Eating Disorders

...ba href=/eating disorder/a/b and selective mutism, the latter a little-known phobic condition whereby fear sometimes inhibits her ability to speak.

Occasionally, the load weighs on her lean shoulders.The village knows Lindsey's life centers on her health.

They've seen her get sick from the chemotherapy that fights her cancer, and they've visited her in the hospital, her home away from home.

They've watched her struggle to talk, only to bury her head in her mom's shoulder.Enough, Lindsey has thought.

Enough.She's been tired of the side effects of the chemo, tired of the struggle to eat a simple salad, tired of the freaky disorder that robs her words.The village has seen Lindsey rally, too.Lindsey is no quitter.

Not at all.

She might get down, her mom says, but she never stays there, though she knows it will be five years before the doctors will know for sure whether she's beaten off the cancer.Though she has the strength to attend only two classes a day at school, Lindsey doesn't miss those two classes before she limps out to her car, drives herself home and falls into bed.Lindsey's village includes Smyrna High School, where she is a junior.

One recent day at school, Lindsey whispered to a friend that she would like to go to the prom.

It would be Lindsey's first prom, the junior-senior prom.But she didn't want her hardworking mom and dad to know of her desire.

They would worry about her night out and the cost.

Since Lindsey's been sick, she knows that even the cost of a corsage could strai...

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