For anyone that has covered Elena Delle Donne in her professional career, there is one thing that you know: the two-time WNBA MVP battles Lyme disease which directly affects her ordinary way of life.
She’s been open about it and does not shy away from questions regarding her symptoms. Her openness and status in the league were so prominent that when the WNBA said it would allow players with preexisting conditions – and potential vulnerabilities to the coronavirus – to sit out and receive pay, it was assumed she fit.
But yet the WNBA denied her request, leaving her in “disbelief” and her best response coming in a tell-all Player’s Tribune article.
I take 64 pills a day, and I feel like it’s slowly killing me. Or if it’s not killing me, directly, then I at least know one thing for sure: It’s really bad for me. Longterm, taking that much medicine on that regular of a regimen is just straight-up bad for you. It’s literally an elaborate trick that you play on yourself – a lie that you tell your body so it keeps thinking everything is fine.
It’s a never-ending, exhausting, miserable cycle.
But I do it anyway.
Much of what she says is nothing new. By battling “Post-Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome,” more commonly known as Chronic Lyme Disease, her life has been uprooted. Delle Donne has to take 64 supplements a day. She is immunocompromised where a common cold sends her immune system into a frenzy and a flu shot does more harm than good.
RELATED: CLOUD RIPS THE WNBA’S DECISION TO DECLINE EED’S REQUEST
She’s been battling it since 2008 and now her league, that she represents on the highest stage, turned its back on her. She is more at risk of developing serious complications due to the coronavirus because of her compromised immune system. Her own doctor said that it’s not safe for her to risk traveling to a state where cases are skyrocketing all to play basketball.
Lyme disease is not one without controversy. For most affected, treatment is easy and simple (about a month of steroids and you’re back to normal). However, symptoms get more serious the longer it is not treated and for Delle Donne it took multiple doctors to figure out what was going on.
Many brush off the disease, mostly because there is so much even the medical community does not know.
Yet, the league isn’t giving her a fair option.
Instead of giving her a choice to remain safe, at home, the WNBA’s panel of doctors said that she is not high-risk for the virus.
I’m now left with two choices: I can either risk my life….. or forfeit my paycheck.
Honestly? That hurts.
It hurts a lot. And maybe being hurt just makes me naive. And I know that, as athletes, we’re not really supposed to talk about our feelings. But feelings are pretty much all I have left right now. I don’t have NBA player money. I don’t have the desire to go to war with the league on this. And I can’t appeal.
So really all I’m left with is how much this hurts. How much it hurts that the W – a place that’s been my one big dream in life for as long as I can remember, and that I’ve given my blood, sweat and tears to for seven going on eight seasons – has basically told me that I’m wrong about what’s happening in my own body. What I hear in their decision is that I’m a fool for believing my doctor. That I’m faking a disability. That I’m trying to “get out” of work and still collect a paycheck.
Her disease and symptoms didn’t come out of nowhere. And of all people in the league to be ‘faking’ a disease, it’s not her. She played the WNBA Finals last season with three herniated discs, a face mask and a knee brace from injuries she suffered on the court.
Her decision to play is still forthcoming – a decision that she should never have to make. Delle Donne admits that her choice is no different than what many Americans have had to weigh during the pandemic and many are in worse financial shape than she is. But if this situation taught her anything, it’s to admit when someone doesn’t know something.
“Probably the best lesson I’ve learned through my experience with Lyme disease – is this: There’s so much in the world that we don’t know,” Delle Donne said.
And right now there is so much the WNBA doesn’t know about Lyme disease.
MORE MYSTICS NEWS:
Elena Delle Donne put in tough spot by WNBA, reveals health struggles with Lyme disease in open letter originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington