Back once more! Here this time with part 4 of this series. If you missed part 3, talking about a camp I went to for hemophiliacs, you can find it here.

Playing soccer with hemophilia has been interesting. I play a very contact heavy position at Center Back. Obviously this has lead to multiple bleeds during the games even though I got my medicine. The only thing I can do is deal with it until halftime or the end of the game and take care of it then by freezing my ankle and numbing the pain or just going home and icing it there. I am captain of the team so I play the entire game. I do not have time during play to treat wherever the bleed is. I am usually good at hiding the pain though and playing through it without a limp, but I have a teammate that I have been playing with for four years now and he can tell when I have a bleed. He always makes a big deal about it and tells me I need to go to the hospital no matter how many times I tell him I am ok. He never believes me. But what should I expect? Hemophilia is a difficult concept to grasp. (If you are lost right now, it is all good. Some doctors have no clue how to react when I tell them I have hemophilia.)

Growing up with two older brothers that have hemophilia has been fun so far. We all have the same type: Moderate hemophilia A. But growing up, that did not stop us from having a good time. Wrestling around with each other in the living room or playing football in the backyard. We were all the same and we had this unspoken bond. We all had respect for each other. None of us ever really made a big deal about a bleed or rolled around on the ground in agony or anything like that. We all just sucked it up.