Welcome to Athletics for Life! My name is Mike and this is my own little portal for reaching out to those struggling with a chronic illness and those who are supporting someone with a chronic illness. I can't say I have ever looked up the numbers for people living with chronic illness, but in my experience, I've found it hard pressed to come across anyone who isn't suffering, or doesn't know anyone sufferring from chronic illness. It is something that touches the lives of everyone. Many times, we don't even know the illnesses and conditions that are affecting people in our everyday lives. I think it's safe to say that we don't all go around with badges "Hello, My name is Joe, and I suffer from...." In fact, a lot of people with chronic illness are embarassed with their condition. I say this openly because I was one such person, and honestly, this is why I'm starting Athletics for Life. It's not always easy to speak about your condition, whether its embarrassing or you think noone will care. After all, that's how I ended up here.
Allow me to introduce myself, and give some light to my story. I’m going to skip all of the irrelevant years and skip right to the good stuff. Currently I am a student in University studying Kinesiology, so if I get really sciency, this is why. I love fitness, science, physics, and just about anything educational. I dabble in psychology and pathophysiology. At the end of the day, let’s just say I like knowledge. Anyway, the spotlight of this big story is I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis 4 years ago now, and it forever changed my life. I will be the first to admit that I didn’t fully understand it for the first 2 years of my diagnosis. This was my first mistake. I was diagnosed, given my meds, and just left the doctor’s office like nothing changed. I still felt invincible. After 2 years, I decided that I didn’t have any symptoms, and my stomach was starting to hurt, which must be from the meds. So I just stopped taking them. This was mistake two. Now, I had just gotten my blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at the time, and was playing shinny hockey, lifting weights 3-5x/week. I was pretty active. I got hired for 2 different jobs over the summer. The first was driving Audis (pretty damn cool) and the second was working backstage at a concert venue (double cool!). It was like I was living the dream. Until….
A month into working I had my first relapse of symptoms. For those of you with Crohn’s and Colitis, you know what this entails. For those of you who don’t, I will save you the details. But, the symptoms got progressively worse, until I quit the Audi job. I was now working 13 hrs a day at the concert hall, and could barely make it 2 hours without running to the bathroom or doubled over with stomach pain. I eventually quit that job as well. I had lost 7 lbs in a week, and things weren’t looking good. It was looking pretty bad. I went back to the doctor and he put me on double dosage of my meds to see if that would do anything. It didn’t. I spent the next 6-8 months of my life (ya I really don’t recall exactly) hiding in my room, struggling to go to school and work, and then hiding some more. I was terrified to socialize as I needed a bathroom every 30 minutes. It’s a good thing my fiancé is a nurse, but regardless she has stood by my side since the onset of relapse. I don’t know how she does, but I appreciate every day she does. Anyway, the doctor had me on different meds each month, and nothing was working. I tried everything from Paleo to wishful thinking to whatever the doctor prescribed. Nothing worked. Yet one thing has always helped me, and that is fitness and sport. I’ve always turned to fitness and sport as my getaway and it has helped multiple times. Except for the 6-8 months of hermit living, I have always lifted weights, played hockey, or more currently played soccer. For that hour or two that I’m playing or training, I’m a normal guy on top of the world. This has led me to want to spread awareness for chronic illness and attempt to help others through the use of sport and fitness. So here we go, Athletics for Life is my attempt at reaching out, at making the public aware, and just plain helping others (in whatever way I can). Oh, and let’s end on a good note. Although I currently am not symptom free, the doctor gave me a med that seems to be working, and I am fighting to get back to my normal self. One day at a time.