Andrew Athlete Has Strong Showing At State Despite Illness That Has Left Her In Wheelchair
Posted on July 29th, 2022.
In 2019, Abeer Sweis walked into Andrew High School with goals of being a strong player in soccer and basketball and wanting to spend her four years preparing to go to college to get into engineering.
Three years later, she took four medals at the Illinois High School Association State Track and Field meet, including a state championship in the shot put event — while confined to a wheelchair.
A year ago, Sweis suffered severe neck and back pain while in Jordan to visit her father, Adel’s, family in late July. One of the procedures that doctors tried was cupping, in which they put cups on the skin to create suction to get the blood flowing better.
“They did the cupping, and I stood up and fainted,” she said. “That was the last time I remember walking.”
Sweis has since been in a wheelchair, has been in and out of hospitals, visited an army of doctors and has been prone to spells of depression.
She said things are improving thanks to medication but she still struggles with dark moments.
And the question of when she will walk again remains.
“They said I would be able to walk again,” Sweis said. “But no one knows when. I’ve talked to multiple doctors. One completely gave up on me. No doctors know how long this will take, but some of them are shocked it is taking this long.”
Her legs can move but not when her brain tells them to.
“I’ll be sleeping and my legs will be perfectly fine,” she said. “But to tell my legs to move right now, or to try to move them, they won’t move.
“I can be watching a TV show and you can see my legs go all over the place. But when I’m telling them to move, they don’t.”
Returning to school was a nightmare for her.
“It was very hard for me to even be in a classroom,” she said. “It got to the point where I couldn’t even say the word ‘school’ without reacting to it. For me to even be going into a school setting was really a huge deal.
“My friends were super-shocked when they saw me. They remembered when I was athletic and joining a lot of clubs in school.”
Girls track and field coach Mark Luttrell coaxed her to try out for track. The IHSA offers events for athletes with disabilities, and she qualified for state in four events.
Sweis won the shot put with a state record 10-feet 7.5-inch throw. She took second in the discus, third in the 100-meter dash and fourth in the 200.
While athletes without disabilities can spin around and gain momentum when throwing the shot and discus, Sweis relies on only arm strength.
Sweis was honored with several other athletes at the Consolidated High School District 230 board meeting June 30. First-year superintendent Robert Nolting, who was Andrew’s principal during Sweis' first two years, was impressed with her accomplishments.
“Abeer has been a part of the superintendent's advisory since her freshman year," he said. "I can’t tell you how proud I am of any student that I’ve known in my life. You are an inspiration to me and many, many others.”
Sweis’s track success has made her life a little better.
When her mother, Huwaida, wheeled Abeer to the center of the board room at the administration building in Orland Park for photos, Abeer flashed a million-watt smile that hid all of the pain and suffering she has experienced since her trip to Jordan.
“Before everything happened, sports was always my go-to,” Sweis said. “I used to work out every single day. I had a basketball hoop outside, and I would always play basketball.
“Now, my life is kind of like a roller coaster, and sometimes I go down deep in the hole. I was trying to figure out what I could do with my life because working out and sports was always a go-to mechanism for me to de-stress. As soon as coach brought up track, I said ‘OK, we have to do this.’ ”
She also reassessed her academic goals, swapping engineering for something more along the lines of studying the brain.
“After what has happened to me, I want to be able to help people get through something like this,” she said.