.
That very night, the illness manifested fully. Batalion found herself trapped in a relentless cycle of violent vomiting and desperate dashes to the toilet, accompanied by a soaring, dangerous fever. Instead of peering out a window to watch the historic New York ball drop at midnight, she was confined to a sickroom. It was the devastating, abrupt end of her childhood and the terrifying opening chapter of a three-year medical odyssey.
Over the next thirty-six months, Batalion’s world shrank to the sterile confines of doctor’s offices, hospitals, and bathrooms. She endured relentless physical torment characterized by bloating, stubborn constipation, unpredictable diarrhea, and internal bleeding. The pain was rarely a dull ache; instead, it arrived in searing, violent pangs that could strike at any moment, rendering her helpless. Her medical routine became an exhausting carousel of invasive procedures. She underwent X-rays, diagnostic scopes, breath tests, and thorough physical examinations. She tried an array of treatments, including standard medications, carbon supplements, and acupuncture.
For a brief, miraculous period, high-dose steroids offered relief, but their efficacy vanished just as quickly as it had arrived. Experimental drugs proved entirely useless, passing completely undigested through her inflamed digestive tract. The degeneration reached a horrifying peak when she began to evacuate the actual lining of her own colon, tissue that resembled a thin, pale white snake. Her blood count plummeted to critical levels, resulting in repeated hospitalizations for emergency blood transfusions and iron infusions. Clinicians increasingly suspected she was suffering from an exceptionally severe case of ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes long-lasting inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract.
This harrowing medical crisis unfolded precisely during seventh through tenth grades—crucial formative years typically defined by first romances, shifting social hierarchies, peer navigation, rebellious milestones, and driver’s education classes. For Batalion, however, teenage life was severely and painfully restricted. When peers offered a ride home from school, she routinely declined. Her primary anxiety was not social awkwardness, but the fear that the driver might encounter traffic delays or take unexpected detours, keeping her dangerously far from a reliable restroom. The city’s public metro system became a source of sheer terror; she constantly worried about what would happen if a train stalled underground and she found herself trapped indefinitely.
Although she managed to attend school, she deliberately chose a desk positioned directly next to the classroom door for a quick exit. Social gatherings among teenagers presented insurmountable logistical obstacles. She found herself unable to sit through a basic movie night in a friend’s basement, paralyzed by the thought of social exposure and wondering anxiously whether a functioning bathroom was within earshot. Because the risk of public humiliation and physical disaster was simply too high, Batalion gradually withdrew from nearly all social activities, isolating herself from the normal rituals of youth.
While every typical teenager grapples with a changing body that feels temporarily out of their control, Batalion’s physical form felt like an active combat zone. Her body waged a relentless war against her, emitting embarrassing sounds, distressing smells, and shocking visual reminders of her illness entirely without her consent. It felt as though "Little Judy"—her core identity, her actual self—was buried deep beneath a morass of sickly flesh, reduced to a malfunctioning biological specimen being constantly prodded and probed by a succession of ancient medical professionals attempting to decode her failing system. She wrestled with the heavy psychological burden of misplaced guilt, frequently wondering if she had somehow caused her own illness. The emotional trajectory was clear and painful: she did not merely struggle with her body; she actively hated it.
When her peers began exploring their developing sexualities, Batalion instinctively recoiled. It is virtually impossible to contemplate intimacy or romance when doubled over in agonizing physical pain. Immersed constantly in the clinical, detached world of hospitals and examinations, she developed powerful psychological barriers, dissociating entirely from her physical experiences to survive the daily trauma.
Furthermore, bridging the gap between her reality and the lives of her peers was utterly impossible. While her high school classmates worried about impending algebra tests, Batalion lived in terror of blood test results. While friends whispered about experimenting with illicit substances, she was already prescribed a pharmaceutical regimen that involved more drugs than half the student body combined. She sat across from physicians who casually raised the terrifying prospect of developing colon cancer. Feeling profoundly misunderstood, deeply isolated, and physically ruined, she erected emotional walls because she simply did not know how to let anyone close.
By the time she reached the tenth grade, Batalion’s quality of life had deteriorated completely. It was at this critical juncture that her medical team presented major surgery as a viable, albeit drastic, option. The procedure was monumental: surgeons would remove her entire large intestine and construct an internal pouch using a section of her small intestine, designed to function as a makeshift de facto colon. Hesitant due to the immense risks involved, her doctors repeatedly postponed the operation. However, Batalion, having reached the absolute limit of her endurance, insisted on moving forward. She made her desperation clear to her family, declaring that if they refused to drive her to the hospital, she would take a public bus.
At just 15 years old, Batalion underwent the radical surgery to remove her diseased colon. The recovery and the resulting internal pouch changed her life dramatically. While she did not become what she wryly termed a "bowel normie" and could no longer eat with absolute abandon, the procedure successfully restored her health, granting her a mostly pain-free existence. She navigated her twenties with relative stability, eventually making up for lost adolescent time by dating and building a vibrant social life.
At age 31, she married a man with whom she felt completely safe sharing the unvarnished realities of her chronic condition—a supportive partner who was even willing to accommodate her exceptionally high household consumption of toilet paper. Yet, once domestic stability was achieved, a profound and complex question emerged: Was her altered body robust enough to carry a pregnancy? Could she move past decades of accumulated shame and corporeal disappointment to create new life? Furthermore, she wrestled with the ethical dilemma of parenthood, deeply concerned that her future children might inherit the same devastating illnesses that had stolen her youth. She vacillated anxiously for two full years.
Then, precisely at the moment she decided to cautiously explore the possibility of trying to conceive, her gynecologist intervened decisively. Recognizing the intricate surgical history, the doctor immediately enrolled her in a fertility clinic, issuing a stark warning: "People with your surgeries have so much trouble, there’s not a minute to waste."
Just weeks later, Batalion visited a local clinic to complete routine bloodwork so the results could be forwarded to the specialized fertility center. To her utter shock, during the visit, a nurse burst into the room squealing with unexpected news: Batalion was already pregnant.
The subsequent nine months passed remarkably smoothly from a gastrointestinal perspective, save for some excruciating bouts of gas that became trapped beneath her expanding abdomen. Her first daughter was safely delivered via a scheduled Caesarean section—a method explicitly recommended by medical professionals, as natural childbirth carried a severe risk of compromising her internal surgical pouch. Although she later faced a dangerous and frightening ectopic pregnancy several years down the line while attempting to expand her family further—a complication likely stemming from extensive scar tissue left behind by her childhood surgeries—Batalion ultimately welcomed three children into the world.
Looking back, she views her large family as nothing short of a miracle, acknowledging with characteristic humor that it is also a little bit insane. Her body, once reduced to a disintegrating, diseased lump of failing organs, had somehow generated abundant, vibrant life. Eschewing years of specialized yoga and Pilates routines, it was this astonishing biological achievement that finally made her feel truly strong—and, for the first time in her life, a little bit beautiful.
Judy Batalion is a New York Times bestselling author known for her award-winning works of both nonfiction and fiction. Her compelling essays and journalism have been featured in prominent publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Vogue, among others. Holding a Bachelor of Arts in the History of Science from Harvard University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of London, Batalion has also applied her extensive academic background working as a museum curator and university lecturer. She currently resides in New York City alongside her husband and their three children.
