Mary Lou Retton in a new interview for Todayrecalling the moments when her daughters stayed to “say goodbye” to her in the hospital. The former gymnast and Olympic champion, 55, sat down with Today host Hoda Kotb to talk about her harrowing experience with a “rare form of pneumonia,” which may now require oxygen through a nasal cannula “indefinitely.”
She was hospitalized last October after collapsing in her bedroom the morning she was supposed to go on a “girls trip” with her daughter Emma Jean to see Emma’s boyfriend play football for the University of Arkansas. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me.” , Retton recalled, explaining that a friend entered the home after noticing her car had been left in the driveway with the door open.
Mary Lou Retton talks about recovering from a rare form of pneumonia that landed her in intensive care: ‘I’m a fighter’
Mary Lou Retton and family.
Mary Lou Retton/ Instagram
Retton was taken to the emergency room and then to the hospital, where she spent several days before being returned home. After returning home, the 1984 Olympian’s oxygen levels plummeted and she was rushed back to the hospital. “Things moved really, really fast,” her daughter Shayla Schrepfer told Kotb.
Daughter Mary Lou Retton shares pictures from hospital as she reflects on ‘toughest year’
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Mary Lou Retton and Daughters.
Mary Lou Retton/Instagram
Later that night, the doctor spoke with Retton’s three daughters — Schrepfer, McKenna Kelley and Skyla Kelley — and discussed “taking the next step” with their mother. Then, while Retton’s fourth daughter, Emma Jean Kelley, was in college, the doctor recommended that her sisters take her to the hospital that same night in case things continued to get worse. “We don’t know if she’s going to make it through the night,” the doctor told the Retton daughters, Schrepfer recalled. “They were saying goodbye to me,” Retton said Today during an emotional interview.
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Emma arrived that night, and her mother’s breathing improved after doctors tried a new breathing machine that pumped high-flow oxygen through her nose. This prevented doctors from putting Retton on a ventilator overnight, and she continued to improve, eventually leaving the hospital after a month.
Retton still doesn’t know what caused the illness, which nearly left her on “life support,” she said Today. The Olympian tested negative for COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
“I’ve never had a lung problem in my life,” said a bemused Retton.
I just thought I was a washed-up old athlete, but love touched me, she added. “Now that I’m alive and I’ve survived, there’s a lot more positives than negatives.”
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Source: HIS Education