Written by John Mark Adkison
When he was in junior high, the last thing Taylor Lively wanted to do was run cross country. But he made his mother a promise: If he did not make the eighth grade basketball team, he would run for the cross country team.And he just knew he would make the basketball team, after all, it was only junior high. The possibility did not even cross his mind, at least until he saw the results from basketball tryouts and did not see his name on the list. Keeping his promise, Lively was forced to run cross country his eighth grade year.And who would have thought running would save his life?As a child, Lively grew up active and in a constant state of motion, but he was also sick often. Doctors could never figure out what was wrong.”I had one doctor tell me to suck it up and stop faking everything,” Lively said.Fast-forward a few years and Lively is running at the regional track meet his junior year of high school. Before this meet, he had finished every race he ran, no matter how sick he got or how bad he felt. This time, however, he fell to the side, blue in the face and dry heaving. It was after this event Lively decided to see a pulmonologist, a lung doctor.It was a cold, icy day in Decatur, Ala., when Lively finally found out what was ailing him. It was the na- tionals meet, and he had enough on his mind without his coach acting strange.”My coach kept telling me over and over again, ‘No matter what, you’re my hero. Don’t forget that, you’ll always be my hero,’ ” Livley said. “And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I need you to help me focus for this race.'”So Lively began running the race, doing well in the start, but getting slower and slower as other runners began to pass him by. The whole time, his coach kept yelling, “No matter what, you’ll still be my hero.””And I was like, ‘That is not what I need right now,'” Lively said.Lively finished third in the race, and as he left the track, he found his coach and his parents waiting for him.Then his father asked him the question that changed his life, “Do you know what Cystic Fibrosis is?”Cystic Fibrosis is a hereditary disease that causes mucus to build up and destroy the lungs. There is no cure, and those who have it have a very short life expectancy, Lively said.”I went to go see the doctor after that and he told me, ‘If you weren’t a runner you would be in critical condition or dead,'” Lively said. “Basically, running had saved my life by keeping my lungs healthy and undamaged. While normally my life expectancy would be 40, the doctor said that I would live well into my 60s if I kept running.”Presently, Lively is running for the Harding Bisons, in both cross country and track.”For the following six months I was really mad at having this disease,” Lively said. “But as I got older and matured a little, I realized this was a blessing. I’ve gotten e-mails and Facebook messages from places as far as Idaho who heard about my story and told me what an inspiration I was to them as runners.”During high school, his story was covered by NBC, and over the past winter break, it was covered by CBS.”I know it really is not me doing this but God,” Lively said. “This is my story, my life. I would tell others who are going through this to look for the blessing, always look for the positive, look for the good in every bad situation.”
