Personal Narrative: My Life As A Professional Athlete

When you don’t feel well, you go to the doctors, and at the doctors, they tell you what's wrong. But what if they can't? For over three years, doctors haven't been able to find what my mysterious condition was.
Shortly before entering high school, I noticed that after every meal I would feel extremely nauseous and lie on the ground, trying to calm the tension in my stomach. I felt cramped, queasy, and as if someone was stabbing my guts and abdomen. My monthly cramps were nothing compared to this. At the beginning, there was no rush in getting medical attention, since at this time I was trying out for my high school’s soccer team, and my parents believed it was simply the overload of exercise getting to me.
Unfortunately, halfway through the season I was unable to play: the pain and discomfort were occurring too often and were disrupting my every activity. My coach was cold and focused on winning and when he noticed me faltering on the field, he pulled me out for the rest of the season. For the next 6 weeks, I spent nearly every day standing by the bench in the cold October weather, forced to support my teammates this way.
When my parents realized that the issues in my stomach had interfered with the sport that I have been playing my entire life, they finally
brought me to the hospital. There, I received the disappointing news that nothing at all was wrong with me. The only insignificant abnormalities the doctors could find were slight acid reflux and IBS. My parents and I agreed that these couldn't have been the culprit to my disorder. Understanding this, the doctors recommended that we do more tests and trials, including an Upper GI, blood works, stool studies, a colonoscopy, and a variety of medication. To my dismay, these were all inconclusive. I was slowly losing hope as the pain failed to yield.
Finally realizing that doctors might not have all the answers, I decided to take my own healthy approach to the situation: dieting.
I kept a food journal with me wherever I went and steadily accumulated a list of triggering foods to avoid. Only a few weeks after sticking to my safe foods, the pain and discomfort ceased to exist, and I regained hope. Since I no longer had physical restrictions, I decided to try sports again and earned a spot on Varsity Tennis. After nearly three years of coping with this aberrant condition, and another eight months of diligently following my strict diet, I understand now the strength I have for handling such situations. If I can get through this, I can get through
anything.