My college years were both the most arduous and wonderful years of of my life. I spent an ac-cumulated eight weeks in the hospital the summer that I turned twenty, for the first series of reconstructive jaw surgeries. Almost everybody was telling me to take time off from college to concentrate on my health, but I refused. I needed to go back to class, living in a dorm with my friends. Between the end of sophomore year and graduating two years later I had twelve sur-geries and countless doctors appointments. I graduated with my peers with summa cum laude distinction. By enduring so much, I discovered what I was truly capable of. My advice for anyone with a craniofacial difference is to remember (and teach others) that it is a part of who you are, but by no means all that you are. It is hard to be looked at by the world and labeled as “different” along with all the preconceived and often false judgments that go with it. The upshot of this hardship is that it can be an unintentional measure of who a person’s friends and loved ones really are. People who genuinely care will take the time to look past the superficial physical difference and get to know the real and amazing person.