The Struggle No One Sees

If you looked at me today, you might think, Man, it must be nice; she stays active and looks healthy. And some days, you would be right. Other days, my body seems to wake up and choose chaos.

My health has been a struggle for as long as I can remember. In elementary school, I passed out several times in front of my entire class. (How embarrassing!) At the time, we thought it was nerves or something similar.

Then it happened again in middle school. I remember having to run for PE, and I must have overdone it because I passed out while walking back afterward. (Yes, in front of the whole class again. Apparently, my body enjoys an audience.)

Eventually, passing out became a somewhat normal occurrence. It happened here and there, including once in the middle of Subway... in front of everyone, yet again. Embarrassing!

That is one of the hardest things about POTS: my body is strong until it suddenly isn’t. I can’t always tell when I’m approaching my breaking point until I have already crossed it.

POTS is also weird because I can go an entire year without experiencing many symptoms. Last year, I honestly thought I might have grown out of it. I hadn’t passed out in a long time, I could work out hard without much trouble, and heck, I was running 5Ks like they were nothing. Running a 5K was something I never imagined I would be able to do, and suddenly, there I was doing it regularly.

Then last October, my body basically said, Just kidding.

All my symptoms came back out of nowhere, and I ended up in the hospital with a super high heart rate. Since then, I have been slowly rebuilding my stamina and working toward getting back to where I was last year.

Thankfully, I am not passing out as much now, but that doesn’t mean the struggle has disappeared. Some days, I wake up with literally no energy. It feels like I’m getting a cold, except I’m not. It is more like my body is using every ounce of energy it has just to get me out of bed.

I can feel that way for months and then suddenly have a couple of great months. I never really know which version of my body I am going to get, and the constant ups and downs can be exhausting.

Alongside POTS, I also struggle with my thyroid. My body can gain weight whenever it feels like it, my lymph nodes swell and hurt, and sometimes I am tired for no obvious reason. It can be frustrating to look completely fine on the outside while feeling anything but fine on the inside.

Then there are my food allergies; honestly, the worst part of it all. I am allergic to shellfish, eggs, and all fruits and vegetables, which leaves me with a very short list of things I can safely eat.

Food allergies affect more than just what is on my plate. In group settings, they can make me feel left out. Everyone else gets to enjoy all this delicious food while I try to figure out whether there is even one thing I can safely eat. Needing a special meal also makes me stand out, which I hate. I have never been someone who wants extra attention, especially over something I didn’t choose.

It also makes getting all the nutrients my body needs much harder. So yes, all of this sounds awful... and honestly, parts of it really are. But I refuse to let any of it define me or decide how fully I get to live my life.

I work incredibly hard just to keep my body stable. When I see other college students my age partying, drinking, and doing crazy things with their bodies, I know I will probably never relate. I would never intentionally do anything that might throw my body even further out of whack. It already does a pretty good job of that on its own.

Because no one sees that side of my life, and I don’t always feel the need to explain it, I probably look boring sometimes. But quite honestly, the most important thing to me is taking care of myself and protecting my health.

I have also learned that the people who truly care about you will adapt. They won’t define you by your struggles, but they will understand that there may be much more happening inside your body than anyone can see.

Still, understanding my limitations does not mean allowing them to control my life.

This summer, I went to Europe for an entire month. I was terrified, to say the least, not because I was going without my family, but because I needed my body to cooperate while I was halfway across the world. (A small request, really.)

My biggest concern was my food allergies. How was I going to find safe food with language barriers, unfamiliar ingredients, and completely different cultural foods?

There were plenty of reasons I could have decided not to go. But I went anyway.

I faced my fear, and it became the trip of a lifetime.

I found food I could safely eat, and I found amazing friends who understood my struggles. They always looked out for me and helped find restaurants where there was at least one thing I could have. I learned how to manage my POTS, take care of myself, and still enjoy every second of this huge adventure.

That trip taught me that even though parts of my health suck, and sometimes genuinely hold me back, I don’t have to let them stop me from accomplishing my dreams, especially my dream of seeing the world.

It also reminded me that everyone is carrying something we may not be able to see. Some people are struggling with far more than I am, and I am grateful that my body still allows me to do everything it does, even when it has to fight harder than most.

