This is me: Jenny Carlson

THIS IS ME: Jenny Carlson

I’m from a small community where you either play handball or you play football. Case in point, my mother was a handball player and my father played football.

For me, handball was the choice because of my family. My mother was the coach for my big brother, so it was just automatic that I was at trainings and watching their games. With my best friend at the time, we were doing things like the tickets and statistics.

I was five when I started to play. I played in my home district, Kärra in Gothenburg, until I was 19. Handball was a really big part of my life and I always liked being in a team. I did athletics for a long time as well. That is still something I really like to watch and is one of my favourite sports also. I did the heptathlon, hurdles and javelin. But it was kind of natural that I continued with handball. Being part of a group is one thing that makes it a special sport — to have those moments with other girls.

When I was 19, I moved to Lugi. I was there for four years before I went on to Denmark. There were some really big players at Lugi, like Anna Lagerquist, so moving there was really exciting. It’s also something different when you move from home, to live on your own and have to do everything.

It was a hard period because I was sick at that time. But I felt like it was something I really wanted to do and Lugi were a team I liked to watch. I really liked the kind of handball they played so it was exciting for me to try. Of course, it’s scary when you move to a new city and you don’t know anyone, but it was also easy to come into the team because everyone was welcoming and there were some players my own age. They made it easy for me. Some of my best friends now are from that time.

My illness came the year before I moved to Lugi. It was in 2013, when I was 17, that I started to be sick. I lost a lot of weight. The illness would go up and down and the summer was usually a bad period for me.

I was in the hospital for a long time during the summer of 2013. Then it became better and when the spring came, in 2014, the same thing happened again. That was when I was supposed to move to Lugi. I lost a lot of weight and was really sick again. I came to Lugi and didn’t play in the pre-season because I was too sick.

In the beginning, we didn’t know what was wrong. When I started to feel sick, we weren’t sure what it was. Maybe I didn’t say exactly the truth either because I didn’t want to be sick. But when I told my parents about it, they had a little bit of a heads up on what could be going on because my father has the same illness.

When I was 18, I got the diagnosis: ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a chronic condition that leads to inflammation and ulcers in the colon and can have some serious consequences with time. If it is severe enough, you might need surgery to remove inflammation and to get a stoma — a hole in your body where you attach an ostomy bag to collect intestinal contents.

The diagnosis was a shock, even though my dad has the same thing. It was so long ago that my father did his surgery — before my time — so I wasn’t around to witness any of it. But later, it helped me to understand more and see the positive parts of it — that the surgery worked for him. He helped me a lot with my insecurities about it as well.

Even once you have a diagnosis, you don’t know fully what it means, because it’s different for everyone — how they will feel around it physically and mentally. So it was like, I know what it is, but let’s continue.

In 2018, I moved to Denmark to join Ringkøbing. I had tried so many medications — almost everything — but either the treatment didn’t work or I got side effects. Five years and nothing worked, so then the clock was ringing that we needed to try something new. The doctors said we had to go for the stoma.

In the periods where I felt good, I think, in my head, I was at 100 per cent. But I can see now, after, that it was not my 100 per cent. When I was bad it was easy for me and others to see.

I think I learnt how to be sick and didn’t even realise I was compromising on things. Like in training, it could be like black in front of my eyes because I didn’t have anything left, but I would keep going. I would tell myself I could do it; keep pushing through the pain I was feeling.

During the years, I had just learnt how to live with it. It’s both a positive and negative with handball, that we are so used to continuing and fighting and maybe having some pain all the time. So, for me, it was also normal to continue when I didn’t feel good.

But being an athlete also helped me handle the mental challenge surrounding such a serious illness. I had had injuries and you know you have to face those to come back. I had to face this and go through it in order to come back. Having handball also helped, having something to look forward to.

I think one thing mentally was seeing the difference between having pain, say, in the knee and pain from being sick. Probably the hardest part was for me to understand the difference, to see that my body isn’t feeling good somewhere and it means not only that I can’t play handball the way I want but even do normal stuff in my normal life. When you have pain in your knee, you can still go to the cinema or go travelling. For me, the hardest part was to start to say no to stuff and to really get to know my body and what it means for wellbeing in everyday life.

On the mental side, to be able to come back, it was also good that this sickness had nothing to do with handball. If it's a knee injury that happened on the handball field, you might have some bad feelings about the game or being on the court. But the ulcerative colitis had nothing to do with handball, so then I could separate the two, which helped me keep handball as a really positive thing I wanted to get back to.

I had the surgery in Denmark because they wanted to do it fast. It did get a bit urgent at the end. I had been sick for five years when they made the decision that I needed surgery, so I think I was prepared for it.

When I was 18, I got the diagnosis and they started to speak about surgery, I was really scared and was like, no, absolutely not. I was scared to have the stoma. I didn’t know very much about it. Also, it was described at first as a last solution, instead of an option.

I was an 18-year-old girl and to have a bag on my stomach wasn’t so appealing, so I think it was also because I wasn’t so educated about it either. It scared me — both how it would be for me and how other people would see me. It was more about that than fear of the surgery.

Later, I was prepared for it and understood that it was supposed to happen. Now, I have an Instagram page, @athletewithstoma, where I try to raise awareness and give others going through the same thing a role model — that you can be physically active and live a normal life while having a stoma.

