“I think for me was just the team of people I had around me, and I think I could’ve relied on my family more and friends and not be afraid to ask for that support. A big thing I learned from that too is to be an advocate for my own health because I knew there was something wrong with me. I knew deep down I was sick and it wasn’t coming up on tests and there was a point where sooner I think I should’ve been like ‘you need to test and look harder’ because I know there was something wrong. So that was kind of my only thing looking back where I was like ‘if I had someone being like this is the way you feel, you should fight for it’, then maybe I would’ve got diagnosed a little sooner and things would’ve turned out a little differently.
I definitely had moments where it stopped bringing me joy, I think that’s part of being passionate about something, you go through walls with it. And when you are that passionate about something, if you stop loving it, it’s like ‘why would I do it’. There are times in snowboarding where it’s just my job, it’s work but it’s got to be fun for me and I’ve got to have that passion always because it becomes something different when I lose that, it isn’t snowboarding anymore. It’s just work I guess? I don’t know how to describe that, it’s kind of a weird thing like if you lose that thing that keeps it light and fun, it just changes, it’s not why you started and it’s not why you do it.” – Spencer O’Brien, Pro Snowboarder, X Games Gold Medallist, Olympian. (6/7)
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