Through Illness and Injury, UNC's Taylor Endures
by Powell Latimer | Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
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| North Carolina attacker Kristen Taylor suffers from a combination of celiac disease and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that resulted in on-field blackouts before she was diagnosed. |
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Kristen Taylor hates
waiting rooms.
It's the smell — the mixture of sanitizer and musty papers
— and the bad memories of uncertainty. Memories of the two
years that North Carolina's senior attacker spent in doctors'
offices with the same quiet music and the same magazines, wondering
which doctor is this? Why am I here? What is wrong with me?
But Taylor got her answer, and she's again pacing the Tar Heels,
who are likely to become the No. 1 team in the nation following
Sunday's win over Northwestern -- a win that snapped the Wildcats'
41-game winning streak and brought Taylor's strange journey full
circle.
*****
On Feb. 17, 2007, Taylor played her first game in a North Carolina
uniform.
It seemed to be the fulfillment of Taylor's tremendous potential.
High school rivals described the Taylor sisters as "it girls," and
the younger Taylor sister certainly fit that mold. She won two
state titles in lacrosse at Fayetteville-Manlius (N.Y.) High School
and was all-state in cross country. Taylor came from a lacrosse
family. Both her parents played at Cornell and her older sister,
Kelly, went to UNC a year ahead of her.
Generously listed at 5-foot-5, Taylor used her slight frame as
motivation, honed in backyard lacrosse brawls with her older,
bigger sister.
"It was always very competitive," Taylor said. "There would be
some sort of crying somewhere."
From those competitions, Taylor developed an intense and
overriding drive. Later in her senior year of high school, her
mother took her aside and told her that, since Taylor was a
successful distance runner, she could pursue that as well. Taylor's
response?
"Mom, come on."
Taylor always knew what her next step was. She would go to college
and play lacrosse. She even almost eschewed North Carolina, where
her sister played already, to make her own name.
But on a chilly day in February of 2007, Taylor saw Christina
Juras score in double overtime to beat Northwestern, the No. 1 team
in the nation, and her collegiate career had officially begun.
She immediately took to North Carolina's team. She didn't mind the
bruises that UNC's senior defenders gave her in practice —
she'd just get up and attack again.
"I had always been a very driven person," Taylor said. "I liked
being aorund people who were very driven and weren't going to let
other people get in the way of getting somewhere."
Taylor worked her way into a starting attacker by the end of the
season. She blistered through the ACC tournament with 10 goals in
three games, and scored 14 goals in the postseason. She notched
five goals twice in games that season and led UNC with 43 goals on
the year.
But that summer, things started to go wrong.
*****
Taylor and her sister both contracted viral meningitis in the
summer of 2007. Taylor chafed, because it delayed her progress
towards her latest goal — making the U.S. Developmental
team.
But Taylor's body kept going haywire. The fatigue of meningitis
never went away, though doctors said that her body was clear of the
disease. Taylor kept playing, annoyed by the fatigue. She started
losing weight, but didn't think much of it.
That winter, Taylor tried to play it off when she started blacking
out during the day, if only for just a few seconds when she shifted
position rapidly.
"I didn't know where these were coming from," she said. I'd be
walking and everything would be black."
By the start of 2008, Taylor said she was blacking out about 15
times a day, including when she bent down for ground balls. She
could play that off too; just slow down or keep running straight.
Nobody would be the wiser.
And while her coach Jenny Levy knew of Taylor's health issues, Taylor tried to hide the on-the-field blackouts. She'd fight through it.
Kelly Taylor was one of the few who could tell when her kid
sister was staring at blackness.
"If I moved at all, Kelly would be able to tell," the elder Taylor
said. "And she'd say, 'You're blacking out.' I'd say somthing like
'Yeah, so?'"
After the blackouts came numbness in her legs and feet, and
doctors discovered a white lesion in Taylor's brain. Doctors told
her she had everything from mononucleosis to West Nile virus to
multiple sclorosis. She went to doctors in New York and at UNC.
Taylor had two spinal taps, an iron infusion and at one point was
taking around 25 pills a day. Taylor even stayed home from school
in the winter semester of 2008.
For Taylor, it was maddening. She'd been all about her goals for
so long, always looking for the next hurdle to clear. But this was
a hurdle she couldn't even see, much less clear.
"I just want to know what I have. I want to know how I'm going to
fix it, and I want to know when I'm getting better," Taylor said.
"And no one could tell me that."
In January 2009, Taylor started a mental clock counting down to
the season. As the pressure to get back into shape to play mounted,
so did Taylor's frustration. She even wished for an injury,
something like a broken leg, a hurdle she could overcome by
rehabbing.
Taylor's on-field production suffered as well.
"She knew what she could do, but physically she couldn't do it,"
Kelly Taylor said. "[Coach Levy] didn't know half the time that
Kristen was blacking out on the field."
Kristen Taylor scored just five goals in her first nine games and
finished the 2008 season with just 32 goals. Kelly Taylor went to
every hospital appointment she could, and saw the strain it put on
her kid sister.
"It was so hard, because I so badly wanted to fix if for her,"
Kelly Taylor said.
Kristen Taylor played every game in 2009, scoring 37 goals as she
slowly built up her strength. While she wasn't the same player as
the freshman who sliced apart opposing defenses, Taylor was a key
part of a UNC team that made the first national championship game
in program history.
But Northwestern tore apart UNC in that title game, 21-7. Taylor
separated her shoulder and suffered a concussion on a hard
collision early in the second half. She spent the waning moments of
the game on the sideline, unable to do anything about the thrashing
on the field.
"We got embarrassed," Taylor said. "I think that's hard to let go
of."
*****
This winter, UNC was playing in it's annual preseason tournament.
Taylor's family was in town to see her play. Midway through one of
the games, Kelly Taylor turned to her parents.
"Krit's back," she said.
Taylor has her diagnosis: a combination of celiac disease and
postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
Now that she knows what the hurdle is, she's nearly done scaling
it.
Taylor knows the feeling of loss of control that UNC experienced
last Memorial Day in the title game. She's spent the last two years
feeling the same way. But Taylor said she gained perspective in the
last two years.
"The doctors asked, 'Why are you trying to get back and play
lacrosse? Why are you doing all this to play a sport?'" Taylor
said. "It wasn't about playing a sport. It was about getting back
to full strength for my life."
Taylor certainly seems so thus far in the season. UNC is 13-1, and Taylor's 32 goals scored are second-most on the team. That includes a goal and an assist in Sunday's 18-16 upset of Northwestern. Last June's beating was her mind.
"It was a kind of helpless feeling where nothing goes right," Taylor said before the game. "But that will make us even more excited to play them again."
It's a rush Taylor will never again take for granted.
