Athletes & very busy people

This is exactly how I feel. After working very hard all term, and very suddenly becomng sick after a lot of tiredness I just assumed was from intense rowing, swimming, early mornings and late nights juggled with school work and study. Luckily for me, the extremey painful throat, swollen glands and other symptoms only lasted just over a week before I faded into this frustrating phase of exhaustion all the time. I’ve missed important swimming and rowing events and now cannot train or compete at all for months. I am always very busy and hardly have time to think, and now exactly how you described, have turned into a couch potato. Thankfully I am recovering fairly quickly and am doing half-days at school, however these make me exhausted and my teachers and classmates don’t really understand what is wrong with me or why I can’t complete work. They can tell something is wrong, but don’t really get it. I’m always tired, but not tired enough to sleep, so find myself in bouts of endless boredom around the house. I miss swimming, because this is what makes me happy and relaxed.
Glandular fever geniunely sucks.
I hate not exercising, and especially hate feeling unproductive, and I bet heaps of other people do too. What can we do when we don’t have enough energy or concentration for school work but find ourselves in endless bouts of boredom around the house? What low-energy activities can we enage in? Other than computer, TV, painting and reading?

I am a Division 1 college athlete that unfortunately recently had to give up playing due to suffering from ebv/chronic fatigue syndrome as well as exertional compartment syndrome in my legs. I still am able to receive my full-ride scholarship the rest of my schooling, which I was thankful for that, but have been through a lot the last two years, both physically and mentally.
It was my dream ever since I was little to be a star Division 1 basketball player. I attended a very small school that wasn’t known for girls sports. Besides being a high-caliber basketball player, I also was a very talented volleyball player and had many Division 1 offers in that sport as well. I also participated in track and was a very competitive sprinter/relay man (even at 6’1” 180 lbs). Being from a small school, I participated in sports all year round, both with my school and club teams. Since sixth grade, I never had a season off, as well as playing 2 or more sports in a season. When I had injuries, I just played through them because on the teams I played on if I didn’t play the team would most likely lose. I developed a very high-paibn tolerance as well as a tremendous work ethic, because I always wanted to be the best I can be, and better than my competitors. I pushed myself to the max in everything I did.

Coming into college my freshman year, I never had been really sick. I had a bad case of the flu my junior year (most likely due to being worn out since I was juggling my high school basketball season and my national club volleyball team) but other than that I was normally a healthy kid when it came to immunity. Unfortunately, my second open gym and day before classes started, I tore my mcl/menicus completely. I spent most of fall rehabbing for that when the shin pain I had developed back in track my senior year came back while rehabbing my knee. It wasn’t til spring that I found out that pain was caused by exertional compartment syndrome. My teams first game was November 13th of that year, so my rehab process was being rushed to get me back on the court in time for the season. Needless to say, it was too much for my body and I was agreed to be sidelined after being forced to come out of warmups during my first game when my legs locked up and i could barely walk. That would be the closest time I would get to being in a college game I would later learn.
The new plan was to get me ready for conference in the beginning of the year. Even though I was not playing in practices, I was expected to attend everything with the team as well as rehab and shooting and I voluntarily got in contact with my strength and conditioning coach and would lift with him 4 days a week starting at 530 am. I would usually get back to my dorm room around 7-8pm at night. I ended up not getting cleared to play for conference, since the symptoms in my legs were not getting better. The coaches decided to redshirt me for the rest of the year, so that I could still have 4 years to make a huge contribution to the team when I got healthy.

I continued my workouts and my same schedule that I had before I was decided to be redshirted, until about mid January I started to feel very exhausted. I thought maybe it was due to increasing the amount of my activity I was doing during lifting and rehabbing and working out, so I didn’t think nothing of it and kept going..no pain no gain right? I was wrong, I was getting weaker by the day, and couldn’t sleep at night. I started to develope what I thought was strep throat. Soon, the symptoms progressed to where I was having problems breathing especially at night and my throat felt so raw that it was hard to swallow. My home is about 3 hrs and 15 mins away from campus, and I told my mom what was happening. With her being in the medical field, she was very worried and advised me to go to urgent care. Being immature, I thought that it would all just eventually go away, just like I was used to when I suffered injuries in middle school and high school(which I have learned now they really don’t go away..)

My mom finally couldn’t take my stubborness anymore and drove up one night to take me to urgent care. It was a good thing she came that night, because I was really in bad shape. At urgent scare, they diagnosed it as a very severe case of bacterial tonsilitis. They gave me amoxicilin to help with it and told me to take it easy and not go to class or do anything. Again, me being stubborn and an over-achiever, I still went to class. My mom stayed with me the rest of the week in a hotel, so I would be away from my teammates. I did not miss a single class, and would come back to the hotel and try to sleep and do nothing. After a few days, the amoxicilin was not working and I was still having the same symptoms. My mom did not sleep those three days because she was so worried about me because I was having such a hard time breathing and it was almost impossible to sleep. She begged to take me to the emergency room, but again my pride stood in the way and I made a deal with her that I would come home with her that weekend to get checked out again.