I could spend my life resenting my body for everything it puts me through. Instead, I am learning to appreciate it for everything it continues to carry me through.

My body may be unpredictable, but it is also strong. It took me across Europe. It has carried me through 5Ks, hospital visits, exhausting months, incredible adventures, and more embarrassing public fainting incidents than I would prefer.

My struggles may be invisible, but so is much of my strength.

Knowing I KANN

Hello, my name is Paula Rogers and this is my KANN story.

I was introduced to Keisha through my husband as she was once his coworker. Our friendship blossomed and getting to know Keisha as a person and having her in my corner has been very rewarding and uplifting.

She made me believe that I KANN accomplish more things than JUST being a stay at home mom. I put that lightly because that is a job in itself, but yet I just felt….incomplete.

One day I get a text “Will you run in Miss Wyoming with me?”

I immediately jumped on board “of course I’ll do it with you!”.

I wanted to run, until I saw there was a section where we’d be judged on bathing suit attire. Which immediately put a lump in my throat knowing I just simply wasn’t ready for anyone to see me with my postpartum body.

I respond back to Keisha “I’m sorry I’m just not comfortable with my body right now.”

She was understanding but most of all encouraging to take a risk, if I don’t do it this year…try next year!

Her encouragement and just overall compliment of thinking so highly of me to be able to compete with some amazing women well it made me think:

“You know what, I am destined for great things and I KANN accomplish ANYTHING I set my mind to!”

So that’s what I did.

It may not have been competing in Miss Wyoming but it set me up for greatness.

My mother and I started a business that took off like a rocket within the community. I started involving myself in more things and coming out of my shell a bit more.

I wasn’t “just a stay at home mom.”

I am also a business owner, a supporter of small businesses, a genuine friend, your favorite raver, a loving wife and someone my daughter can look up to.

No matter the obstacle, I’d think about how Keisha thought so highly of me. How she instilled the vision of “I KANN” in my head.

If it wasn’t for that push, I don’t believe I’d have the confidence I do now of KNOWING I KANN do anything I put forth the effort and energy into!

You Are Allowed to Reroute Your Life

A few years ago, I never would have imagined that one of the hardest seasons of my life would completely reroute the life I was building.

I was a bedside ER nurse in the middle of the pandemic, and at the same time, I was struggling significantly with my own mental health. I was dealing with depression and anxiety, and there were times when it became so dark that I experienced suicidal ideation. I was still going to work, taking care of patients, showing up for the people around me and functioning well enough that you probably wouldn’t have known how much I was struggling internally. Looking back, I think that was part of the problem. I had become very good at functioning while I was hurting.

As a nurse, I was used to advocating for other people. I could recognize when a patient needed something, speak up when something wasn’t right and make sure other people were taken care of. I just wasn’t very good at doing those things for myself.

During that season, I found coaching. At first, I didn’t know that it would become anything more than something that helped me get through a difficult time. But coaching gave me a completely different perspective on my life. It helped me put words to things I had struggled to understand about myself and made me start questioning how much of my life was actually built around what I wanted versus what I thought I was supposed to want.

I started realizing how much I had been living according to expectations. I wanted to be successful, make other people happy, keep the peace and make choices that looked like the “right” choices from the outside. I hadn’t really stopped to ask myself what kind of life actually felt right to me.

That realization eventually led me to become a coach myself. I built a coaching business while continuing to work in healthcare, and eventually I made the decision to leave bedside nursing. That was a huge decision for me because nursing had been such a significant part of my identity. It was a stable career that I had worked hard for, and leaving it meant stepping away from something I knew for something I was still building.

But I knew I couldn’t keep living a life simply because it was the life I had already created.

As I continued doing my own work, it started affecting my personal relationships, too. I had to learn how to set boundaries, particularly in difficult family and in-law relationships. I had to learn that advocating for myself didn’t mean I was selfish, difficult or trying to hurt someone else. Sometimes it simply meant acknowledging that something wasn’t healthy for me and deciding what I was willing to participate in.

That has been one of the biggest lessons of my life. I used to think that if someone was upset with me, I must have done something wrong. I felt responsible for keeping everyone comfortable, even when doing that came at my own expense. Learning that I can love people and still have boundaries with them changed the way I approach relationships entirely.

