Elena Delle Donne has chronic Lyme Disease, meaning she’s at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 should she be exposed.
But that apparently isn’t enough for the WNBA to allow the superstar to opt-out of the 2020 season.
The Washington Mystics star has been battling the deadly disease since contracting the disease during her senior year of high school in 2008. In fact, Delle Donne takes 64 pills (yes, that’s right) a day to help her cope with the illness: 25 before breakfast, another 20 after breakfast, 10 before dinner and nine before bed.
“To think that a panel of doctors who have never treated me can just come back and say, ‘No, you’re fine, you’re good to go.’ That’s confusing to me,” Delle Donne said in the piece. “I don’t know why it’s not enough for just my Lyme doctor to say it’s not safe.”
Here’s more from Delle Donne in an excerpt from her Players’ Tribune piece:
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.
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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.
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.
Yup….. they caught me.
That’s why I played in the finals last year with THREE HERNIATED DISCS IN MY BACK.
That’s why I work out during the seven months a year when we’re not in season, when no one’s watching me, when I’m not collecting my player salary.Â
That’s why I’ve crammed my 6’5″ body into so many coach class flights that I almost forget what it’s like to have legs and feet that aren’t dangerously swollen.
That’s why I take 64 pills a day.
Because I’m the type of player who makes up a condition to avoid playing basketball.
They figured me out.
Well said.
Delle Donne and the Mystics are coming off their first WNBA championship in 2019.
