Mary Lou Retton claims she’s “blessed” and “grateful” to live after being detected with a rare kind of pneumonia that placed her in the ICU and had her kids at one factor“saying their goodbyes to me.”
The previous united state Olympic gymnast and gold champion opened regarding a near-deadly wellness scare that saw her almost placed on life assistance. It was a challenge made even more tough by Retton’s absence of insurance policy.
Throughout a 10-minute take a seat with Today’s Hoda Kotb, Retton disclosed that following a separation, and greater than 30 orthopedic surgical treatments and various other problems categorized by insurance policy as pre-existing, she was incapable to manage her very own health care as she was struck with a still unknown kind of pneumonia that saw her household and clinical group reviewing placing her on a ventilator.
“I mean, when you face death in the eyes — I have so much to look forward to,” she stated after making it via her clinical emergency situation. “I’m a fighter, and I’m not going to give up. I have no idea what the future holds for me. I don’t know if I’m going to have lasting issues with my lungs. They don’t know. I wish I had answers, but I would never give up. It’s not in me.”
Retton, that at one factor obtained psychological while reviewing the assistance she obtained after thinking herself to be “a washed-up old athlete,” shared that there “were so many more positives than negatives” which are much easier to see“now that I’m alive, and I made it through.”
The united state Olympian, currently 56, was utilizing oxygen throughout her take a seat with Kotb, and informed Today she did not bear in mind much of her month-long medical facility remain, which is why she had among 4 children, Shayla Schrepfer, by her side. Actually, when she was at first hospitalized– the initial of 2 remains– she really did not bear in mind the whole experience.
Following slurred speech that she chocked up to being dehydration, Retton was located alone, resting on her room flooring and having a hard time to breath, by a next-door neighbor that discovered the door to among her autos had actually been exposed.
That was simply a day after the previous gymnast had actually obtained her nails made with her oldest little girl, Schreper, and revealed indications of being really short of breath. “I was feeling tired, but I’m thinking, I turn 56 this month,” she remembered of the day prior to she was located looking“white or blue.”
Yet that initial journey to the medical facility would certainly result in the group sending her home simply a “couple of days” after identifying her with pneumonia, with Retton’s little girl sharing that “it wasn’t being taken as seriously as I think that it was.”
“It was a bad experience,” Retton stated.“I wasn’t being treated.”
The really following day is when the mom and previous professional athlete was located “almost unresponsive,” and hurried to a bigger medical facility in a close-by city, where they located “her oxygen levels were dangerously low and dropping.” The challenge saw Retton in the medical facility for a month, with the medical professionals just considering her launch after Mary Lou’s lungs started to recover sufficient following an effective therapy of having high circulation oxygen pumped via her nose.
“She told me, you need to get your sister [Emma Jean] here because we don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night. So, McKenna and I, we put her hands on her, and we said a prayer,” Schrepfer remembered. “I just remember loving on you and giving you a hug and McKenna kept saying things like, ‘It’s OK, you can go.’”
“They were saying their goodbyes to me,” a teary Retton included.
Retton emphasized the roadway in advance was long, and she had not been certain for just how much longer she would certainly require the oxygen. Yet she will certainly have her clinical prices covered, many thanks to contributions to her GoFundMe, which was established by her children. “We were just thinking, if she pulls through, the last thing we want her to have to think about is paying off these bills,” Schrepfer informed Hotb.
Having actually increased almost $460,000 since the moment of the meeting, Retton claims she has actually because been able to acquisition insurance policy. “I’m very private and to come out and talk about it — usually my interviews are ‘Oh, yes, it felt great to win the Olympics. This is different. This is serious and this is life,” she stated. “And I am so grateful to be here. I am blessed to be here.”
