FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Kelyn Rowe wanted nothing more than to be on the field with his New England Revolution teammates last week, but instead he was laid up at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, recovering from an infection and inflammation in his small intestine.
After returning from the Revolution’s week-long road trip to Dallas and Montreal last Sunday, Rowe experienced pain throughout Monday and into Tuesday morning. At that point he underwent tests at Brigham and Women’s Primary Care in Foxborough before being admitted to MGH.
“I’ve never been hospitalized. I never really get sick,” Rowe said. “It was a shock.”
The 24-year-old midfielder spent a total of three nights in the hospital while doctors rid his body of the infection, and although he was released on Friday, the week-long ordeal prevented him from traveling with the Revolution for this past weekend’s game in Columbus.
There’s never a good time for a hospital stay, but Rowe was particularly frustrated to miss out on the trip to Ohio. He was fresh off a two-goal, one-assist performance in Montreal that had earned him MLS Player of the Week honors, and the Revs had just climbed back into the playoff places with a third straight win.
With Rowe – and three other likely starters – sidelined, the Revs saw that three-game winning streak snapped at MAPFRE Stadium, falling 2-0 to Crew SC.
“It’s a big part of our season right now and you want to play every game,” Rowe said. “I thought I was doing really well, getting on a nice little stretch there. I think, as a team, we were putting it all together.
“To drop down like that from such a big high, to go to such a big low, it’s really tough mentally. But I think going forward, the guys have been great about making sure I take my time to get back.”
Rowe returned to training on Tuesday morning, but admits that he’s “still trying to recover a little bit.” Not only was he flat on his back for almost a full week, but he was also restricted to a liquid diet while in the hospital and “lost a good amount of weight” as a result.
Still, Rowe is thankful that the situation didn’t worsen, and he praised the medical staffs at both Brigham and Women’s and MGH – as well as Revolution head athletic trainer Evan Allen – for getting him healthy and back onto the field as quickly as possible.
The Revs have three more training sessions ahead of Saturday night’s penultimate home game against Sporting Kansas City, and while Rowe hopes to play a part in the proceedings, he’s also trying not to get too far ahead of himself after last week’s taxing experience.
“It’s definitely day-by-day,” Rowe said of his recovery. “Unfortunately it’s not like an injury where you can say you’re out two, three weeks or whatever it may be. It’s kind of going off my own body and what it’s telling me. It shut down for a little bit, and we’re trying to rev it back up.”
