Personal Statement
I have been a track runner since I was seven years old, so I guess you could say that I've been running for more than half of my life. I've been running under the same coach George Mendros the whole entire way. He has taught me so much, like how to win, how to face adversity head-on, how to compete at an elite level, and how to have a great time doing so.
In fourth grade I got appendicitis. I was taken to the hospital and rushed into surgery. The surgery was a success, except for three days later when I developed stomach pains much worse than before. My parents took me to the hospital once again and the doctors determined that I had a small bowel obstruction, it was so bad that I was just a few hours away from death. The surgeon told my parents that I would need to go into surgery immediately. The procedure took about 2 hours and was successful. Within these four short days I faced the most adversity that I have in my whole life, and I believe that if I can overcome that, I can overcome anything that is thrown at me, whether it's on the track, or in the classroom.
*UPDATE*
On Wednesday, May 8, 2019 around 10pm I began to develop severe abdominal soreness, which then turned into severe stomach pain an hour later, which led to unbearable nausea. At around 12:00 I was in some of the worst pain I have been in my entire life, it was comparable to what had happened to me seven years previous. so I woke my mother up and told her that I needed to go to the ER. I wasn’t able to go to the bathroom and For some reason I wasn’t throwing up even though I wa for some reason I wasn’t throwing up quite yet. so my mother drove me to the hospital and I got some scans done and the doctors determined that I had another small bowel obstruction. When my mother and I received this news sitting next to each other in the emergency room, I just remember the tears flowing out of my eyes, I felt so helpless and scared of the possibilities. they ended up giving me an NG tube to try and fix the blockage without cutting into me. After 24 hours this didn’t work and I was throwing up heavy amounts of bile, and they brought me into surgery. During surgery they found crazy amounts of scar tissue from my previous two surgeries in fourth grade, the scar tissue was surrounding my small intestines causing the blockage and lots of inflammation on the outermost layer. The surgery, was done laparoscopically, this means they put small little cameras in three different incisions around my stomach to minimize scar tissue after my surgery. The surgeon cut out as much scar tissue as he could and made sure that my small intestines were unblocked. Although three days later, after being home for 5 or 6 hours I began to throw up again and feel extremely sick. I knew something was wrong and I was so scared inside, my mother then took me back to the hospital and they said that I needed to go on bowel rest which means all I would do is sip water for a couple of days, so we then went home that night to see if I could go on bowel rest and feel better over time, and if you hours later I began throwing up again so we went back to the hospital on Mother’s Day and I still had a blockage because in the first surgery they missed some scar tissue that was causing the small bowel obstruction. so I had surgery on the 14th, and they made a long incision this time to make sure they did it right and removed 2 and 1/2 feet of my small intestine due to the knots in it and inflammation. I was so hopeful that this surgery would go better, and it did. I ended up missing over a week of school, I was in the hospital for 12 days, and i had two surgeries within 5 days. I ended up missing my entire outdoor track season of my junior year. this was one of the worst parts about what happened to me because running is my love, and I really needed some good times and PR’s this year, and instead I was given these unfortunate circumstances that prevented me from doing so. while in the hospital I lost 20 pounds, since I was having all of this stuff done to my stomach and getting it pumped, I was unable to consume any food for 10 days. Since May 14 I have began running again and training for my final cross country season, I was down in a very dark and tough place, and now it’s time for me to bounce back for my final year of high school and just go insane. after going through all of the small bowel instruction stuff not once but twice, it has taught me what real pain feels like. there are no other runners that I will run against that can say they have been through what I’ve been through. I am tougher mentally than any other runner, and I will continue to train my heart out my senior year and have the best comeback season that I possibly can.
My favorite quote goes like this: "With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high." – Ayrton Senna This is my favorite quote because it has a strong correlation to my life. If you put an excessive amount of time into something that you truly love, you will succeed, and that's how I look at track and school. I have the mind power, I have the determination, I have the instinct, I have the experience, I have the heart, and I'm going to fly very high. Thank you for taking the time to read my personal statement, I appreciate it!
