Active participation in team sports went out the window for me not long after I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) back in early 2001. Truth be told, I hadn’t done much in the way of group physical activity since being on the rowing team for my last U.S. Coast Guard command.
I’d played baseball, participated in track and field, done a bit of slow-pitch in my day. But by the time my MS diagnosis came around, I was more about hiking, walking, cycling, and the rare round of golf once or twice a year.
I still enjoy watching many sports — although not all of them. I’m sure to annoy a few when I say that one sport I’m just not into watching is soccer (football to most of the world).
Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t exposed to it in my youth, but watching The Beautiful Game isn’t my cuppa.
One Game, or Day, Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
But one thing from the “game for gentlemen played by hooligans” that does hit the back of the net for me is the concept of aggregate scoring. This is when the scores of more than one game between opponents (usually home and away) are added together to determine a winner. Often, in tournaments, etc., points for away scores count for more than home goals, and a slew of other rules I simply can’t be bothered to remember.
The point of aggregate scoring is to give a bigger picture to a team’s efforts than the single efforts of any one single matchup against an opponent. It’s something I’ve learned works in measuring my recovery from surgery, as well as a keen way of looking at living with multiple sclerosis.
As I make my way through these post-op days, I find that “two steps forward, one step back” seems to be a fairly normal assessment of my days. Some days it’s one step forward and two back, while others may be all forward or all back. At the end of the week, however, I am ahead of where I was on Monday.
Post-op, I’m winning in aggregate!
For MS, Aggregate Scoring May Work Better in the Short Term
Living with MS, or recovering from an exacerbation of symptoms of the disease, can feel like aggregate scoring, too.
We may feel like we’re doing well one minute only to find ourselves on the floor the next. Today might be a relatively good day, but the day before was a tough one. We may do too much on a day we’re feeling well enough to and pay the price for the next several days.
Like an aggregate score, it’s all about progress at the end of whatever period we’re judging.
The truth of the matter is that the physical results of my disease have me in the negative side of the aggregate equation over my lifetime with MS. I am so far behind where I was 19 years ago that the 35-year-old version of me wouldn’t recognize the man I’ve become.
But in the small battles — the week-over-week game — I like to think that I’m winning the day. Maybe that’s the mental part of the game. The part that gets a professional athlete through a losing season.
For now, I’ll be happy that I’m winning part of the game, and I’ll just not look at the scoreboard to see how my aggregate score stacks up against my MS foe.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