More than anything, I learned how to advocate for myself. I learned to listen to my own instincts, take my own needs seriously and stop automatically looking outside of myself for permission to make decisions about my own life.

My life today isn’t exactly what I imagined it would be years ago, and honestly, I’m grateful for that. I don’t think there is one right path that everyone is supposed to follow. What is right for one person may be completely wrong for another, and I think we lose a lot of ourselves when we spend too much time trying to fit our lives into someone else’s definition of success.

For me, rerouting my life meant leaving a career I had spent years building, becoming a coach, starting a business, learning how to set boundaries and learning how to advocate for myself. It also meant doing the much harder internal work of figuring out who I actually am underneath the expectations, the people-pleasing and the version of me I thought everyone else needed me to be.

I’m still doing that work. I don’t have everything figured out, and mental health isn’t something I believe you simply move past forever. There are still hard seasons and moments when I have to recognize that I need support and take care of myself differently. But I am not the same person I was when I was sitting in that ER trying to hold everything together while struggling so much internally.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that you are allowed to reroute your life. You are allowed to decide that the path you started on isn’t the path you want to stay on. You are allowed to disappoint people, change your mind, set boundaries and make choices that don’t make sense to everyone else.

For so long, I thought living a good life meant meeting the standards that had been handed to me. Now, I care much more about whether my life is actually aligned with me.

And that has made all the difference.

Kelsy Manger Frederick

Maybe I KANN Too

I’ve learned that building something of your own sounds a lot prettier from the outside than it feels while you’re actually doing it.

I’ve been a photographer for years now, and there have been so many moments where I’ve questioned whether I should keep going. When you pour your heart into your work and someone doesn’t see the value in it. When you compare yourself to other photographers and wonder why you’re not where they are. When bookings are slow, bills still need paid, or you’re exhausted from trying to balance your business with being a mom and everything else life throws at you.

There have been times when one difficult situation after another made me think, Maybe this just isn’t meant for me. Maybe I should quit.

But then I remember why I started.

Photography began as something I loved long before it became a business. I’ve been taking pictures since I was a kid, and somehow that little girl with a camera turned into a woman who built something of her own.

It hasn’t been perfect. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve had hard seasons. I’ve doubted myself more times than I can count. But every time I’ve wanted to give up, I’ve somehow found a reason to keep going.

And I think that’s what “KANN” means to me.

It doesn’t mean things are easy. It doesn’t mean you never fail or never question yourself.

Sometimes it simply means you wake up, take a deep breath, and try again.

I’m still building. I’m still learning. I’m still figuring it all out.

But I’m still here.

And maybe that’s the story someone else needs to hear.

Because if you’re in the middle of something that feels too hard, too uncertain, or too far out of reach, I hope you remember:

You don’t have to know exactly how you’re going to get there. You just have to believe you KANN. ♥️

Welded Together

Our story began long before we ever knew what life would ask of us. Two high school kids — me, Kasey, and him, Jerad — falling in love in the kind of simple, sweet way that only teenagers KANN.

We were young, hopeful, and clueless about the beautiful, difficult, extraordinary life we were about to build together.

Over the years, we didn’t just grow side by side — we grew together. We built a family, welcoming three beautiful children who became the heart of everything we did. We built a home filled with noise, laughter, and the chaos that only comes from love.

We also built a career together — literally.

For the last 17 years, Jerad has worked as a welder, and I’ve been right there beside him as his helper. Day after day, shoulder to shoulder, sparks flying, metal burning, and us moving like two pieces that have always fit.

Not everyone gets the blessing of working with their soulmate, of living and working as partners in every sense of the word. But we did. And we still do because we KANN!

And then life challenged us in a way we never could’ve imagined.

Stage 3 breast cancer.

A diagnosis that shakes your world, steals your breath, and rearranges your priorities in an instant.

But even in that hardest chapter, I was never alone. Jerad held my hand through fear, through pain, through every uncertain moment. He became my strength when mine was slipping. He became my calm when everything felt terrifying.

He became the proof that love — real love — doesn’t run from the storm; it stands in it with you and even in the storms of life it KANN grow deeper and stronger then you could ever imagine!

Our children became my motivation. Our marriage became my anchor. Our faith in each other carried me through every treatment, every tear, every victory.

