|
 |
Speedskater is winner — over illness
By Maria Titze and Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writers
Short-track speedskater Amy Peterson has seen her last chance for an Olympic gold medal slip away. She did not make it past the semifinals in the ladies' 500-meter. Her relay team did not advance, either.
But Peterson left the ice Saturday night smiling. She is a five-time Olympian. She was on the U.S. team in 1992 when her sport made its debut in Albertville, France, and won a silver medal with the relay team that year.
Ask Peterson, who suffers from an illness called chronic fatigue syndrome, to pinpoint the highlight of her long career, and she will tell you just being on the American team at all in 1998 was her greatest accomplishment.
"My outlook has changed a lot in the last eight years," Peterson said. "I've gone from being one of the best in the world, to not even making the U.S. team."
Peterson has always been athletic, and ice is in her genes. Her uncle, Gene Sandvig, competed in three Olympic Games as a speedskater.
Peterson started figure skating at age 2 and racing at 6. She played soccer and golf in high school.
In addition to her silver in Albertville, Peterson won two bronze medals in Nagano.
But in 1996 her body betrayed her.
A diagnosis of CFS is more of an anti-diagnosis. There's no specific test for it, and ruling out many other illnesses is usually how a physician concludes it's CFS.
The National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a patient must have severe chronic fatigue lasting more than six months for which other diagnoses have been excluded. And four or more of these symptoms have to be present as well: substantial short-term memory or concentration impairment, sore throat, tender lymph nodes, muscle pain, multijoint pain without swelling or redness, headaches that are different from those suffered in the past, unrefreshing sleep and malaise that lasts longer than a day after exertion.
These are certainly not ideal training conditions for a world-class athlete.
"I have a day when I train and then a day when I don't train at all," Peterson explains. "It's hard to peak on a program like that."
Many of the symptoms of CFS are common to other illnesses, including fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis, neurasthenia, multiple chemical sensitivities and chronic mononucleosis. And other treatable illnesses can lead to fatigue, including hypothyroidism, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, several types of major mental illnesses, cancer, hormonal disorders, substance abuse and reaction to prescription medication. Or chronic fatigue can coexist with those illnesses.
The CDC says between 75 and 265 Americans per 100,000 may have chronic fatigue syndrome — perhaps as many as half a million with a CFS-like condition in the United States. Studies seem to indicate the disease affects all racial and ethnic groups and both sexes. It doesn't appear to be contagious, although researchers acknowledge they know too little about its causes to rule anything out completely. Some suspect that multiple events may work together with CFS as the "end point" of their convergence.
Since getting sick, and making her comeback to the sport, Peterson is regularly asked "How do you feel?"
"To say I'm feeling pretty good is . . . well, from one to 10, 10 being fantastic, I really don't experience a lot of 10 days," she said after a race on Wednesday. "I haven't for a long while."
Peterson's coaches are understanding and regularly amazed at the days when she does skate well. Head coach Susan Ellis says she is the team's strongest skater in the 1,500-meter and clearly its leader. Peterson carried the American flag for all U.S. athletes in the opening ceremonies.
"My goal was to get here and skate these Games to the best of my ability," Peterson said. She actually attributes her longevity in the sport to her illness. Not that CFS made training easier. "But I don't think I would have been chasing down the same goals."
Peterson said she plans to compete in the upcoming world championships for appropriate "closure" to her long career.
E-MAIL: mtitze@desnews.com and lois@desnews.com
|
|
February 18, 2002
|
