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“Walk it off”
-- the Alpha Male

When I was eight, I broke my leg. I had finally decided to give up soccer (the first sport Midwestern boys have the opportunity to play), but when my parents arranged it so that I could play on the same team as my younger brother I came out of retirement long enough to break both bones in my shin

On the sideline, nobody, including my mother, could accept the possibility that my leg might be broken. That’s what shin guards were for. How could two lanky 8 year olds ever kick each other hard enough to break a leg? Encouraged by my caretakers, I decided to make an attempt at walking my injury away, but the game concluded and the excruciating pain continued.

After I broke down in tears in front of the neighborhood kids, my mother finally entertained the idea that I might have a serious injury. She took me to the hospital where my suspicions (and my mother’s horrors) were confirmed. I had broken both of the bones in my leg. Upon hearing the news my mother’s hands went to her face in shame, while my fists shot up into the air in celebration. Injuries meant status to an eight year-old. I’d get a cast and everything.

I immediately re-retired from soccer, swinging down the sidelines on my crutches in my Kelly Green shirt, watching my brother enjoy the season I never should have played in the first place. Excluding a might-as-well-have-been-broken nose, my life continued into high school without serious injury. Of course, I suffer from asthma and allergies to this day, but neither of those have the prestige of a bloody nose or a shattered tibia. But I’d quickly make up for ten impeccable years with back-to-back traumas that would put all previous incidents to shame.

I’m amazed that with a chronic illness like asthma, my mother has never been too inclined to take me to the doctor. It took some hysterical theatrics to convince her to get my leg X-rayed. They showed similar skepticism when I came home from landscaping for the Village of Milan with a steely ache in the pit of my stomach. I initially though I was merely dehydrated. I inhaled three Gatorades, but still found no relief. I called into work the next day and my mother accompanied me to the doctor.

At the doctor’s office, I ran off my list of symptoms buckled over on top of the examining table. Somewhere in all this drama I had also apparently picked up a rash, which I assumed was poison ivy, so I showed her that as well. When she saw it she asked if it itched (it did not), and then left the room. This would happen several more times. A question asked, followed by a trip out of the room. The pattern did not instill confidence.

Finally, the doctor returned with a diagnosis none of us expected: IGA Nephropathy – a kidney disorder characterized by blood and protein in the urine. The doctor then detailed what I could expect from the progression of the illness. Vomiting (which I had up until that point avoided), more sores (the rash was now characterized by lesions on the skin), and intense stomach pain. Since this disease was clearly not this physician’s forte, the vague description of the disease horrified my mother. Thanks to my cramps I was mostly oblivious, but I was able to make it all the way back home before the operatic fits of vomiting began.

IGA Nephropathy represents a wide spectrum of outcomes and scenarios. They run the gamut from nothing to renal failure, but the doctors were powerless to help me. We just had to sit back and see what happened. What ended up happening was I spent the entire month of July in bed on a strict diet of pedialyte. At the beginning of the summer, when my weight-lifting regimen had been at its most intense, I weighed a shade over 195. When I strapped up for football camp in the first week of August, I weighed 170. I had not weighed that little since junior high, and for the first month of the football season, I got my ass handed to me.

Though the intensity of my illness wore off as time went on, it would still bounce back for a surprise visit every now and then. I missed two starts early in the football season because I was too sick to attend school. But I finally put a full week of practice together for the game against our Catholic school rivals, Alleman.

On the first play, I leapt over a fallen lineman and onto the helmet of the opposite tackle. I immediately went down to one knee, and when I tried to get up I thumped down into the grass. I rolled onto my back and tried to suck the air back into me, astonished that I felt no pain. I was relieved to tell my coaches that I had merely gotten the wind knocked out of me. But after walking to the sidelines to conciliatory applause, I realized I was not ok.

Though I had been hit in the gut, there was excruciating pain in my lower back. I crumpled up on the sidelines until the trainer escorted me into the locker room. After breaking down in the equipment cage, I told them I needed to go the hospital.

When I got there, the emergency room was packed. The fact that I was still standing meant that I could wait. After trying to sit up for ten minutes in the hospital‘s chairs, I slumped onto the floor. I listened to the sound of Just Cause playing on NBC and stared at a cute brunette who had been brought in with a broken wrist, as I tried to find a way to arrange myself to stop the pain.

After a while, I had to pee. My father escorted me to the restroom and waited outside until I came out a few minutes later to tell him:

“There’s blood.”

Clearly I had suffered a fairly intense internal injury and tests needed to be run. However, any pain killers they gave me could corrupt the results. So, I suffered through a CAT scan and a few other examinations (I began to black out by this point) and four hours after I first set foot in the hospital they finally gave me painkillers.

I missed two weeks of school and the rest of the football season. I had suffered a deep kidney bruise. The lineman had hit me so hard that my kidney had crashed up against the inside of my ribs. My problems over the summer only compounded the problem.

It’s a difficult thing to be that young and lose something you love so dearly. At first, the injury seemed mildly romantic -- a good story. But the value of the story could not replace being on the field and I ended my time with the Rock Island Rocks angry and bitter.

The bruise healed, but I will always live with the IGA Nephropathy. The nature of the disease requires me to limit my protein intake, eliminate dairy (which kills me), and take fish oil horse pills and vitamin E vitamins every morning. And still there are no guarantees. If the disease wants to get me, it’ll get me. There’s very little I can do.