And when I look back, I see not just the battle, but the love that made it survivable. and with love, strength and grit you Kann survive the storms of life!

After everything, we didn’t just return to life — we returned stronger. Our bond deeper. Our gratitude sharper. Our love more intentional knowing that together we KANN survive and thrive this crazy life we have been blessed with!

Thirty-four years later, I look at Jerad and still see the boy I fell in love with in high school — but now I also see the man who welded our life together with loyalty, tenderness, humor, strength, and unshakeable devotion.

And I see myself, not the same girl he met, but a woman who survived, who fought, who lived, who KANN survive and come out stronger— because we faced every chapter side by side.

This is our love story:

A teenage spark that became a lifelong fire.

A marriage built on faith, grit, laughter, and teamwork.

A family that grew from our hearts.

A battle we faced together.

A love that didn’t just last — it thrived.

And after 34 years, I still choose him.

Every day. Every season. Every version of ourselves.

Our story isn’t perfect — but it’s ours.

And it’s beautiful. I give God all the glory for this beautiful life He has blessed me with. Through laughter and tears joy and heartache His mercy and grace has given me the will to know I Kann! ❤️🙏❤️

Sobriety, it does make sense

Where does one start when it comes to the story of their life of soberity? Do they start the story when they got sober? The night they changed their mindset?

Maybe but mine started at 14 as a broke high school kid trying to fit in, spending the weekends drinking turned into 16 year curse of a problem that only went from drinking on the weekends to a nightly/daily curse for 16 years!

Wasn't even about fitting in anymore it was about just drowning myself away in the bottom of a bottle.

For 14 years it became a nightly thing to wake up hungover, we'll in my early 30s waking up in a jail cell was the last time I would ever be hungover, for the first 6 months everyone said it would be the hardest on someone like me to get sober, and i thought so as well, but than covid hit, social distancing became the new thing.

But so did unemployment lines, first hit was losing my job not because my stint in jail but because trucking took a big hit and mechanics weren't needed if trucks weren't moving.

Not to fear I'll start my own mechanics shop, which went great hired my best friend and we had a good time, werent making millions but we were surviving, but one small detail hadn't unfolded yet.

I hadn't got sentenced for my crime, well that day came along and I was sentenced to the 9 month program at CRC, well thats great right?

Wrong for them you can't work for yourself and can't work for anyone out side of who they approve.

So back to the job market I went, and landed on my feet working for a friend's company that they approved, I completed their 9 month program in 6 months and was released back to the wild, not without hiccups boy do they like to keep people down in that program, but we made it through.

The story don't stop there though.

Before I went to CRC I lost my biggest role model in life, my dad in the first 1 I faced losing my job, losing a business, losing friends, family, my house, I than went to work the oilfields which as a sober person that is challenging but we triffled through the normal of drinking and drugs that run wild in the oil fields.

Thats when the second phone call hit, a year into working the patch, I got the call that I lost my older brother who had a seizure while driving and didnt make it, the man who had a wife and two kids.

That hit hard because why would someone like that get taken over me? Was it a plan or was it bad design, less than a year after losing my dad my older now gone.

That was a challenge most people don't face and stay sober to, I pulled my big boy pants up and carried on through it.

Than one day after a quick add on the ole snap chat came something I never thought would happen I met the woman I needed in my life, only problem was she lived 12 hours away.

Well you know what they say if you want something bad enough you'll do anything to get it.

So I transitioned back to the role of a shop foreman for a trucking company, got better situated and moved her across the country after countless days of FaceTime calls, phone calls, snaps, etc.

I moved her in with me, we started living great she got sober 5 months before leaving her town and took a gamble on me.

We lived in Wyoming for a year or so before having our son and taking the gamble of moving across the country and starting over together.

Thats when we found out we were having our daughter.

We have faced countless obstacles together, but I am going on 6+ years of soberity, and she is going on 3 years of soberity together.

Neither of us have ever been to a AA meeting or anything of the sorts, out of sheer will power of wanting a better life.

I am not saying this is the life everyone needs or wants but if you want a better life it starts with you!

I summarized this story up a lot and it probably makes not a lot of sense.

But 6+ years of b/s and hardships while getting sober, staying sober and maintaining my soberity.

