AFTER eight inconclusive blood tests, doctors posed the question: is Ben Suggett infected with the H1N1 virus? The answer was yes.
Suggett spent four days in quarantine at Goulburn Base Hospital and remained lethargic for months afterwards as he battled glandular fever.
Today, the swine flu episode is a distant memory.
The now 15-year-old Trinity Catholic College student enjoys a game of rugby and commutes three times a week to Canberra to participate in his newest love: gridiron.
Last Saturday-week, for a change, Ben and his mother Colleen didn’t hastily pack the car and travel down the Federal Highway. They made their way to Workers Arena, where Ben, a safety, deployed a mouth guard, shoulder pads and helmet and corralled opponents during half-field scrimmages.
This month he’ll don the Gungahlin Gladiators’ outfit again when a six week ACT junior gridiron competition kicks off. The active teenager is a stark contrast to the ill 12-year-old of 2009.
“After school, I’d just come home, lie down and go to sleep,” Ben recalled.
“Mum was worried… I wasn’t myself. I’d fall straight asleep on the lounge. This happened for a couple of weeks.”
His behaviour prompted consultation with medical professionals, most of whom couldn’t pinpoint the problem. “We went to the doctors and after eight blood tests, we weren’t getting anywhere,” Colleen said.
“We continued onto the hospital and that’s when we found he had the Swine Flu… And glandular fever too.”
In June, 2009, the World Health Organisation declared the mutant strain of swine-origin H1N1 a pandemic.
By early 2010, the virus was responsible for 17,000 deaths worldwide.
Even as a 12-year-old, Ben Suggett knew the significance of his condition.
And he was frightened. “I was just like ‘God, that’s not good, give me the medicine’,” he said.
“I recovered quite quickly. They had me in a room by myself so I wouldn’t pass it on to anyone else.”
Although his cardiovascular fitness improved and energy levels heightened post swine flu, Ben’s initial interest in American football came via video console rather than physical activity.
When introduced to an NFL game on XBox, his interest in the sport spiked.
He began following the outcomes of games, watching matches on television, and eventually, playing.
“I was down in Sydney one day and mum rang me up and said ‘I got you into a [gridiron] team’,” he said.
“I went down there [Canberra] and watched them for a couple and sessions and then started playing.”
Each Monday and Wednesday, Ben leaves school at Trinity of an afternoon and heads to Goulburn Base Hospital – his mother’s workplace.
He gobbles a quick dinner, hops in the passenger seat of his mum’s car and prepares for gridiron training in the north Canberra suburb of Giralang with Wildcats teammates.
By the time they return to their Windellama home, the mother-and-son combination has ticked over 200 kilometres and spent two-and-a-half hours on the road.
It’s worthwhile, Colleen says. “We’d do anything for him. That’s what he wants to play, and he loves it,” she said. While gridiron might be frowned upon in Australia, Ben’s a fairly standard teenager.
“I play rugby for the school, hang around with mates, play a bit of X-Box, and work at the Chicken Man,” he said There’s a motive behind his newfound enjoyment of American Football. In January, Ben will spend 20 days in the United States – 10 under the care of a family, and 10 at a school.
As an already competent American footballer who’s abreast of the rules and culture of the game, he’ll have common ground with many of his temporary classmates.
Ben likes the prospect of an education in the United States beyond his high school years, too.
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