On July 21 2015 17:32 partydude89 wrote:
A few years ago, I had a cousin who showed me Starcraft. He was 24, I was 14 at the time (this was in 2011) and knowing that I had previously enjoyed World of Warcraft, he decided that I’d like Starcraft II. I didn’t, at all. At least I didn’t at first.

It actually took me a while, until one bored afternoon in the summer that I actually picked up the game and tried playing vs AI’s. It was incredibly challenging to me, as someone who had very limited RTS game experience, yet exceptionally rewarding. My twin brother and I were instantly hooked this time.

I checked out Husky’s Youtube channel and searched for all the Idra games I could find, watching them over and over again, completely in awe that someone could do all that, and at the same time!

By October, playing Starcraft had past being a fun game to play in our spare time, and flourished to become lifestyle in a sense. We would sit in our room and have animated discussions about the game, using our silver level knowledge to share styles of play we had seen, cool strategies we could employ in our future games, and a lot about the pro scene in general. After many begs and pleas, we finally got our dad to agree to take us to MLG Orlando, during which I had the best time of my life. I met all these players who seemed too good to be true, my Idols in every sense of the word. It was everything I could of asked for and more.

By the start of my freshmen year I had been diagnosed with Chronic Pericarditis.

What that would mean is that the sac around my heart would inflame and push against my heart, giving me some of the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life for about a week.

What started out as a one-time occurrence in September of my freshmen year kept coming back and back again, the times that I was feeling well began to shorten and the times that I was sick got longer in longer.

It got to the point where in the middle of Sophomore year, I had to drop out of school, as I had just missed to much. Periodic hospital stays (I ended up having to stay in a hospital for weeks on about 10 or so separate occasions each year) and high doses of medicine left me in a foul and depressed mood.

But I had Starcraft. It was my one constant. In the hospital, I set up my computer and was able to play right from my bed, and used the battle.net server as a way to communicate and talk with my brother. I focused on pro matches, as long as Bomber was winning his matches, there could be no wrong with the world.

I bought a Redbull jacket and shirt to support my favorite player Bomber and his former team of Startale. I didn’t even like the drink personally, but I shared my pride about Esports with anyone who would listen.

It was the first time in a long time that I actually felt like I was part of a community, that I was in something much bigger then myself. I felt a personal need and desire to give back to the community who gave so much to me. But seeing as I couldn’t play particularly well (still stuck in diamond at the minute) didn't have a natural voice for casting, or have millions of esports dollars to throw around like Total Biscuit, I just wrote. I created previews and recaps for anything and everything, and worked as hard as I could to find a team or group of people that could help me with this. While i didn't find enormous success with my writing (I wrote articles on Oz for Planetary Dynamics for a while, as well as Solaris Gaming and a few other teams.) it felt good to express my passion and ideas with like-minded people.

My heart issues, at this time, had not taken a positive turn, and I was getting flare-up’s that lasted for about 2 weeks in time with only around 2 weeks or so of downtime before my next flare. My parents and I had made the decision that since the medications weren’t proving to be effective, we had to try something a little more drastic.

After talking with doctors, it was decided that the best course of action would be to try a pericardiectomy, a surgery where they go in and completely remove the pericardium, the sac that surrounds my heart. So we flew up to Rochester Minnesota to the Mayo clinic, where they had done this procedure the most (I was their 112 patient to undergo a pericardiectomy, and their second kid)

So on May 14th, 2014, I had my surgery in hopes it would help my heart issues. I was so nervous in the waiting room, so I did what I did best, I thought about Starcraft. I found myself visualizing Bomber beating the best players in the world, found myself looking back at all of his achievements, and focused on this up until they took me into the operating room and put me to sleep.

The surgery was a massive success, and I’m now fully recovered and back to school. My parents will swear up and down that my first words coming out of surgery were “I love bomber” which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.

You guys changed and probably saved my life, and I can’t put into words how much I wanted to thank you. Starcraft II was my sanity and crutch while my world was falling apart, and I owe you guys everything.

This is why i love Sc2. This game means everything to me, and i love having shared it with you all.