Personal Statement
When Dory from Finding Nemo said, "just keep swimming", I didn't realize that those words would eventually have such personal meaning. When I was four years old, I woke up one morning with two fully collapsed vertebrae. Pain, uncertainty, and fear, filled our home that day as I had been healthy up to that point. This particular morning sent my family and I down a road for the last thirteen years leading to a life as a patient with an ultra-rare disease called, Chronic Recurrent Multifocal Osteomyelitis (C.R.M.O.). While this illness has, at times, taken away my ability to write, walk, and swim, it has also forged a determined spirit and made me into a fierce competitor.
I began swimming when I was 7 to help recover from surgery, and have been swimming since then on non-competitive teams, rec teams as well as club and high school competitive teams. I have won most inspirational two times on my high school team and won the Student-Athlete Award. I have swum varsity all four years and am currently the Lynnwood High School team captain.
I have been honored multiple times to be showcased on local and national news as being a champion swimmer as well as managing a rare bone disease and being actively engaged in community service.
I believe that my work ethic, tenacity, talent, and leadership experience would be a great match for any university that values those things. When I was in eighth grade, I was given a new medication that ended up causing extreme pain throughout my body and taking away my ability to move and function. I told my mom if she could just take me to the pool and hold my head, it would help me. I spent months like this. We celebrated the day I could take one stroke. Within a few months of intense personal work, I was sliding into the pool to compete as a freshman. This took a tremendous amount of hard work, dedication to my swimming goals, and a true love for the sport of swimming. These are things that are woven into my very being.
So, Dory- in Finding Nemo, might have had the greatest insight of all time when she said "just keep swimming". She was encouraging us to continue through challenging trials and personal hardships because she knew that swimming meant moving forward! Swimming to me means courage. Swimming means strength. Swimming means joy. These are just a few of the reasons I will be a tremendous and positive asset to a university team.
