Matt Light is one of the toughest offensive linemen in the league, and one of a handful of players in NFL history to play in five Super Bowls, all with the New England Patriots. When he announced his retirement this week, he also came out publicly about his struggle with Crohn’s disease throughout much of his career – a struggle which almost cost him his life, and which contributed to his decision to retire at age 33.
“I knew I had some issues in 2001,” he said. “People that have it know… the pain that comes along with it and how it affects people, it’s just a very ugly disease.” Crohn’s is a debilitating, chronic form of inflammatory bowel disease. About 1.4 million Americans suffer from IBD, roughly half of that number with Crohn’s.
“I basically got to the point, over the 3-4 years of being diagnosed with Crohn’s, that I couldn’t handle the pain anymore,” Light said. “The pain became so difficult that in the offseason it just paralyzed me. I’d hit the ground. You can’t wake up. You can’t sit down. You can’t do anything without this becoming a problem.”
Ultimately, after consulting with doctors, he determined that surgery was the only route left to him to improve the quality of his life, a decision he came to in 2004.
“It came down to the fact that, ‘Look, you have to have 13 inches of your intestine removed and it has to happen now and you could be on a bag the rest of your life. If there was anything else we could do, we’d do it, but you’re getting blocked and there is nothing we can do for you other than this surgery.’ When you have 13 inches of your intestine removed, that’s not a very simple process.”
Light ended up with a 30 day hospital stay, including a near-death experience due to post-surgery complications. In the summer of 2004, Light was struggling to stay alive while his teammates were receiving their Super Bowl rings from the previous season. “It was one of the darkest periods in my life,” he recalls.
The pain associated with Crohn’s can be very debilitating. Light isn’t the only high profile NFL players to come forward, as Dolphins quarterback David Garrard has spoken about his battle with Crohn’s as well. Garrard spoke about the pain as well in an interview last year, saying, “I’m a football player. I’m used to pain. But I’d never felt anything like the pain that ripped through my gut that January afternoon in 2004. Not even Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis hitting me from the blind side hurt that bad. For a few minutes, I could hardly breathe.”
Light’s Crohn’s disease is well-managed now, eight years after his surgery, and now that he is retired, there are additional medications available that he wasn’t able to take while he was playing. The medications can cause a loss in bone density and can create problems maintaining weight, a huge problem for an offensive lineman. His initial response to the new medications has been positive.
The whole ordeal has taught him some life lesson’s that have helped him throughout his career. “How you battle Crohn’s isn’t something you ever want to talk about. It’s not something you want to share with other people. It’s usually a very painful, ugly deal the whole way through,” he said.
“Staying positive and knowing there were times where I told myself, ‘This is just what it is’ and you have to push through it, I think that all helped strengthen me to the point I am today. So, in some respect, dealing with that issue maybe kept me in the game longer. It’s been a part of my life, for sure.”
In addition to Light and Garrard, some other high profile Crohn’s disease sufferers range from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready to actress Shannen Doherty, and from President Eisenhower to wrestler George “the animal” Steele. You can learn more about the disease at the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America at www.ccfa.org.