When I came home, we went to another urgent care, where they took some labs and found out that I had mono. They gave me a steroid shot, which worked wonders! After that weekend I went to back to school and informed my coaches. For about a week and a half I would just go to class and come back to my dorm and slept. After a week and a half, even though I was still very lethargic, I went back to my regular schedule, which included the 530 am lifting. I lifted in moderations though. In about a month, I felt mono-free and started picking up the intensity with everything. At the end of May, I was diagnosed with exertional compartment syndrome in my legs (my pressures were very high!) and had a fasciatomy in 3 of the 4 compartments in my lower leg region in both my legs. All of summer I rehabbed, and even moved back halfway through it to have access to more facilities that were available that I didn’t have at home. I would lift with the summer school women athletes at 6am 4 days a week and would do different cardio exercises throughout the day since I couldn’t run yet which included a lot of pool workouts, elliptical, and court time. Eventually, the beginning of August, I went out to the track to start up running/sprinting workouts. A few weeks into it, I did not feel like my cardio was progressing and I felt extremely tired as well as some of my leg pain symptoms were coming back. I became worried that something was wrong again, but I tried to shrug it off.

I arrived back on campus mid august and participated in some team open gyms. I tried to push myself in these because I wanted to make sure my legs were going to take the intensity when pre-season conditioning/workouts started in a couple of days. I felt so exhausted during these open gyms that I would have to pull myself out because I could not breathe and felt so sick to my stomach and lethargic. Two days later, I had my first workout with the coaches, and the days leading up to it, I felt so exhausted even after getting 10-12 hours of sleep. That first workout was only 30 mins long and mine was not as intense as other groups due to me still recovering from surgery. I struggled to make it through what was an easy workout. Besides my leg pains, I knew something else with my body was not right. I had been working out all summer, yet it looked like I had done nothing during the summer.

I knew my body was in no way going to last the season in this shape. My doctor who did the surgery said there was not anything more he could do to fix my legs and had advised me through the whole process to give up college basketball and take a career ending scholarship. I told my coach and trainer the next day his advice, and was considered to be done with college ball in september. My fatigueness got worse, and I was losing weight like crazy. I had no energy to do anything and my emotions were very out of whack due to being considered done with basketball. In October, I had some labs done again and was diagnosed with Epstein Barr Virus. Most likely I had had it back in August. Halfway through the season, I felt somewhat better energy wise and leg wise, so I tried to make one last comeback after seeing another doctor who had very high credentials, but it just wasn’t to be. My body was not able to be pushed and could only handle exercise in modifications that wouldn’t be enough to be a college athlete and the compartment syndrome symptoms were coming back.

Last month, the decision was finally made that I suffered a career ending injury. I still am able to receive my last two years of a full-ride paid for, but instead of being a player I will be working in the trainers room 20 hours a week. I am very greatful for still having my school and room and board paid for, but this whole experience has been very hard on me. It has humbled me tremendously and have given me a greater sense of appreciation for the little things that I didn’t always value before.

Right now, I am currently taking a lot of vitamin supplements to boost my immunity and energy levels. I also was prescribed by my neurology doctor to try nuvigil which is supposed to help boost your energy and I have been taking Celexa, prescibed by my primary care physician. I have changed my whole diet of eating. I eat very healthy now and stay away from the junk food and fatty foods as much as possible. I eat a lot of fruit and veggies, as well as grilled meat or cold cut sandwiches. Exercise wise, I do cardio (usually elliptical 30-35 mins and walking on tred milll 15 mins) 4-5 days a week and lift 3 days a week. Everything though is in moderations, and I still am not able to push myself. I have matured a lot with my exercising and am a lot better at recognizing when I need to slow down or stop. At times I still go overboard, which I feel the effects from it for about 4-5 days and have to back off exercising til I feel better. Controling how much I work out and how hard I push has been the hardest thing for me, but I am a lot better than what I used to be at it. I also now drink myoplex or muscle milk after I exercise. Through this whole ordeal, I still have managed to keep a 4.0 gpa in college for the two years I have been here (where im majoring in marketing). I study a lot, but still make sure I get to bed in a decent time, because I still need a lot of sleep in order to function the next day. As a college kid, usually this is the time where you socialize at parties, but due to being sick, I have not had much of the going out at night socialization. Another thing that has helped me through this process, is my faith in Christ and my family support from home. Without these two necessities, I am not sure I would be where I am today, due to the fact I was suffering I feel from some depression. Emotionally though, I am getting stronger and better. I feel through all I have been through, I want to share my story with others that their is hope. Although, I am basically labeled as having chronic fatigue syndrome and am not sure when I will be fully healthy again, I strive to remain positive. Reading inspirational books and bible verses is a great source for anyone who is struggling.

I know this is very long and I actually shortened this a lot, but hopefully at least someone will take a chance to read this and feel a little bit inspired and have hope and stay strong if suffering from ebv or any limitations in their life
-Kate