I hope this helps someone even if it don't make sense

The First Chapter to a New Story

I met Keisha in December of 2025, during a time in my life when I was at a pretty low point.

I had been through a difficult breakup, major career changes, years of stress, and several other things in my life that just hadn’t gone the way I hoped they would. Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling very good about myself. I felt stuck in a rut, overwhelmed by everything going on around me, and honestly pretty confused about where my life was supposed to go from there.

After carrying all of that for so long, I had started to believe that maybe this was just what my life was going to be. I would raise my kids, handle my responsibilities, get through each day, and accept that maybe there wasn’t going to be much more to life than that.

Then I met Keisha.

At first, I really didn’t know what to make of her.

She was positive. Really positive. Bubbly, encouraging, and genuinely seemed interested in how other people were doing. I wasn’t used to that at all. To be honest, I was skeptical of it.

I had built a pretty big wall around myself over the years, and I had become very guarded about people and their intentions. When Keisha would offer encouragement or tell me she cared about what I was going through, part of me wondered if she really meant it or if she was just being nice.

But she kept showing up.

And looking back now, that consistency mattered more than I realized at the time.

As time went on, I started opening up about some of what I was feeling. I was dealing with depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and times when I didn’t feel particularly valuable to anyone, including myself. I didn’t have many goals anymore, and there wasn’t a whole lot of positive stuff coming from inside me.

Keisha never acted like those feelings weren’t real.

She listened.

She communicated with me in a way that made it easier for me to actually be honest. She gave advice, offered perspective, asked questions, and gave me room to say things I had been carrying around instead of feeling like I had to hide them.

She also shared some experiences from her own life that helped me understand that she really could relate to things like anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and questioning your own worth.

And she kept telling me something I wasn’t very good at telling myself:

You are going to get through this.

A lot of times it was basically, we’ll figure this out.

At first, I was still skeptical. I was used to handling everything myself. My attitude had always been that I didn’t need anybody’s help and that I could figure things out on my own.

Eventually, though, I got to a point where I had to admit that doing everything my way wasn’t working very well anymore.

So I decided to try something different.

I opened up.

I actually told her what I was feeling instead of keeping it all buried. I listened to some of the advice she had been giving me. And when I needed help in areas she couldn’t personally provide, she helped point me toward people and resources that could.

When I was struggling with anxiety, for example, she helped me find someone I could talk to professionally.

That might sound like a small thing to some people.

For me, it wasn’t.

It meant I didn’t have to have every answer figured out before I took the first step.

From there, things slowly started changing.

Keisha encouraged me to get out of the house more, interact with people again, set goals, take better care of myself, and start participating in my own life instead of just surviving it.

Little by little, I started rebuilding something I didn’t realize I had lost so much of:

confidence.

Not fake confidence. Not pretending everything was fine.

Real confidence. The kind that comes from realizing you can make a decision, take a step, follow through with it, and then get up and do it again the next day.

She helped me see the importance of being around positive people and becoming part of a community instead of isolating myself.

She helped me organize my days, weeks, and months so I could actually see what I was trying to accomplish instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything all at once. She helped me make a calendar, schedule appointments, plan things to look forward to, and turn these vague ideas of “getting better” into actual things I could do.

And then there was probably the biggest part of all:

consistency.

It wasn’t about making one huge change and suddenly becoming a different person.

It was about showing up again.

And again.

And again.

Sometimes the encouragement was gentle.

Other times I needed a little more of a push.

There were days when Keisha basically told me, “It’s time to get up. Pick yourself up, put your dress on, and show up.”

And I did.

Not because she was forcing me to change, but because she was reminding me that I still had a choice.

That part is important to me.

Keisha didn’t come into my life and magically fix everything. She didn’t make decisions for me, and she never acted like she could solve every problem I had.

What she did was give me options.

She helped lay things out in front of me so I could see possibilities that I couldn’t see when I was buried under everything I was feeling.

Then she gave me enough encouragement to start choosing some of those possibilities for myself.

Today, this story is still very much a work in progress.

But in a pretty short amount of time, I can already see a difference.

I feel better about myself.

I am working on my health and my weight.

I am exercising again.

I am becoming a better parent.

I am becoming a better partner.

