The rigors of being a student-athlete are hard enough without anything else to overcome.
LSU softball shortstop Juliana Santos continues to live out her dream to play collegiate softball, and she does so with Crohn’s disease.
Crohn’s disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, causes a variety of “attacks,” some of which are debilitating and can restrict physical activity.
“Sometimes I can’t even get out of bed,” Santos said. “It hurts to move, it hurts to lay, it hurts to just exist for those few hours.”
After a two-year process to determine the cause of the symptoms, doctors diagnosed Santos with Crohn’s disease at age 11 and told her to expect her life to change.
“A doctor told me I would never be able to play softball, and my life would be completely different,” Santos said. “At first, they thought I had stomach cancer.”
Soon after being diagnosed, doctors removed a foot of intestines and a “softball-sized” benign tumor.
Santos, who started playing softball when she was eight years old, knew the deck was stacked against her to accomplish her childhood dreams.
“Being an 11-year-old little girl that was like 60-something pounds, the chances of me being able to come back and compete competitively was kind of slim to none,” Santos said.
The Newman, Calif., native battled the odds and her symptoms all the way to LSU, where she started all but one game as a freshman in 2009, when she earned
All-Southeastern Conference team honors. This season, Santos is batting .327 and is second on the team with 18 hits.
Senior outfielder Ashley Applegate, whose hometown of Modesto, Calif., is just 25 miles from Santos’ hometown, said she is very familiar with Santos’ plight since the two played softball together as children.
“It’s been something that’s really dear to my heart and something that I’ve watched her grow up and struggle with,” Applegate said. “To watch her get through these four years with her disease and overcome the things that we as student-athletes have to do is really amazing.”
LSU coach Beth Torina said Santos’ drive and love for softball makes her capable of what she’s accomplishing with her disease.
“Those kind of kids, they’re just the type of people that you’re not going to stop them,” Torina said. “They’re going to do whatever they want.”
Santos said over the years, doctors worked to best control and limit her symptoms to allow her to participate as much as possible.
“I can’t eat a lot of food, and it makes it hard to eat healthy,” Santos said. “I’m almost opposite of a heart patient, so I can’t have grains, any whole wheat, anything like that.”
Santos also needs daily medications to control her symptoms.
“I’m used to [taking medicine] now, and I don’t really think twice about it, but growing up as a little girl, you kind of question, ‘Why do I have to take all of this medicine? I don’t see any of my friends having to,'” Santos said.
Aside from the physical symptoms, Santos said it’s most important for her to keep her stress at a minimum.
“The biggest thing that hurts me the most is stress,” Santos said. “Being a student-athlete is stressful enough without having this disease and then this disease, on top of it, I really have to try to stay on top of my schoolwork.”
Santos underwent another surgery Feb. 21, 2011, which she credits for a decrease in the regularity of her symptoms, and has found a way to use her disease to make a positive impact.
“I’ve been able to help quite a few people, especially little girls,” Santos said. “They send me e-mails all the time about having Crohn’s disease and wanting to play softball and use me as an example.”
Santos said she tells kids that despite the tough journey, they should never give up fighting their symptoms.
“For them, like what I went through, it’s hard to go to a pizza party and not be able to eat pizza because the red sauce is going to give you a stomach ache,” Santos said. “Little things like that are really hard growing up.”
—- Contact Scott Branson at [email protected].