Alyse Olsen 9, an active middle-schooler at Lewis-Palmer Middle School, played on the competitive girls basketball team. Over the winter break in 7th grade, her ability to continue an active role in sports came to a halt. 

Olsen was diagnosed with an immune deficiency disorder, prohibiting her from contact sports like basketball. She enrolled in a homeschooling program, continuing to homeschool for the rest of her middle school career.

“I was really depressed for a while,” Olsen said. “I really didn’t know what to do with myself.”

Olsen had plans to return to public school at Lewis-Palmer High School and return to her normal life. But over the summer, Olsen entered a lingual tonsillectomy surgery, where the surgeon dissected her lingual artery. She was life-flighted to another hospital, where doctors performed an intra operative embolization to fix her artery. After being transported to another hospital, she spent three days in the ICU and five days in the regular hospital after that.

“I went into the surgery thinking that I would just walk out with a little anesthesia,” Olsen said. “I lost a third of my blood.”

After losing so much blood, it was hard for Olsen to walk up the stairs without getting winded. Olsen had plans to join the cross country team, after participating in all of the summer runs. But after the complication, she had to put her running career on hold.

After coming back to school in August, Olsen had to do all the work for her classes, while at the same time recovering from her surgery. 

“It’s almost like I’m the new kid at school,” Olsen said. “People who have known me for a long time don’t really understand that. Some of my friends have been there for me and made me laugh and encouraged me to do better.”