Every year over 3 million kids will be hospitalized. For short or long term reasons 3 million kids will have their normal lives change, many are born into illnesses, others get injured, and some acquire these illnesses over time.

Many of these kids are sports lovers with a HUGE passion for the sport they love and possibly once did until this sickness or injury took over, as a Division 1 I find myself continuously taking my sport and the opportunity for granted.

I know other athletes do the same by complaining before and during sets or wishing for an off day. The last time I was injured, I sat on the side and watched my teammates swim by and after a girl in my group says, “wow you are so lucky you missed that one!” But I am sitting there wishing more than anything I could have done that set or not be injured and everyone else is wishing they were me.

As a Division 1 athlete, I am pushed to my limit every day by myself, my team, goals, and coaches. When we see the lift we complain or psych ourselves out due to the work in front of us, and I can’t ask why we do this. Because I know why, we start thinking about how bad it’s gonna hurt during and after, how every step up the stairs tomorrow is going to be hell, and how after this practice all the schoolwork we have due tomorrow will still be sitting there waiting to be done or studied.

This is the life we chose to endure, the “challenge” we took on after we signed our life away to an NLI for four years, so excited about the future and how great it is gonna be, but then we get here and it’s not great.

It’s really really hard and a lot of people hate it, other people do it because “they have no other choice”, and some are too competitive to give up before their four years is done. However, we forget in the middle of a lift, set, drills, whatever we are doing that is wearing us down that many many people will never get this opportunity to continue their dream past high school. We as college athletes forget how incredible of an opportunity it is that we’ve been selected to represent a school to do what we once loved and this sport we continually do is now seen as a “job.”

A girl named Aubreigh Nicholas has a rare brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG) which is an “oft-terminal form of cancer in the brainstem that most commonly affects children from 5-9-years-old.” I had the pleasure of growing up with her cousins through little league baseball, so this subject hits very close to home.

My team and I had the honor of bringing attention to her disease through the Lemon Challenge, where you bite into a lemon and make a silly face. So many children are facing hard things like this and don’t get the opportunity to try new sports or develop interests outside the hospital, which is very sad and makes me feel bad for taking swimming in college for granted.

I’m not saying the sports we do aren’t hard or that I’m not guilty of wishing the pool was broken to have a day with my hair not full of chlorine, but there are hundreds of kids wishing they could go back to their sport or not be in the position they are in.