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Nour’s Journey
0:00—0:03
[Music begins, Lilly logo appears on screen]
0:04—0:08
[Logo fades away and is replaced by a city scene. Cars and buses wait in traffic at a busy intersection and a train is seen passing by. Siren noises can be heard in the background]
Nour: Chronic illness is a taboo.
Caption: Patient was compensated for her time.
0:09—0:11
[Nour walks down the street, looking out at the city and buildings]
Nour: I’m in the process of applying to medical school
Caption: Patient was compensated for her time.
0:12—0:16
[Nour continues walking with her back facing the camera and turns to look into the distance]
Nour: and I really want to change how people view digestive diseases.
On-Screen Super: “I really want to change how people view digestive diseases.”
0:17—0:24
[Close up of Nour smiling fades to Nour sitting in a chair in front of a backdrop]
Nour: My name is Nour and I was diagnosed with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.
0:25—0:28
[Nour enters the doors of a hotel with a suitcase]
Nour: I’m traveling today to participate at a conference.
0:29—0:33
[Nour places her suitcase on the bed and opens it]
Nour: It’s going to be a great opportunity to have that conversation on what it’s like living with UC.
0:34—0:43
[Nour looks out the hotel window at the city]
Nour: It’s an autoimmune disease that affects the digestive system. When I first started to experience symptoms, I wasn’t sure what it was.
0:44—0:48
[Scene transitions to Nour in the chair, then pans to her walking down a busy street]
Nour: It progressively got worse, and that’s when my doctor advised me to see a gastroenterologist.
0:49—0:55
[Nour stands at a bridge railing looking out into the distance and frame changes to her sitting in the chair]
Nour: After some intensive blood work and a colonoscopy, I was officially given a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis.
0:56—1:06
[Frame flips between Nour walking down the street and sitting in the chair as she continues to tell her story]
Nour: It did take me by shock. I wasn’t really sure how to move forward from there. It was hard for me to accept that this was like something I did not have any control over.
1:07—1:13
[Nour sits in the chair in front of a backdrop]
Nour: Some of the most disruptive symptoms include going to the bathroom frequently, bowel urgency and rectal bleeding.
1:14—1:24
[Nour stands at a bridge railing looking out at the water and holding a drink in her hand]
Nour: It can trigger any time, and when I’m having an active flare out somewhere and I just have a sip of water and then suddenly I need to find a restroom ASAP.
1:25—1:28
[Close up of Nour looking into the distance]
Nour: That unpredictability can take a toll on you.
On-Screen Super: “That unpredictability can take a toll on you.”
1:29—1:33
[Frame switches to a bridge with city buildings in the distance]
Nour: Once, I had set to take the MCAT, but I hadn’t received accommodations on time.
1:34—1:44
[Nour sits in the chair then frame transitions to Nour entering a car]
Nour: I didn’t feel like I was in a position where, you know, I could sit for that long and not be able to take the necessary breaks. I really didn’t know what my body had planned for me that day.
1:45—1:53
[Nour sits in the chair in front of a backdrop and looks down at her hands]
Nour: It felt like I wouldn’t perform as well and unfortunately had to cancel my exam. It was very frustrating for me to kind of experience that.
1:54—1:55
[Nour rides in the car, looking out the window into the distance]
Nour: It does feel very isolating.
On-Screen Super: “It does feel very isolating.”
1:56—2:06
[Nour exits the car and enters a café]
Nour: My early journey with ulcerative colitis, I didn’t really seek any outside support. It’s not really a topic that’s discussed at all with Middle Easterns.
2:07—2:11
[Nour sits in front of a laptop as a waiter sets a drink on her table]
Nour: And as time went on, I realized how much my mental health was suffering.
2:12—2:23
[Nour receives a video call from her sister, Zehra. She answers the call and begins talking]
Nour: Interestingly, my sister was diagnosed around the same time as well, and she would always say, you know, you have good days and bad days and learning how to work through the bad days is what’s important.
2:24—2:27
[Nour sits in the chair in front of a backdrop and music begins to sound upbeat and hopeful]
Nour: That was a turning point for me.
2:28—2:34
[Nour smiles and frame transitions to a train passing overheard, then to Nour walking down a hallway in conversation with another person]
Nour: I realized that it’s okay to be able to reach out to other people to get a different perspective, to get different insight.
2:35—2:37
[Holding a microphone, the conference moderator introduces Nour]
Moderator: Please give a warm welcome to Nour.
2:38—2:44
[Nour enters the conference session smiling and hugs the moderator while the crowd applauds]
Nour: In some ways, I felt like I was learning how to cope with the disease as well by helping other patients.
2:45—2:55
[Nour speaks into the microphone as the audience nods]
Nour: Find your community, find that niche, find that space that you feel safe in because this is not something that you have to go through alone. That’s the only way we can kind of normalize chronic illness.
2:56—3:06
[Frame transitions between Nour sitting in the chair and the conference session, ending with applause from the audience]
Nour: Patients don’t really get a lot of exposure on how to manage diagnosis. My biggest motivation to sharing my story is to bridge that gap in healthcare.
3:07—3:10
[Nour is greeted enthusiastically by a group of people sitting around a table on a rooftop]
Nour: I think it’s really important to keep talking about this.
On-Screen Super: “It’s really important to keep talking about this.”
3:11—3:16
[Nour engages in conversation with the group sitting at the table]
Nour: We can help each other experiencing the same thing. That’s so incredibly powerful.
3:17—3:20
[A group of conference attendees introduce themselves to one another as frame transitions to a close-up of Nour standing at the rooftop railing smiling]
Nour: All it takes is reaching that one person to make a huge difference.
3:21—3:25
[Screen fades into red background with Lilly Logo]
Caption: PP-LI-US-0738 07/2023 © Lilly USA, LLC 2023. All rights reserved.
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