The pain comes and goes. Well, actually, it never really goes away.
Cotter Hamilton just accepts the pain, endures the pounding on his body as he and the Hockinson Hawks play up to three soccer matches a week.
A quick glance at the field, at No. 6 for Hockinson, reveals nothing out of the ordinary. Hamilton looks like any of the other soccer players.
Look a little closer, and one notices a slight hitch in his gait. He runs with speed, but uses short, quick strides,
It is another sign that his body has betrayed him. There were the sleepless nights, as the pain shot through his legs. Or maybe it was his shoulders. Or his knees. Then the hips.
The constant discomfort was bad enough; the flare-ups — eruptions of pain — even more intense.
But he kept playing because he could, because he did not know life without soccer, his passion in life since he was 5 years old.
Then the game was taken away from him. His left hip joint completely failed him, and Hamilton underwent a hip-replacement surgery.
Two years off the soccer field only made his love for the game grow. Even when doctors said he would never play again, he still watched. Even now, as some on his medical team say he shouldn’t be playing, he would not have it any other way.
The way Hamilton sees it, there is only one small window of opportunity to play high school soccer. His dreams of excelling in club soccer, of playing college soccer? They’re gone. But there was no way he was going to let juvenile rheumatoid arthritis take him out of the game completely. Hamilton would be the one to decide when his athletic career was finished.
The condition inflames joints, causing pain, stiffness, and swelling, among other symptoms. It can eventually destroy the affected joints. That led to Hamilton’s hip surgery.
It also eventually led to a courageous comeback.
“Do what you love. If you’re going to be an athlete, go be an athlete,” Hamilton said. “You only have one chance at it. Take it. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
His parents, Karen and Cliff Hamilton, raised their three sons with soccer. Cotter’s older brothers, Ryan and Justin, loved the game, too. Then it was Cotter’s turn.
For it to be taken away prematurely was devastating not only to Cotter but the whole family. Cotter knew what he was missing; so did his loved ones.
After the hip surgery toward the end of eighth grade, after the eight months of rehabilitation, and after losing his freshman season, Cotter promised himself that he would try to make it back on the field.
“I just love competition. I compete in anything I do,” Cotter said.
He had to first convince his parents and his doctors. It was an easier sell to mom and dad. They saw what happened to their son without soccer.
“I don’t want to say depressed, but it was hard for him when he wasn’t playing,” Karen recalled.
“His life was soccer,” Cliff added.
Just before surgery, when the pain was at its worse, Cotter spent most of his time at home. While he still had his friends, he did not interact with them as much.
“It’s hard for 13-year-old athletes to hang out with somebody (while lying) in bed,” Karen said.
“It was hard for all of us to watch,” Cliff said.
They believed in Cotter when he said he could return to the field. They believed he would take the proper precautions, would attack physical therapy with the same intensity as attacking the goal on the soccer field. They also knew he would not take any unnecessary risks. The game itself can be dangerous. Cotter would have to play it smart.
They all knew it, but not everyone on Cotter’s medical team thought it was a good idea. One specialist said no, but another signed off to clear Cotter for action.
“You’re only young once, and he wanted to play high school soccer,” Cliff said.
To even have the option, the possibility, was a blessing to Cotter. Officially diagnosed with JRA when he was 9, the pain started earlier in his life.
“He would wake up in the middle of the night, saying his leg hurt,” Karen recalled. “The next morning, ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Then a month later, it would happen again.”
Karen recalled Cotter playing an indoor soccer match on a Friday, looking fine. But two days later, while running it would look like his left leg was just hanging there, dragging.
“It was obvious. That was the beginning of the nightmare,” Karen said.
After diagnosis, Cotter fought the condition with medication and therapy. JRA affects some 50,000 people in America, and it affects each person differently.
“It’s all over my body,” Cotter said. “It’s not just my hip. It’s my knees, my shoulders, and everywhere else.”
The family found out that medical advancements in dealing with JRA have improved so greatly over the years that it is rare for a patient to lose a joint. The condition, though, really had a hold of Cotter.
In 2007, he had his hip replaced.
Cotter Hamilton was not scared. He was in too much pain to be scared.
“I was just happy to get it done. I couldn’t sleep. I’d stay up all night. I couldn’t lay down,” he said.
When the body and mind gave in and he did get some sleep, it was quickly interrupted with another jolt of pain.
Cotter said he felt better almost immediately after the surgery. His parents noticed a change, too, saying just the prospect of Cotter getting back to a normal life was a relief.
“If your kid hurts, you hurt,” Cliff said. “At that point, it wasn’t about soccer. It was about life. Walking and living life.”
At that time, Cotter still figured soccer was out of the equation. But after months of rehabilitation, there was a breakthrough.
“I was with my friend, and we started running down the road,” Cotter said. “It felt so good to be able to run again. It was 20 seconds, I ran without pain, and it felt great.”
He tried out for the Hockinson soccer team as a sophomore and soon realized he still had his skill set. Perhaps not as fast, not as agile, but he could play.
“I figured I’d do my best and try my hardest and whatever happened happened,” he said.
He was voted second team all-league by the coaches that season. He followed it up as a junior with another second-team performance. This season, he is everywhere on the scoresheet for the Hawks with 11 goals and 11 assists through 11 games for the first-place team in the Class 2A Greater St. Helens League.
The schedule has been rough. This season, the Hawks have often played three matches a week. This week there are four matches.
“Recovery time is a lot longer for me than for most people,” he said.
He has JRA, and while it might go away on its own one day, his case is so severe that he might just have to deal with it for the rest of his life.
He has learned a lot about himself. He knows his pain threshold. He understands there will be challenges. He also realizes he can rise above the obstacles.
In the meantime, he is going to enjoy his final season of soccer. He wants to go to college and earn a business degree, but soccer will no longer be an option.
“Once high school is over, I’m done playing,” he said. “No point in pushing it.”
Cotter Hamilton made it back to the soccer field, to the game he loves, on his own terms.
