Olympic gymnast Suni Lee shed new light on the difficulties she's faced while navigating an onslaught of sudden health issues.
Earlier this year, the 20-year-old was diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease that cut her final NCAA gymnastics season with Auburn University short. In a new interview with SELF magazine, Lee revealed that the diagnosis has also prevented her from training.
She said it all began in February when the Minnesota-born athlete woke up with swollen ankles. At first, she shrugged it off, thinking it was just a nasty side effect of all the training. But then, the next morning, the swelling spread, and when she woke up her face, legs and hands were also puffy.
"I kept peeling off the bar. I couldn’t hold on,” she recalled. “My fingers were so swollen, and I couldn’t even do a normal kip cast to handstand on bars."
Her coach then suggested she seek medical attention, so she did and was told by doctors that she may be experiencing some sort of allergic reaction. But when the swelling continued for weeks on end, and she seemingly gained a significant amount of weight overnight, Lee knew something else was going on.
"I just kept getting more swollen…and I think I gained, like, 40 pounds," Lee said. "It affected my whole body and how I looked and how I was feeling."
Physical discomfort aside, Lee recalled doing mental gymnastics of what her health could mean for her future, wondering, "What if I’m never allowed to do gymnastics again or I can never make it to the Olympics again?"
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Following rounds of medical tests that yielded no answers, Lee's conversation with the USA Gymnastics Women’s National Team physicians, Dr. Faustin , eventually led her in the right direction.
Dr. Faustin asked Lee if her doctors had run a urine test, a routine procedure for a person experiencing the symptoms Lee had. But Lee hadn’t taken one and admitted that she had been having trouble peeing for two weeks, which is what led her care team to realizing that they might be dealing with a kidney issue.
Then, about a month after she first started experiencing the symptoms, Lee shared that she had some answers–though it wasn't as simple as she had hoped. On April 3, Lee announced she was ending her sophomore season early due to a “non-gymnastics health-related issue involving my kidneys.”
While she's undergoing treatment, she's decided to keep the diagnosis out of the public eye. She disclosed the condition to SELF , noting that it's fairly uncommon and there's currently no cure, but her doctors say that the diagnosis could change upon additional testing.
As of right now, Lee's doctors are still working on finding her the right combination of medication and treatment plans, but she's not letting any health issues keep her from competing or let her eyes stray from the prize: the 2024 Olympics.
"We didn’t think that I would be here. We didn’t know what was possible," Lee shared. "We didn’t know what was wrong with me — and here I am on the big stage, competing."
Though, the health battle has also taken a toll on her confidence, “Sometimes you don’t think that you’re even capable of winning anymore," she said, "I feel like my mindset switched to the way it was before [the symptoms began], where I’m like, Okay, now I’m just competing for second."
Next: Gymnast McKayla Maroney Wants to 'Be Normal' in Update on 'Wacko' Health Issues
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