Everyone loves when there is a solution to the problem they are facing. It could be a financial solution, a math equation, or even as serious as a health problem. When we are first faced with such a problem, we search almost obsessively for a solution and we often times rack our brains going over every single detail over and over. More often than not a solution arises, we give a big sigh of relief and then go on with our lives. But what happens when a solution doesn’t exist? What happens when the millions of people before us were in our shoes, searching endlessly for solutions, and came up empty handed? Where does that leave us and what do we make of it in terms of moving ahead with our lives? A lot of the time, when we are faced with situations requiring a solution, we don’t easily move on until the solution is found, but how do we move on when the solution doesn’t exist? Now, I wish that these questions didn’t exist. I wish that we had a solution for every single medical problem we faced, but the truth of the matter is that there isn’t always a solution.
I was faced with this five years ago when I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Others are faced with it when they are told they have Crohn’s or if they suffer from anxiety or depression. These are only a few of the diseases that exist today that have no definitive cure. At first, I never truly grasped the severity of my situation. I just remember waking up in the recovery room with my doctor there explaining to me that I have Ulcerative Colitis and I was to take this medication and it should subside the symptoms. He left, with the prescription left on my bed and it was up to me to figure out exactly what I had until my next appointment. I took the pills, the symptoms went away, and I thought I was cured. It wasn’t until symptoms returned that my doctor sat down with me and explained that what I had was never going away unless they did surgery to remove my colon. Woah, now that was a bomb drop that I was not ready for and did it ever take its toll on me. As the symptoms got worse, I couldn’t help but think “this is my life now and I can do nothing about it.” It was a depressing and bleak outlook on my future, but the big thing I was missing was that there was something I could do about it. I didn’t have to just sit back and suffer, but rather I could focus on coping with my disease. I found this coping through sport.
Before I found my method of coping though, I had to come to terms that I wasn’t going to be cured. To say there isn’t a period of grief would be a lie. It feels like you lose a little bit of yourself when you realize that you aren’t like a lot of “normal” people. It took me longer to get over this because I refused to come to terms that I was grieving my loss of function. One month turned into two, two months turned into six, and it became a bit of a dark period. However, once I realized I was grieving the loss of my “normalcy” I was finally able to get over it and that’s when it hit me. I could let this disease ruin me and make me miserable, or I could begin focusing on what made me truly happy and pursue that. Happiness began to take on a greater meaning than money, or material objects. I found sports and I never looked back.
Sports are my saving grace. Not just because they are fun, but because they make me feel like a normal person. While I’m playing, I don’t feel sick or impaired. I don’t feel any different than any of the other players. My pain, my symptoms, and my worries don’t exist mid-game, nor do they matter. For that one to two hours, I’m free and when you suffer from an incurable disease, not only do you live for such moments, but you chase them. Think of it like an adrenaline junkie, except instead of looking for that adrenaline rush, I am looking for that state where the disease fades away and I’m 100% fine. No medication in the world right now can give me this feeling, but sports can (for me, specifically soccer). For me, it is one of the most important things in my life currently. The best thing about it? Unlike adrenaline junkies who lose their “high” the minute they end their run, I reap the benefits of sport for most of the day afterwards. When I’m not playing, I’m dreaming of playing and it holds me over until I can.
I think the biggest thing to get across is that my coping method may not be right for everyone. While I strongly believe sports and fitness has many biological benefits when it comes to combatting chronic disease, coping strategies are completely different. For me, something that helps you cope is that little something that describes who you are. It’s your thing that you can lose yourself in for hours and nothing else matters. It may be art, it may be music, or like myself, it could be sport. The important thing is recognizing it and believing in its ability to help you. It’s a strange combination of expressing yourself through something and losing yourself in it at the same time that I found is paramount to dealing with the incurable diseases. It’s part of you, just like your disease is a part of you, however at the end of the day, you get to define what makes you the person you are. I think this is the missing puzzle piece. Yes, disease is a piece of you, but it doesn’t have to define you. If you let it define you, it will rule you. If you choose your passion, the disease will seem insignificant and happiness will follow. At least this is my experience. The way I look at it now is that I have nothing to lose by investing time in my passion (sport). Either it will make me feel better like I’ve experienced or it won’t. If it doesn’t, I’m no worse off than when I started except that I took it into my own hands and tried.