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The Life of Hilary Elissa Smith. My Parents .
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My Parents • Father – Eric Charles Smith, born August 6, 1955 in New York to Eugene & Jane Smith. At age 9 his mother passed from complications of MS and father remarried a few years later to Lois. Lois and Gene had 3 more children, Luke, Brooke and Scotty. Scotty died when he was 16 from drowning while surfing. Eric moved out to Utah in his early 20’s first working for Robert Redford at Sundance, later moving to Park City and getting a job at Park City Ski Resort (now Park City Mountain Resort) where he met my Mother in 1980. Eric worked for a few years at the resort an realized he had a passion for building homes, which he is still doing today. • Mother – Jennifer Aline Stevens, born September 12, 1959 to Walter and Elissa Stevens in Salt Lake City. She has 3 siblings, Jeff, Craig and Kim. Walter worked at the University of Utah for many years and did a few turns at Dean of Medicine for a while, he later was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and passed 10 years later in 2004. Elissa and Walter divorced after 20 years of marriage and Elissa moved to Southern Utah to open a B&B, she passed last year of pancreatic cancer. Jenni works all around the valley before settling in at Park City Ski Resort, starting out as a ticket checker and worked her way up to the present day where she is now the President and GM of Park City Mountain Resort.
Childhood • I was born in Salt Lake City just a little after midnight on August 20th, 1987. I was born in less then 20 minutes, and they never made it inside, my grandmother caught me on the front steps. • I grew up in Midway, in the house my father built for us. • I went to K-9th grade in the Midway/ Heber school district, in the 10th grade I transferred to Park City High school in order to get a better more well rounded education. • My family spent summers back east visiting my dad’s side of the family in NYC and our beach house outside of Boston, MA. My sister and I
High School • I went to high school from 10th – 12th grade at Park City High School, graduating class of 2005. • I chose to transfer to Park City High for there better education, being one of the top 100 high schools in the US, and for the fact that at Wasatch High the students and the teachers were far from caring about their education. Most of the students came from families who owned farms, most of them were going to be lucky to graduate and if they did they were going to get married straight out of high school and go work on the farm. For me that was the furthest thing that I wanted. • At 16 I was more into art, drama and my education. I focused on making it through high school and getting out of Utah as soon as possible and as far away as possible.
College • I got accepted into Newbury College in Boston, MA. It was everything I wanted, a great city, a great college, and far away from Utah. • I went into college knowing I wanted to study Interior Design. I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelors of Science in Interior Design. • In college I felt like I had found myself, was able to express who I was, where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. • Along with all the great times, I made great friends that I still in contact with.
My Health and where it all changed • In my senior year of college, besides being the most stressful and full of so much work last year of college my body started basically hating me and what felt like rejected everything and anything that was going on with me. • I started getting migraines almost everyday, that we so debilitating that I had to quite my job, I only went to class and slept almost all the rest of the time. Along with the migraines I just generally felt terrible. • I started going to see my general doctor to start trying to figure out what was going on and what was causing everything. I saw multiple neurologists, had multiple MRI’s and everything came back clear. There was thoughts of MS, cancers and multiple other options. • They finally did an allergy test and found out I was allergic to lactose and gluten. I cut those things out and eventually started feeling a little bit better.. We were making some progress!
Health & Hippie • With my new understanding of the beginning of my health problems, I started looking into all ways in which to live a better healthier life. • I cut out gluten and lactose completely (and as a poor college student that is NOT an easy thing to do!) I also reevaluated all of my eating habits, exercise and general outlook was all wrong! • I started exercising more, mainly yoga for my whole body was still upset and hurting, started eating more whole foods, baking everything myself, basically started fresh. • I started to feel a lot better, still had migraines, just less often. I lost 15 lbs and started to understand and listen to my body better.
Getting on the right track • I graduated college and moved back to Utah, in order to slow down, get out of the city life and try and figure out my health problems further. • I saw more neurologists, had more test done, had more drugs thrown at me to fix my problems instead of understanding me and my problems, let alone being left with ‘Well your scans are clean, so we have no idea what is wrong with you’ • I eventually got tired of being treated like a test subject and not a person that I started to look to alternative things I found a naturopath, acupuncturist and a chiropractor. • They helped me further evaluate and clean my diet up, get the right things in my diet and start on the right path of getting better. My migraines finally left me, with only one or two every few months, something that was far more manageable.
The right track.. For now • I finally started to feel better and more like myself. I was able to listen to my body, and know what I had upset it or if I ate something that it didn’t agree with. • I started to become far more active and really appreciate and love exercise. • Along with understanding my health I started to evolve into a new and improved person. I started to challenge my own thoughts and beliefs. • I no longer cared about acquiring a ton of money, being healthy and happy was more important. I started to appreciate older things, mostly in design, second hand things and the value of being able to re-vamp them. As my mother would put it I basically started to become a hippie! And I loved every minute of it!
A turn for the worst .. again • With a new understanding of my body and being able to listen to it, there had been a few symptoms I had been ignoring or not thinking too much about. I started to realize that they could no longer be ignored • Along with the every few random migraines, I also started having some serious lower abdominal pains and problems. And every once in a while I would end up in the worst pain, landing me in the ER. • After many more doctors and many more test I found out that I have monthly forming and rupturing ovarian cyst, that keep growing larger they are averaging 6 cm. And along with that I also have Endometriosis, a condition that instead of my hormones staying in my uterus and then releasing with each cycle, mine are leaking out all over my lower abdominal area and attach to my organs. This to sum it up leads to unbelievable pain, no matter what I do. • I am in the process of getting ready to have surgery to remove the growths and evaluate how far the progress is and the best options moving forward. The doctors also warn me that the longer I take the harder if not more impossible it will be to get pregnant and eventually will have to get a hysterectomy.
With the bad, comes some good • After moving back to Utah, I reconnected with an old friend from high school, Brad. • We started hanging out all the time, enjoying many things in common, health, good food, exercise and good company. • After hanging out as friends for a few months, we decided to give dating a try, we have now been dating for over 2 years, have moved and lived in CA for a year, now back both of us going to school, me for nursing and him to become a doctor! Brad has been an amazing support system, understanding and helpful during all of my up’s and downs.
The plan and goals for now • I ended up getting a job in Interior Design Kitchen studio in San Francisco a little over a year ago, I convinced Brad to move out there with me and give it a try! • We moved to San Francisco, hippie heaven! Loved it for a while, being in a new place, exploring all new places only last for so long. My job started to wear on me, my ideals had changed so much and helping rich people decorate and waste money on stupid things was just not my scene anymore. After putting in a year, rethinking what I was doing with myself we decided to move home (Utah) to explore the option of going back to school. • After much thought, understanding where the world is these days and finding something that would fulfill me I have decided to go for Nursing. Already having a bachelors degree, leaves me with a great option at the University of Utah, I just need to finish a few required classes and then apply for the U’s accelerated nursing program.
