I think it’s fair to say I’ve now been running this site for a long time now. I think it’s been 3 years? Maybe 4 now? I can still remember the day that I started it, thinking that it was just my own little escape from my condition. It was my own little form of therapy, dealing with my active disease and trying to still live a normal life. I can say that those 3-4 years have been anything from straight forward. There’s been ups and downs, there’s been times where I’ve given all to this site and others where I hadn’t even been able to look at it for weeks. I thought for the longest time that there was no one reading, I’ve had thoughts that it didn’t matter, and at times I’ve thought about shutting down the site. Yet, every time I did, there was always someone to change my mind. Sometimes that someone was my wife, encouraging me to continue sharing my thoughts and journey. Other times it was a complete stranger who would reach out to me to tell me they had heard my podcast or read my article. It’s on those days that I think that if I even reach one person, if I can help one person to overcome adversity or motivate them, then all this time is worth it! This happened recently when someone had reached out to me in love for someone they knew, who was having a rough time with disease. So, I thought, it’s time to sit down and begin to write again. It’s time to share everything I have learned over the last couple years since I had been invested in writing every day. I feel like I have more to share rather than rants or complaining. I feel revitalized.
When I went back through the site, I decided I wanted to change things up a little bit. I wanted to take away certain old content that is readily available elsewhere, but I also wanted to add some stuff (site changes still on going, bear with me). I noticed though that the blog had grown from some really good information to just some random articles about my sports life and competition. I mean, this is great if I am the prime focus, but that was never my goal. So with our theme today of revitalization, I am also going to revitalize the blog portion of the website. I’ve decided to keep the old articles on here, at least until Wix decides to delete my 3 year old articles, just in case anyone would like to go for a trip down memory lane. There are, after all, some gems in there with good information. However, I’ve decided I am going to start back at the beginning, with my story. If you have already read my story, and don’t want to read it again, it’s cool. Don’t worry about what’s written below. New articles coming soon.
I’ve been a relatively healthy person my entire life, last 7 years excluded. As a kid, I played just about every sport I could. I was almost always outside, except for the one summer I discovered Warcraft. But I was always on the go. It wasn’t until 2011 that I learned that I was not indestructible. In that year, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. At the time, I was training in martial arts (specifically Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but some kickboxing as well) and still playing hockey when I could. I was all set up to go back to school for Kinesiology (study of human movement) after deciding that I did not want to be an engineer. Everything seemed to be going good, until I was diagnosed.
For those who are unaware of what ulcerative colitis is, it is an autoimmune disease that affects my large intestine and bowel. Pretty much my body is confused and is attacking itself. This leaves me with a range of uncomfortable symptoms such as abdominal pain, feeling of bloating, urge to go to the bathroom (even though I don’t have to go), and even bleeding when I did go to the bathroom. Yet, even after I was initially diagnosed, things weren’t too bad. I had been put on the first line of defense meds, and they seemed to be working. Unfortunately, that was not going to last. I decided I was smarter than my doctor, and stopped taking my medication. My symptoms came back with a vengeance. The pain was the worst it had been. I was constantly in the bathroom and pretty soon it had taken over my life. I refused to leave my room in the basement, despite nice summer weather. I hated going to school. I even thought about dropping out and just accepting the fact that I may not be able to work in a job other than working from home. I was desperate for answers and a solution to this disease that was slowly taking over my life. That answer came in two forms.
The first form was a medication. After all, I am no doctor and with my previous experience, I am not bold enough to tell anyone that they never need medication. My doctor had put me on an immunosuppressant called Simponi. It is a “biologic” medication that I inject myself with every 2 weeks (initially it was once a month). Slowly but surely I began to feel better. It provided me a baseline of wellness for what I believe was a huge factor in my recovery.
The second form of relief was in the form of exercise and sport. In desperation to have some form of “humanity” (yes, I am being dramatic here), I wanted to look up people who were successful who had the same disease as I did. I came across one athlete, Darren Fletcher, a midfielder who played for the Manchester United Football Club (my favourite team at the time) who also had ulcerative colitis. I read an interview with him. That interview changed my life. In that interview, he had said that the only time he felt human, that he felt disease free, was when he was playing soccer. When he was on the field, the disease didn’t matter. That very same day, I signed up for intramural soccer at my school.
That first season was nothing glorious. I signed up as a striker, and played just how you would expect a first time player would play. I still managed to score some goals. I found it tough getting to the games with my disease. I would stop at every bathroom along the way to the gym where we played. I was nervous, and this didn’t help my symptoms, but I wanted to feel normal so bad that I fought through it. After my first game, despite my rookie embarrassment, I felt amazing. I was even able to get all the way home without having to stop once to use the washroom. And with that I was hooked. I went to every single game that season, even the 11pm ones despite having 8 am classes. Needless to say, we finished in dead last that season, but it didn’t matter. I already started feeling better and I was having fun while doing it. I haven’t stopped playing since.
Being able to play sports again, and to feel somewhat normal for a brief time after, gave me the confidence to try something I hadn’t been able to do for two years that I used to do almost every day of the week…..workout. I started slow. I was able to use some weights at home to do little things at first, 3 sets of 5 reps, sometimes doing 3 sets of 20 reps with bodyweight for something like a squat. Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t out of the woods yet. My workouts also included several trips to the bathroom after sets (and sometimes in the middle). But it didn’t matter because I was still able to workout. As I got closer and closer to my physical shape that I was in before diagnosis, the better I felt. The symptoms were still there, but not to the extent that they were. I was more confident and less anxious. If I had to go to the bathroom, I was no longer running. I had nothing to hide, and I was in control, not my disease. I eventually graduated from home workouts to workouts at the school gym. It was much of the same. I had to throw my hoody over the barbell in between my sets of squats so I could go run to the bathroom. It all worked out though and day by day, set by set, I made a return to the weight room. I was lifting more than I had ever lifted before, I was excelling at my sport, and I was doing it all while sick.
Today, I still play soccer. I’ve made the switch to goalkeeper, which is where I feel the most nature. My goal is just to get better each season. I still go to the gym, as much as possible. I do what I can now to stay in the best shape of my life. Physical activity has helped me so much. Yes, the medication helped, but I felt stalled on it. My condition had not improved in ~6 months and my doc was starting to talk about surgery. Enter physical activity and sport and before I knew it, I was improving again. I’m now symptom free most days. I still have my triggers, but symptom free otherwise. Since realizing the power of exercise, I have become a trainer and found a home at AreYouGame Conditioning Club in Whitby. It’s my hope to help people to achieve the best health they can through exercise, much in the same way exercise has helped me. I was able to graduate from my undergraduate in Kinesiology, and have gone back to do a Master’s degree in Health Science.
This is how I got to where I am today. There’s many more details of the journey along the way, but if I started to get into all of that, we would be teetering on a book and not an article. Now you know where I’m coming from. Just know that when I say things in these articles, I’m not just pulling at straws. I’ve lived it. I will never ask anyone to do something I haven’t done or am uneducated in. I want to help people bottom line.
