Jonathan Toews, captain of the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks, revealed that the ongoing health issues that caused him to sit out the 2020-2021 season were related to what doctors have diagnosed as Chronic Immune Response Syndrome.
On Wednesday morning, Toews released a video on his social media providing new details about his medical conditions and apologized to fans for not being"too vocal about the things I went through." "I just think there's a lot of things that just kind of piled up where my body just fell apart," Toews said."So what they're calling it was Chronic Immune Response Syndrome where I just couldn't quite recover and my immune system was reacting to everything that I did—any kind of stress, anything that I would do throughout the day—just, there was always kind of a stress response so it took some time.
At the time, the star center released a statement saying that he would be taking time off the ice to work with doctors to understand his condition. Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome is a multi-symptom illness that causes ongoing inflammation to virtually any organ system and can be debilitating if left untreated.
Toews was unsure when he would rejoin the team and said that while he was"extremely disappointed," he said it would be unfair to him and his teammates"to attempt to play in my current condition."