Big Swole has dealt with Crohn’s disease throughout her wrestling career; this battle kept her out of action for a chunk of time earlier this year.
The popular star announced that she and AEW agreed to part ways on November 30, ending Swole’s run with the company after she spent more than two years with the company. Speaking on her Call In show, Big Swole opened up about her experience with Crohn’s disease and detailed the severity of the pain it causes.
“I know that it has come with a lot of pain,” said Swole. “There have been days where I have taken maybe two or three pain relievers, and we’re talking like hard pain relievers. I’ve been pushed with like narco, Lortab, Percocet, Vicodin, Tramadol, morphine pills, hydrocodone, everything. There are times where I’ve taken like two or three to get through a match because I don’t want to like, I don’t wanna quit. Because there are people who have an autoimmune disease that are looking up to me and saying you know, she’s doing it.
“Yes, I’m doing it, and I’m taking every single measure I can to continue to do it. I do put my body on the line for this sport. And side note to hear people saying that I don’t have Crohn’s, this is not something that I would wish on anyone. There’s been countless times where I’ve gone to the hospital, and countless times where they’re telling me you’re dying.”
Swole then described how she was “deathly” sick to the point that she had to be hospitalized just a few months before her AEW debut at All Out 2019, where she competed in the Casino Battle Royale. She noted that her illness mystified doctors, even when her blood was sent to the CDC itself, but she persevered because she wanted to make it to a “big” wrestling company.
“…I got really, really sick, to the point where sent all of my, I guess all of my readings and all of my blood and everything to the CDC and to Mayo Clinic, to the point where they didn’t even know what it was,” said Swole. “There’s nothing scarier than looking to the people who are supposed to know these things and saying that we don’t know what you have because of your illness. And they ended up naming it the Nightmare Virus, but I was deathly just sick, I was just dropping weight and I couldn’t hold up anything, they couldn’t feed me or nothing. And I remember sitting there and I asked God for two years to wrestle somewhere important, you know, to carry on because I just felt like I needed to.
“And when I tell you that he gave me the message of there’s something bigger coming for you so you have to get ready, and I was ready. And that was right before I got to AEW, literally six months prior to me signing with them or doing the All Out Battle Royale. Yeah, I was in the hospital just completely gone, just shriveled up and nothing. But to hear people say that I don’t have Crohn’s, that’s completely ridiculous.”
Swole’s future in wrestling is unclear but when she was healthy, she shined bright in the AEW women’s division.
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