How Video-Games Help With My Chronic Illness

Video-games. Like them or hate them, they are a big part of our world today. Phone Apps, Console Games, and the good old classic, computer games, play a huge role in our culture. They also play a huge role in my life, especially as a chronically ill child.

Due to my illnesses and their many complications, I haven't had the most typical of childhoods. From the time I was 8, I spent the majority of my days either at the hospital, a doctor's waiting room, or at home, hoping the latest treatment would work so that I could get back to my old life again. I had no idea when I was first starting out at the hospital that there wouldn't be any going back to my old life. For example, I had to stop going to Cub Scouts as I couldn't make it to any of the meetings or keep up with them physically in their activities. My social life at school was utterly destroyed because it's hard to build and maintain friendships during your first year at a new school without actually being there to do that. My opportunities for meeting people my own age were quickly circling the drain. 

Enter gaming. Playing video-games has given me the chance to increase my opportunities for social interaction when I can't leave the house or leave my hospital room (I tend to spend a lot of time in isolation rooms at the hospital), as well as at the hospital itself. I had started playing MineCraft right before I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease at the end of grade 3, but was never really big into it or other games until I was hospitalized. I had quickly learned that MineCraft wasn't just a solitary building game, it was a way of interacting with others and having something in common with them. I could walk into Marnie's Lounge (a patient play room at Sick Kids Hospital) and quickly make friends just by talking all things MineCraft related. 

And MineCraft wasn't the only game that brought us together. There were many a night when we would have very competitive Mario Kart racing with everyone in the room watching and cheering the players on. Super Smash Brothers became a way of releasing our frustration with our illness and the treatments by pretending that the characters we were battling was some aspect of the illness. Even traditional board games helped to bring us patients together. Video-games help give us a chance to just be a normal kid. 

For life outside the hospital, video-games has also been helpful. I've used them to distract me from my pain and other harsh realities of my day-to-day life. For instance, I love Pokemon, so when the game Pokemon Go came out, I was naturally super-excited. But even better than just playing the game on my own to collect all the Pokemon in the wild, the game now features something called Raid battles, where players get together to battle a Pokemon in a huge group in hopes of getting a chance to catch that Pokemon. I've been able to get out to some of these Raid battles over the summer and it's been awesome. I've been able to meet so many other people and form friendships with a lot of them. I've always felt accepted with the other players, in fact, they go out of their way to help me. They offer to push my wheelchair for me, they wait for me to arrive at these Raid battles so that I can be included too. Gaming has brought people into my life who I never would have otherwise met, and had the added benefit of increasing my support network. 

For my Jacob's Healing Rooms Project at Sick Kids Hospital, I wanted to include some form of fun and distraction from spending an entire day receiving outpatient IV treatments. Knowing that the right environment can have a huge impact on treatment success, I felt that video-games could play a role in helping to create that environment. I am working on installing tablets at the treatment chairs to give patients access to a form of entertainment, a tool to learn more about their illness, and a way to interact with others. Having something to distract you from the pain, to fill the boredom of waiting for the treatment to be done, can make a huge difference to the day. 

Playing video-games has helped me to cope better with my illness. It's something that I can do no matter how bad I feel. It's a valuable tool on the healing journey that I think is often overlooked or given a bad rep. For me, it's been absolutely irreplaceable.

When the going gets rough, you've just got to get your "Game-On"!