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Matt Dolan felt significant pain in his chest. A lot. He assumed he had strained a muscle.
However, the discomfort persisted.
“It was never challenging to breathe,” remarked Boylan’s senior swimmer regarding a health issue that emerged in December of his freshman year. “There were just sharp stabs, reaching from my chest to the upper areas of my back. And I sensed this strange, kind of bubbling, in my chest.”
It was an unusual sensation. So peculiar, Dolan struggled to convey it even to his coach and family. Yet, it was severe enough — and long-lasting enough — that he decided to visit the hospital for an evaluation.
“They said, ‘His heart sounds distant. It’s a faint thumping.’ So they transferred me to the ER where I was informed I had a collapsed lung,” Dolan recounted.
“That was frightening and unsettling,” his mother, Darcie Dolan, stated. “It’s not like a fractured ankle where you understand what’s happening.”
The reassuring aspect was when the doctors informed him that there was no particular reason for his lung to collapse. Furthermore, there was an 80 percent likelihood it would not recur after the surgery they performed on New Year’s Eve of his freshman year.
Nevertheless, it turned out he required another surgery on Valentine’s Day.
“Holidays have been tough for him,” his mother mentioned.
And with his lungs. Not even two surgeries could rectify the situation. His lungs collapsed once more during his sophomore season. At that point, Dolan underwent a third operation, a pleurectomy, which doesn’t prevent the lung from collapsing but mitigates the effects if it does.
“They stripped the outer lining of my lung and attached it to the inner walls of my chest,” Dolan explained. “It’s somewhat unpleasant. But if my lung collapses again, because it is supported by the chest walls, it cannot push my lung down and collapse it again.”
This time, everything appears to finally be corrected. Dolan bears three scars along his left side — one for the chest tube the doctors inserted between his ribs, another for a camera used during the procedure, and the last for the surgical tools — but no enduring effects. He finally had a full swimming season as a junior, anchoring Boylan’s 400-yard freestyle relay team, which won sectionals and earned a state qualification. He also secured third place in the 100 freestyle and 100 breaststroke, as well as anchored Boylan’s second-place 200 free relay team.
He is now aspiring for an even more successful senior season.
“If I had never experienced this,” Dolan shared during the Boylan Bash, a Christmas-break invitational meet featuring as many as 24 heats across its five events, “I would have had an ideal high school experience.”
Conversely, Dolan might have been the Titan best equipped to navigate the challenges his lungs posed to his swimming career in high school.
“We always jest that farm kids are those who would run through a brick wall for you because they are accustomed to facing arduous tasks,” Boylan boys swim coach Brian McGuire stated. “Matt didn’t want to disappoint his team, his family, his friends, or me. He struggled with that for as long as he could.
“It was a significant burden for a kid to manage, but those (farm) kids inherently understand the significance of diligence and teamwork.”
Matt’s older sister (Tori) and brother (Brady) also swam for Boylan. All three helped manage the family’s extensive farm, cultivating corn, wheat, and soybeans on land stretching from north of Freeport to near Belvidere.
This is an existence that most of his high school associates do not comprehend well.
“I don’t feel compelled to share everything, but the first question everyone poses when I tell them I’m a farmer is what kind of animals I own,” Dolan remarked. “Every single time.
“That question,” he continued, “becomes a bit annoying.”
His favorite aspect of farm labor is driving the truck. He acquired his CDL (commercial driver’s license) last year and intends to pursue agronomy or agricultural business in college.
And sustain the family legacy of farming.
“It’s quite fascinating,” Dolan said of agricultural life. “You have to earn much of what you possess. It instills a strong work ethic. I’ve never had to push myself to work hard; I have always been motivated to do it.”
Except when he returned to school post-surgeries.
Recovery from surgeries can be challenging.
“I had to retrain a part of my arm in order to swim,” Dolan recounted regarding his final surgery in his sophomore season, gesturing towards his left arm above his three surgical scars. “I couldn’t move it at all. It was dreadful. I exerted myself to get it functioning. I could have taken it slower, but since I had only two weeks remaining, I wanted to accomplish something.”
Remaining on track academically after being hospitalized is equally difficult.
“I struggled to keep pace after returning from the hospital,” Dolan reflected on his initial surgeries. “I was anticipating the next year to arrive, just so I could start anew. But then it recurred the following year.
“Now, I never want to miss school, even if I’m unwell, because I understand what it’s like. Even a single day off means you fall behind. I detest it. You begin to feel, ‘I don’t wish to complete any of this work, since it simply accumulates. I plan on only taking the test.’
“That,” he added, “doesn’t yield good results.”
What truly works is confronting everything head-on, whether school tasks, swimming, or life, in the manner he learned on the family farm.
“All of this was disheartening,” his mother expressed, “but he’s never been one to simply remain idle. He never lashed out. It was tough to watch his peers swim while he couldn’t, but he was determined. Now he wants to put in as much effort as he can and relish it as much as possible because it will be over soon.”
“It happened,” Dolan stated regarding his lung issues. “It’s behind me. I’m eager to push it aside. Just continue living life.
“It made me more diligent. I don’t approach life thinking I can accomplish things without intense effort. It reinforces the belief that you can face this challenge and still return to swim just as well as everyone else. Or at least to try. As long as you give it your everything, that’s what truly counts.”
Matt Trowbridge is a sports reporter for the Rockford Register Star. You can contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X, previously known as Twitter, at @MattTrowbridge.
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