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  • 2 months ago
BORN with a rare condition that causes one of her arms to swell, 17-year-old Olivia is on a mission to spread body positivity. Olivia was born with vascular malformation, and in her specific case it affects the veins on her left arm. The veins on her arm are unusually wide and constantly expand, causing the blood to clot. Olivia told Truly: "I like to think of it as a hose, if the hose is too big the water is not going to be able to get through it with the regular spout so it's going to slow down and then it clots up." Her condition was noticeable from birth, but doctors originally thought it was just a bruise and she wasn't officially diagnosed until she was two years old. Unfortunately for Olivia, she's had to face bullying growing up, with school peers calling her names. "Some of the worst things people have said, it's mostly been online - they just call me 'the hulk' and back then I was very hurt." Nowadays Olivia has a newfound confidence and is committed to spreading body positivity to her 200,000 social media followers, inspiring others struggling with their confidence.

Follow Olivia here:
TikTok: @swac42069000
Instagram: @olivia.klopchin

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Transcript
00:00I was born with a condition that causes my arm to swell.
00:03Some of the worst things people have said,
00:05they called me the hole.
00:07I'm just a beautiful person.
00:09Nothing is ever going to be able to affect that.
00:13So today I'm going to be challenging myself
00:16to go to a lake in Vermont in the winter time
00:19and take pictures with no coat on.
00:24Okay, let's go.
00:27My name is Olivia Klopchen.
00:29I'm 17 years old and I was born with a condition
00:32that causes my arm to swell.
00:35I have a vascular malformation
00:37and more technically mine is a venous malformation.
00:41So my arm gets blood clots
00:44because my veins aren't regular veins.
00:48They're very wide and they constantly expand.
00:52I like to think of it as a hose.
00:54If the hose is too big,
00:56the water's not going to be able to get through it
00:59with a regular spout.
01:00So it's going to kind of slow down and my arm clots up.
01:05I was first diagnosed when I was only a couple months old.
01:08I was still a baby.
01:10And the doctors originally thought it was just a bruise.
01:13When Olivia was first diagnosed, it was very frightening.
01:24We had this little tiny child and had no idea really what was wrong with her.
01:31Some of the worst things people have said, it's mostly been online.
01:34I would think I was 12 and somebody messaged me who I went to school with.
01:39Out of pure anger, they just called me the Hulk.
01:43It was the Hulky, you look like Hulky.
01:46And I back then was very hurt by it because I'd never been called anything like that.
01:51I'd never compared myself to anything like that.
01:54I think that I'm just a beautiful person and that nothing is ever going to be able to affect that.
02:01What I see in the mirror now, I love myself.
02:04So I started posting on social media because I personally had never seen anybody with it before.
02:12I wanted to bring awareness.
02:14It's important for me because I felt lost when I was younger.
02:18Because the only people I'd ever seen with anything similar to me were in a hospital.
02:23And so putting myself out there and meeting all these people meant I wasn't alone anymore.
02:29She has blossomed into an amazing young woman.
02:34Very, very proud of her.
02:36She always stood up for herself.
02:38It's her normal, even though it's not everybody else's normal.
02:43So today I'm going to be challenging myself to go to a lake in Vermont in the wintertime
02:50and take pictures with no coat on.
02:55I'm really excited about the photo shoot.
02:58I mean, it's cold.
02:59I don't necessarily enjoy the cold, but I like to challenge myself to try new things.
03:06I want to achieve the message of spreading body positivity by taking these photos,
03:11showing that you can be brave no matter what you're doing,
03:14even if it's out in the cold and below zero weather.
03:17It's cold!
03:18Okay, let's go!
03:28So that was a really awesome experience.
03:36I've never done anything like that.
03:38It was super exciting.
03:41I would definitely recommend trying something more out of your comfort zone.
03:45The message I would like to put out to the world from my story is that everybody is beautiful
03:50and all of our differences define who we are as a person and we should stop hiding them.
03:56What I wish for in my future is to see others like myself putting themselves out there into the
04:02world and not being afraid of who they are.
04:16I think so.
04:16I wish I had a long time ago.
04:18I wish I could build up the world and I could be world- Michigan and what you're in the world.
04:19I have a little bit of your view.
04:21I wish I could move the world around here.
04:22I wish I could build up the world andятно know the world that I was in the world in the world
04:24and I could build up the world and I could be able to go through the world and go through their world and know where we're
04:26at the world and I could be able to come up for it in the world.
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