I have goals again.

I’ve started picking up pieces of myself that I left behind years ago.

My emotions are becoming easier for me to understand and manage, and maybe most importantly, I’m starting to recognize good things in myself again.

Keisha has also helped me start seeing more good in other people.

When life beats you down for long enough, it gets really easy to expect the negative. You start assuming things will go wrong or that people will eventually disappoint you.

I knew in my head that not everybody was bad and that life wasn’t always negative.

But knowing something and actually believing it are two different things.

I’m learning to believe it again.

One thing I respect most about Keisha is that she doesn’t just tell someone what to do. She helps people take responsibility for themselves.

She has helped me understand that accountability isn’t about proving anything to her or to anybody else.

It’s about proving something to myself.

At the end of the day, I have to show up.

I have to make the appointment.

I have to go to the gym.

I have to make the phone call.

I have to take the next step.

But sometimes having one person standing beside you saying, I know you can do this, is enough to help you take that step when you otherwise probably wouldn’t.

Looking back now, I can see how much of my progress has come through the same three things that are at the foundation of KANN:

Communication. Confidence. Consistency.

Communication helped me stop carrying everything alone.

Confidence helped me start believing that I was still capable of changing the direction of my life.

Consistency helped turn those intentions into action.

Those three things sound pretty simple when you write them down, but when somebody is struggling, they can be incredibly hard to find on your own.

Sometimes communication starts with finally admitting, “I’m not doing as well as I pretend to be.”

Sometimes confidence is nothing more than believing you can make it through today.

And sometimes consistency just means getting up tomorrow and trying again.

For me, those things have started adding up to something much bigger.

Another reason I’ve come to trust Keisha is because I’ve seen where she has come from herself.

Without sharing parts of her life that are hers to tell, I can say that she understands more than somebody might assume just by looking at her today.

Seeing someone who has been through difficult times of her own and worked her way forward has helped me believe that maybe I can do it too.

There’s something powerful about getting encouragement from somebody who isn’t just speaking from theory.

She understands what it feels like to struggle.

And instead of letting those experiences harden her, she has found a way to use them to help other people.

I think that says a lot about who she is.

Keisha has a big heart. She’s strong-willed, determined, compassionate, and genuine. When she tells somebody she cares, she means it. When she loves someone, she loves fully. And when she believes somebody is capable of more, she has a way of helping them start to believe it too.

My story isn’t finished.

Not even close.

This is really only the first chapter.

There are still things I’m working through, things I want to improve, and places I want my life to go.

But for the first time in quite a while, I’m looking forward instead of constantly looking back at everything that went wrong.

A few months from now, I hope I can add another chapter to this and say even more has changed.

For now, though, I can say this:

In a remarkably short amount of time, Keisha has helped me more than many people have been able to in decades—not by fixing my life for me, but by helping me believe that I was still capable of changing parts of it myself.

She helped me communicate when I wanted to shut down.

She helped me find confidence when I didn’t have much left.

And through her consistency, she helped teach me how important it is to become consistent for myself.

Sometimes that really is what a person needs.

Someone who will listen.

Someone who understands.

Someone who can point toward a door when you can’t see one.

And someone who reminds you that eventually, you’re strong enough to walk through it yourself.

I’m grateful that Keisha was that person for me.

And my story is still being written.

To Be Continued…….. (I promise)

Choosing Myself: Breaking Free and Finding Strength

Dear Keisha,

I am writing to share my story for KANN.

For a long time, my life was defined by survival. I found myself trapped in abusive relationships and a cycle of hardship that made it difficult to see a way out or recognize my own worth.

The most painful turning point in my life came when I lost my brother to suicide. Going through that devastating grief changed everything for me.

In the wake of losing him, I realized how precious life is, and I knew I couldn't keep letting my own life be consumed by abuse and pain. His memory gave me the final, powerful push I needed to choose myself, find my strength, and finally break free from the relationships that were destroying me.

Getting through a difficult life and escaping that cycle wasn't easy, but surviving it proved to me that I am stronger than my circumstances.

I am sharing this because I want anyone else sitting in the dark right now to know that you can get out, you can heal, and you can build a life on your own terms.

Thank you for creating a space for real stories.

With love,

Bailey Rohrer