There were some complications during the surgery, so we needed to do one more because it didn’t work the first time. They didn’t know whether I would be able to play handball again. I’m a handball player and that’s what I had been doing since I was five, so of course it was hard not to know how it would end up. But I always wanted to be the best and I started to understand that I couldn’t be the best if I felt like that.

My parents and boyfriend were really supportive all the time. My boyfriend, Jim, was living with me in Denmark. We’ve been together since 2017 and he was there with me through everything that happened since then. My parents took time off work to come for the surgery. My parents had seen in me that I was sick, but I had also been living away from them the whole time so they couldn’t see fully how I was feeling, and I didn’t always tell them the truth. It was hard for them to see their kid like that.

All this time I was at Ringkøbing. When you go out to a different country there are some expectations — because you go to Denmark or you go to a top club, that you will be 100 per cent professional. But actually, I hadn’t experienced that much before coming to Brest — only my first year in Denmark, then I needed to work on the side the next three.

I was going from handball training to work and I did 100 per cent studies on the side as well, getting my bachelor in public health science. In the last two years in Denmark, I was a professional trainer and nutritionist. So my years in Denmark were good, but between handball, work, study and being sick, I had a lot of things to focus on.

At the time I had the surgery, no one really knew what it would mean or for how long I would be away. It ended up being the whole rest of the season. I think some people thought I couldn’t come back at all, so then I got kind of triggered because I wanted to show that I could.

The surgery involved removing one big part of my intestine — the inflamed part — and then basically remodelling the whole thing. They don’t know if it will be successful and if it will make the individual person’s problems disappear. And this is just to be able to do normal things, not even going to the level of playing a lot of sport let alone being an elite athlete.

In terms of if I could play handball again, there were so many possibilities, from it being totally fine to not working at all. We didn’t know how my body would handle the surgery — it was basically try and see. When you hear doctors and all saying that it’s only a maybe that you can play again, you also start to doubt. But I never wanted to think that before I tried. So I didn’t doubt so much, also because my father had been through it and I saw some other athletes who had as well, but I needed to try it before I knew.   

To come back to playing took a lot of patience. I had this motivation to play again and to show people who maybe didn’t think I would play again — both clubs and other people. I knew I wanted to play handball, so I had something through the recovery and return to training, to look forward to, to have a goal with.

During the recovery from the surgery, I also had a blood clot in my leg because of the ulcerative colitis and medications. That meant I couldn’t play any form of handball for six months, as I couldn’t have any contact. Also, when it’s a sickness and not a typical handball or sports injury, it’s hard to know how to do the recovery training. You get something like the first six weeks from the hospital and then you are kind of on your own. I got a lot of help from my brother, as he is a physical trainer, on how to come back and how to know when it's too much and too little and to find the balance.

In the 2018/19 season I had played the first four games before needing the surgery, and then I wasn’t in the rest of the season. That meant it was hard to show anyone that I could play handball for the next season. My contract was up so that was a hard part — even if I knew I was able to play handball, I couldn’t prove that to anyone. But I managed to find a club, Aalborg, and then I was back on track.

Since the surgery, my career has accelerated fast — two years at Holstebro, joining Brest Bretagne, coming into the EHF Champions League and becoming a part of the national team. It’s hard to say if how quickly things have moved is a normal career progression or if it’s partly related to being sick, getting to know my body and then getting in the best shape possible with that extra motivation to feel good. But I can say that after the surgery I could play more my way and have the energy to train really good.

Since the surgery, I have a little bit more respect for pain in my body — it doesn’t have to reach the breaking point before I say something. On the other side, I can play again and I don’t always want to say when I have pain. But I know not to be so stupid anymore — you need your body to play handball. During the years I’ve started to realise what kind of pain is OK and what kind is not OK. We will always have some pain when we play handball.

It was about two years after my surgery that I got called for the national team. I had been in the youth age national teams and made it to two World Championships but had to leave the last one because I was too sick.

It was a dream come true to reach the national team. When you’re a little girl, you always dream of it. But during the years, with injuries and then the sickness, it was a bit like I started to accept that I wouldn’t do it. I was really happy and really proud to become part of the Sweden national team and I still am, every game we play. Now it’s really something I enjoy doing and hopefully can continue to do.

We’ve come very close to some big successes in the last years, with fourth place at the World Championship in December and at Tokyo 2020, and fifth at the last EHF EURO and the 2021 World Championship. I feel like everyone in our team is just waiting and fighting for that medal to come. In the last championship, we couldn’t be closer than we were, losing the bronze-medal game by just one goal. I feel like everyone is really fighting and really, really wants that medal.

Of course, we also know what kind of teams we have above us right now and I feel like a lot of teams are coming behind us also. But everyone is really eager to get that medal soon.

I moved to Brest in 2022, during the season, and it’s really different from where I was before. My first months in Brest, I was really thrown into everything — straight into the play-offs in the EHF Champions League and all that.

It’s really different to have a kind of favourite-ship before a game. Here, we are supposed to win certain games in the league and before it was more of a surprise. Moving in March 2022, I went from losing the Danish league one day to playing the final of the French league the next.

It’s also different to be in a team full of some of the best players in the world, that you train with every day. You need to step up to be that player also. You develop all the time when you are coming to training to do that. And playing against teams like that as well — it’s just a dream to be doing it.

After my handball career, I think I want to do something with health and training, because those are things I really enjoy. But first, there are goals I want to achieve on the court, and I’m excited about the next steps.

Jenny Carlson
March 2024