The light at the end of the tunnel

Over the past few days I have reflected a bit on my life in the last year. Crazy would be an understatement. Countless hours spent alone on a soccer field with only a net and a ball, early morning sessions with a personal trainer at the gym, multiple doctors’ visits, and hours lying in bed with only two questions on my mind: when am I going to feel better? And will I ever be able to play again? Waking up on the morning of March 15^th to a phone call from my mom telling me my dad had had a heart attack. Yes life got a bit crazy and at times there wasn’t even an explanation for what was happening but life is good.

I am very, very, very pleased to report that today I am starting to get much of my health back and after about a year of being sick I am ready to put all of this behind me and move on. My soccer season had been a struggle right from the very start. My mind and heart were in the game, except just not my body. I’m not sure why, but at the time I was having a hard time expecting the fact that my body took a pretty hard beating from mononucleosis and it was going to need a while to recover. That’s why I only played about half the season before I was too sick to even attend practice. (At this point it was more like sit on the bench and watch) After multiple doctors’ visits with no real explanation for why I was not getting better and being told to rest and take vitamin supplements I slowly started to feel better a month ago. They then discovered I had a sinus infection and was given antibiotics. I was allergic to the first antibiotics. Then I didn’t respond to the second one and on the third I had another bad allergic reaction. So about a week and a half ago I was given another antibiotic and was told this was the last one… I don’t even want to know what that means. Long story short, I am responding to them and I feel better than I have in a very LONG time! J.

When I first thought about all the things that I did over the past couple of months related to soccer I saw them as regrets. I regretted not being there for my team towards the end of the season and I regretted not being able to play my best during the season or being able to attending tryouts. I soon realized they were lessons. I have never been injured or sick before during my soccer season so it was a tough time and when the season finished I was thinking that I was never going to play soccer again. I started to wonder what the purpose of the mornings in the gym and out on the pitch alone was. I realized it’s the small things that matter. The one time my coach told me I had great vision on the field. The praises I got from teammates after a good game. The goals I scored in scrimmages. Yes, I would of like to do much better but in times like those the littlest things were the biggest victories and I don’t regret one moment of it. I have Cerebral Palsy and have so far been a part of two seasons with my high school soccer team. Not everybody can say that. I am proud of what I have done so far.

Playing soccer with CP isn’t exactly an easy task. Every player is faster and has more muscle control than me. They can run backwards without falling down on their faces, pass with both feet, run without looking like a galloping horse and I’ve even gotten few weird looks from parents on the sidelines but it amazes me how much encouragement my teammates and coaches always seem to have for me. This season a girl on my team came up to me and out of the blue asked me if I had ever had a stroke. That surprised me because I don’t get asked that every day. She told me that her brother had had a stroke and so she recognized similarities when I was playing. We talked about that the experience was like and that was a pretty cool moment for me. I haven’t found any other soccer players in high school who have CP like me so I really have started to look up to players on the U.S. Paralympic team and even the deaf and amputee national teams. Having them to look up to is what truly keeps me playing the game and believing in my dreams. I also have a new found hatred for the word ‘Disability’. I’m not sure why but I can’t use that word anymore. I don’t even consider myself disabled anymore. I know that’s the technical word for it and people still call me “disabled” but I can guarantee you that you will probably never hear me use that word again. In no way does my disability define who I am!   

So, what comes next in my journey? Well, more soccer of course! During the summer my two best friends wanted me to play co-ed soccer with them. So when sign ups for co-ed indoor soccer started my friends mentioned it to me. I have yet to sign up but hopefully that will happen very soon. There are no practices, just games, so I figure this will be a good place for me to start back up. After all the disappointment of how my season went I realized it’s not all about the glory and the recognition. If playing soccer with my friends in a co-ed indoor league is what makes me happy, then I should do it. I know at this point making varsity isn’t a realistic dream but I still have hope that maybe I can be involved in helping the program out next season in some way. The other thing I want to make a priority is to get involved with TOPSoccer. I had gotten information on how to get involved but was just too sick earlier this year so I’ll definitely try to get involved with that.

 

I have learned a lot over the past year in my life. The most important thing I learned is that there will always be hard times throughout life and even through the hard times, every single day, we learn something new even if we don’t realize it. Life is truly a beautiful gift and so is the game of soccer too :)

 

Never Give Up.

 

-Haley