Playing through the challenges of Crohn's disease

The “desk of isolation” was not going to keep Elizabeth Lehosit from playing the sport she loved.

Growing up, the senior soccer standout at Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy had always been tall for her age.

Then she suddenly stopped growing.

“And the next sister below her (Jaclynne) started to catch her in height, and pretty soon people were asking me if they were twins,” recalled her mom, Camille.

Elizabeth, a fourth-grader in Boise at the time, had already been seeing a doctor for a different autoimmune disease, but mom could tell “that something was just not right. She had never been average.”

THE SUMMER after her fourth-grade year, Elizabeth dropped about 12 pounds in a week, and lost all coloring in her face ...

“We knew then there was something really, really wrong,” Camille said.

Elizabeth was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease. It causes inflammation of the digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition.

“I just kind of embrace it, because it’s part of who I am,” she said.

THAT DISEASE would be a challenge for anyone. In this case, compound it with the fact Elizabeth had been playing soccer, the sport she loves, since first grade. She would eventually play volleyball and basketball as well, and her mom said she was told by coaches in all three sports that Elizabeth was good enough to play in college in each of them.

Then factor in the academic rigors at the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy, where she has been attending since eighth grade when the family moved north from Boise.

Then go back and factor in the pain and the fatigue that can sometimes crop up when she plays, particularly in such an aerobic sport as soccer.

“There are definitely games when I would rather be in bed, curled up,” said Elizabeth, a center back and holding midfielder for the Panthers girls soccer team. “But I just push through it, because I know it’s important for the team. It’s really hard for me to sit out of a game. There’s been times when I’ve been feeling awful, and she (Charter girls soccer coach Stacy Smith) will say, ‘Step out if you need to,’ but I’ll just push through, because I don’t like sitting out.”

This week, Elizabeth Lehosit and her Charter teammates will try to win their third straight state title, at the state 3A tournament at the Sunway Soccer Complex in Twin Falls beginning today.

A couple weeks ago, Elizabeth signed a letter of intent to play soccer at NAIA Northwest University in Kirkland, Wash. She is believed to be the first Charter student to receive a college scholarship in the sport in which she played at Charter.

But that’s secondary to her fight to “manage” her Crohn’s disease.

Give soccer a big assist on that one.

“Soccer has been such an influential part of my life.” Elizabeth said. “ I really can’t imagine my life without soccer.”

Soccer “is helping me to keep my focus,” she said.

“Sometimes we say that soccer actually saved her life,” Camille said. “Just having that drive to be back on the field kept her motivated, focused, not wallowing in self-pity. She had to play with a lot of pain.”

ELIZABETH IS the fourth of 10 children of Mike and Camille Lehosit, ranging in age from 24 to 1 1/2.

Christopher was born first, followed by Andrew, Amelia, Elizabeth, Jaclynne, Ava, Lydia, Creighton, Lucy and Sadie. As youngsters, Andrew, Amelia and Lydia were all diagnosed with Celiac disease, another autoimmune disease.

Genetics can lead to Crohn’s disease.

So can a virus or bacterium.

In third grade, Elizabeth came down with swine flu. Mike and Camille think that was the trigger.

In the fourth and fifth grade, Elizabeth attended school part-time at Ambrose School in Boise, and was home-schooled part-time.

She attended classes in the afternoon, allowing her to sleep in and get proper rest.

Those two years when she was at school, she sat at what the family affectionately called the “desk of isolation” — away from the other students, off in a corner, or up by the teacher’s desk. The other students weren’t in danger, but the medication Elizabeth was taking at the time compromised her immune system and left her susceptible to picking up germs from the other students.

“It was almost tangible, the bubble,” Elizabeth recalled. “But all my friends and the whole school were super supportive of it, and did their best so no one got me sick.”

With proper rest and diet, along with occasional checkups with the doctor, Elizabeth can “manage” the disease.

“Certain amounts of gluten are fine,” she said. “I eat a lot of eggs and fruit and meat, chicken and potatoes. And we have chicken and rice a lot. It sounds like it would be a lot more limiting than it is.”

Too much of a certain food can trigger a flare, as can stress.

Stress? At an academic place such as Charter? And playing sports? How does she manage that?

“It’s a little hard sometimes, especially with the workload at Charter, but I find a way to do it,” she said. “Mentally, just staying positive helps me to not get stressed out. If I wasn’t playing soccer, the academics wouldn’t be as stressful, because I would have more time to work on it. But soccer’s such a big part of my life, I can’t imagine not playing. I’d say their pretty evenly balanced (stress wise), but both bring me a lot of joy.”

Elizabeth said she never got to the point where she considered giving up soccer, if that would help her manage her disease. Rather, sports added motivation to fight.

“I had a fantastic friend group, and my family was super supportive,” Elizabeth said. “I owe a lot of it to God, also; without him I wouldn’t be where I am today.

“Soccer was also a very big aspect of it, because I had that motivation, and end goal that kept me wanting to get better, and kept me fighting to get better.”

Elizabeth said the disease hasn’t affected her playing too much, “except it makes me grateful for every single game, knowing that it could end at any time if I got really sick. But overall, I don’t let it deter me from being the athlete I want to be.”

Camille would know about battling.

While pregnant with her third child, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. After six months at home with Ameila, Camille began radiation treatments.

Her cancer is now in remission.

So excuse her if she gets a little emotional talking about the fight her daughter is going through.

“It is quite the miracle that she is able to be an athlete, and able to be successful at Charter,” Camille said of her daughter. “They (doctors) said she would never be taller than 5-5 or 5-6, because the disease had stolen her height, and she’s pushing about 5-10, 5-11 now. Just amazing.”

Perhaps mom’s fighting spirit rubbed off on her daughter.

“She’s a competitor at heart, she’s very driven,” Camille said. “Both the medical community in Spokane and medical community in Boise has said, ‘She’s just got a higher power over her.’

“I think when you deal with a life-threatening disease, maybe it gave me an interesting perspective, that I was going to fight for everything. She would probably say I was pretty tough on her, with diet, and medication regimen ... (but) I just saw so much potential in her, that I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”

Elizabeth was the only “small school” athlete on the Sting Timbers girls soccer team that placed second at the National President’s Cup this summer in Indiana. Some of her teammates will be opponents at other area NAIA schools next fall.

“She’s able to overcome a lot, and her grit and determination,” said Smith, in her third season as Charter coach. “It’s pretty impressive to see what she’s been willing to do, and not let it take control of her.”

AFTER COLLEGE, Elizabeth said she wants to be a middle school history teacher.

“I think middle schoolers are really interesting,” she said. “I think they’re a lot more interesting than high schoolers. I think they’re funny. I think high schoolers can be mopey sometimes, and middle schoolers are just starting to form their own ideas and so they’re at a really impressionable age. It would be cool to be part of that thought process that they’re going through, and help them think through things.”

She is a teacher’s aide for two different middle school classes at Charter, “just to make sure this is what I want to do.”

“A lot of people tell me I’m crazy when I tell them I want to teach middle schoolers,” Elizabeth said.

While they may be “interesting,” middle schoolers can also be troublemakers and knuckleheads at that transitional age.

No worries, she said.

“I think having nine siblings has helped me prepare for that,” she said with a laugh. “I’m not too concerned about it. It’ll be a new challenge.”

And as we’ve learned so far, Elizabeth Lehosit is pretty good at facing challenges.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.