Some friendships are built on shared memories.
Some are built on shared experiences.
And then there are the friendships built on surviving the same storms.
I’ve written before about my best friend Margot. We’ve been friends for nearly 40 years. She is the keeper of my secrets. She knows where all the bodies are buried. She has witnessed every version of me—from childhood to adulthood—and has stood beside me through it all.
But today, I want to talk about another friend.
My friend Troney.
Or as I lovingly call him, People McNugget.
Like Margot, I’ve known People McNugget for nearly 40 years. But our friendship is different. The bond I share with him is unlike any friendship I have with anyone else.
You see, People McNugget has Crohn’s Disease too.
Before Crohn’s entered either of our lives, we were simply friends. Well… if I’m being honest, he was that annoying friend that got cussed out on a regular basis. Some things never change.
A few years after my Crohn’s diagnosis, I started sharing my journey on Facebook. Long before The Dual Diagnosis Diaries existed, social media became my therapy. It was where I processed what I was experiencing and where I learned I wasn’t as alone as I thought.
Then one day, completely by chance, we ended up at the same party.
As we talked, he shared something I never knew.
He had Crohn’s Disease too.
Suddenly, I wasn’t the only one in the room who knew what it was like to plan life around bathrooms, medications, fatigue, and the unpredictability that comes with Crohn’s Disease.
In that moment, our friendship changed.
Not because we suddenly had something in common, but because we understood something about each other that few people could.
Later, he would also be diagnosed with Graves Disease, officially earning his membership into what I now jokingly call the Polyautoimmune Club.
While our symptoms and experiences have been very different, our connection grew deeper because we both understood what it meant to live with a body that sometimes had a mind of its own.
As we grew older, we discovered another shared passion: plants and gardening.
Some of our conversations were about medications and doctor’s appointments, while others were about what was growing in our gardens, new plants we had found, or tips for keeping something alive that should have been much easier to grow.
Looking back, it’s funny how often our conversations bounced between Crohn’s Disease and houseplants. One minute we’d be discussing symptoms, and the next we’d be debating fertilizer, soil mixtures, propagation techniques, or whether a struggling plant could still be saved.
In many ways, gardening became the perfect metaphor for friendship and chronic illness.
Both require patience.
Both require resilience.
And both teach you that growth can happen even during difficult seasons.
Over the years, he became one of the first people I would call after appointments or when a doctor prescribed a new medication.
He understood the fear.
The frustration.
The exhaustion.
The endless cycle of tests, treatments, and waiting for answers.
And unlike most people, he could handle the gross conversations.
We could talk about things that would make other people immediately lose their appetite—Crohn’s things. The poop stories. The abscesses. The procedures. The medications. The things only another Crohnie truly understands.
Don’t get me wrong.
I still cussed him out every time we talked because he was still People McNugget.
Some friendships require affection.
Ours required sarcasm.
As life moved forward, we both left the DC area and settled thousands of miles apart. Like many lifelong friendships, the frequency of our conversations changed.
Now it’s birthday texts.
Holiday messages.
Random “I love you” texts.
Motivational messages sent out of nowhere.
The occasional “I was thinking about you today.”
The kind of friendship that doesn’t require constant communication to remain strong.
The kind that simply picks up where it left off.
And despite being nearly 3,000 miles apart and not talking regularly, he was one of the very first people I contacted when I learned I had Myasthenia Gravis.
Not because he has MG.
Not because he had answers.
But because he understood what it felt like to hear the words, “You have another autoimmune disease.”
He understood the fear that comes with a new diagnosis.
The uncertainty.
The grief.
The questions.
The reality that life was about to change again.
When you spend years navigating autoimmune disease, you learn that sympathy and understanding are not the same thing.
Many people sympathize.
Few truly understand.
People McNugget understood because he had lived his own version of the journey.
There is something incredibly comforting about having a friend who doesn’t need lengthy explanations. Someone who already understands the language of chronic illness because they speak it too.
People often talk about support systems, and those are important. But there is something uniquely special about having a friend who truly gets it because they’re living it too.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge his wife, Vivian.
Vivian, thank you for putting up with both of us all these years and never questioning our friendship. Thank you for understanding the bond we share and for making room for one more person in your lives.
Though if I’m being completely honest, I’m still not entirely sure how you’ve managed to put up with him for so long.
Or us.
Mostly him, for that matter.
But after all these years, you’ve proven that you’re either incredibly patient, a saint, or perhaps a little bit of both.
So today, this diary entry is for People McNugget.
Thank you for the conversations.
Thank you for the laughs.
Thank you for understanding the things that most people never will.
Thank you for being one of the few people who could discuss poop, abscesses, autoimmune diseases, gardening, and life in the same conversation and somehow make me laugh while doing it.
Thank you for being one of the first people I called when Crohn’s changed my life.
Thank you for being one of the first people I called when MG changed it again.
Thank you for the gardening advice, the plant conversations, the random motivational texts, and the friendship that has somehow survived nearly four decades.
Friendships like ours remind me that while chronic illness can take a lot from us, it also has a way of revealing who is willing to walk beside us through the hardest seasons. Those are the people worth holding onto.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a friend who understands chronic illness firsthand.
I am.
And for that, I am incredibly grateful.
Most importantly, thank you for nearly 40 years of friendship.
Even from 3,000 miles away, that friendship continues to matter more than you probably realize.
And yes, after publishing this, I fully expect a text from People McNugget reminding me that he’s still annoyed I told this story.
With love,
Kia Lorice
Founder & Author, The Dual Diagnosis Diaries
💜 The Dual Diagnosis Diaries
Living with Crohn’s Disease and MuSK+ Myasthenia Gravis has taught me that support comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s family. Sometimes it’s doctors. Sometimes it’s lifelong friends. And sometimes it’s that annoying friend you’ve known for nearly 40 years who understands exactly what you’re going through without you having to say a word. To all of those walking this journey with us—and to those walking beside us—thank you.
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