Published: May 22, 2007 04:23 am            

Physical Therapy

Baseball helps Bland battle spinal disease

There are a couple of mornings when Aaron Bland wakes up in pain. His back is stiff. His fingers are numb.

He can’t lie in bed until it goes away, because it won’t. The longer he stays down the more it will hurt. He needs to keep moving. Because when he stops — that’s when the pain comes.

Bland, the Tigers left fielder, has a condition known as ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The disease leads to arthritis of the spine and can move into the joints, causing stiffness. In some cases, AS causes inflammation of body organs, such as the eyes, lungs and heart. An estimated 129 of 100,000 people have AS in the United States, which usually strikes young adult males.

There is no cure and without rehabilitative therapy, the symptoms of the disease intensify. Even with regular treatment, AS can cause the vertebrae to fuse together in any position, contributing to physical deformity and loss of mobility. According to Bland, most men who have the disease are disabled by the age of 30.

That’s why he’s got to keep moving.

‘It will be OK’

Tigers coach Dave Henigan remembers Bland from football as someone who never complained, played hard and once set a record with 17 cut blocks in one game.

“He’s a great competitor, he just worked hard and did everything right,” Henigan said. “He just got after it. He’s a hard-nosed kid.”

The 5-foot-10, 170-pound Bland played receiver, finishing the season with 12 passes for 144 yards and two touchdowns his senior season.

Shortly after, in late January — right before baseball season — Bland was told he had AS.

It was Lisa, Bland’s mother, who spotted the early symptoms. They resembled ones she had two years earlier, when she was diagnosed with the disease, which has no specific cause but can be contracted genetically.

“I knew what the disease looked like,” Bland said. “Just at the very beginning he started complaining that his lower back was hurting.”

When Bland’s back pain turned chronic, Lisa took him to the doctor.

“I was the one that fell apart,” Lisa said. “He was the one that was like, ‘Mom, it will be OK, we can take care of this, we can deal with this.’

“He was the one that kind of gave me the strength.”

Both see rheumatologists often. When Lisa first told the doctor Bland was playing receiver, she said the doctor was surprised he could grip the ball effectively. Then, Lisa told the doctor Bland was in baseball. Bland’s doctor told him to keep playing.

“He said the more I move the better I do,” Bland said.

In February, Bland returned to his spot in the outfield on the Tigers baseball team. As he did his junior year, Bland leads the team in hit-by-pitches.

“Aaron’s a team kid first,” Tigers baseball coach Tracy Wood said. “(He’ll) do anything to help his team.”

In the Tigers’ 6-4 win in the first game of a three-game series with Waco Midway, Bland hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the sixth inning for his first home run of the season and second of his career — a feat that surprised about every Tigers coach, player and fan.

“It was such a big shock, I don’t do that too often,” said Bland, who described his chances of hitting a home run in that situation as “slim-to-none.”

After the unlikely event, the Tigers cruised to an 8-0 shutout of the Panthers in Game 2. The Tigers are averaging 10.3 runs per game in the postseason and are two series wins away from their first trip to the state tournament since 1958.

To get to Austin, Wood said, the Tigers will need clutch hits and inspired play from guys like Bland.

A positive attitude

Though he’s experiencing fewer mornings where he wakes up in pain, Bland deals with his disease regularly.

Every week, the high school senior injects a painkiller in his leg.

“He doesn’t really say a whole lot to anybody,” Lisa said. “He doesn’t complain. He just goes and does what he needs to do and seems to keep being real positive about it.”

Bland will attend Dallas Baptist University in the fall, where he hopes to make it on the baseball team. Lisa just hopes he stays active.

“If it’s not baseball, then something to stay mobile,” Lisa said. “Not just to sit behind a computer or desk all the time.”

It shouldn’t be a problem for Bland, someone whose attitude amazes his own mother. Someone who keeps playing — keeps fighting.

“Life dealt something to me I had to take,” he said.

Keep moving.



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Information from the American College of Rheumatology Web site was used in this report

        

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