My Shot

by Elena Delle Donne

  “I’ve reviewed your paperwork,” she said, “and you show all the symptoms of Lyme disease. I know you had it before, and it’s very possible that this could be a recurrence or be connected with other tick-borne illnesses like bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma, or anaplasma.”

  I looked at her, wide-eyed. “But I thought that was impossible. Doctors told me that once Lyme disease is cured, it doesn’t come back.”

  “I don’t agree with that. There are a lot of studies about Lyme disease infection in animals, and we know that sometimes the bacteria hides, then reappears when the body is under stress. The first line of treatment for Lyme disease is antibiotics, and doctors don’t want to keep people on them for a long time. So they try to find another diagnosis.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. “What’s wrong with being on antibiotics for a long time?”

  “Sometimes the side effects from antibiotics are worse than the disease. That’s why I treat chronic Lyme disease sufferers with supplements and direct them toward a healthy diet and lifestyle. You need to boost up your immune system to fight an infection, and healthy living—rather than antibiotics—can do that. But first things first. Let’s talk about you.”

  I sat in stunned silence for just a minute, till my dad nudged me in the side. During every single one of my many doctors appointments over the last six weeks, no doctor had sat with me for more than five minutes. They’d taken my blood and looked at my chart, then told me I was making my illness up, was depressed, or might be suffering from a life-threatening neurological or autoimmune condition. Yet here I was, in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, with a woman who wanted to ask about me. She wanted to know about more than my white blood cell count, and she didn’t care about probabilities or what was considered impossible by modern science. She just wanted me to be well, and even though she hardly knew me, she trusted me.

  I’m pretty soft-spoken most of the time, and sometimes I hesitate to really get talking unless I’m asked questions. But with Rita, I let it all hang out. I told her about the summer after my senior year of high school, when I first got Lyme disease, and all the stress I’d been under recently, having returned to basketball. I talked about my workouts and my diet. I told her I thought I was dying, and I went into a ton of detail about the game against Penn State, when I couldn’t even lift up my arms to shoot a basket. When I was finally finished, I think I’d talked for ten straight minutes, but for the first time since I’d gotten sick, I actually felt hope.

  “This is so interesting,” Rita said. “I’m going to ask to take some blood, but I should have results soon. If this is what I think it is, we’re going to come up with a course of treatment that’s specific to you. When that happens, you’ll be following it for the rest of your life.”

  You might think that hearing that I had a chronic condition was scary, but trust me, it wasn’t. All I wanted was answers, and I was willing to spend the rest of my life doing absolutely anything and everything I could so that I didn’t get sick again.

  • • •

  The drive back to Wilmington was one of the happiest hours of my life. I think that having a medical professional tell me that she might know the answer to my problems woke something up in me, and suddenly I started to feel alive again. By the time we got home, I was thinking more clearly than I had in weeks. I sat down with my dad that night, ready to talk.

  “Dad,” I said, “I think some higher power is testing me right now. I’m pretty sure it wants me to figure out if I’m really, really committed to basketball. If I make it through being sick, maybe it’ll give me another chance to play.”

  Dad laughed. “Well, that’s one way to think of it.”

  “Dad!” I smiled. “I’m sort of serious. Being this sick has made me realize how much I miss playing. When I’m on the court, I feel great.”

  I went to bed that night determined to get back to practice soon. I have to, I thought as I closed my eyes. I know what I’m capable of.

  But before I did anything, I needed a diagnosis and a course of treatment. Please let Rita call me soon, I thought just before I drifted off to sleep. I want to know what this is.

  Two days later Rita called.

  “Your blood tests show trace amounts of bacteria related to Lyme disease and the other tick-borne infections I mentioned in my office, so I’m going to put you on antibiotics now. I’ll call in a prescription, but I’ll need you to come back here next week so we can discuss a course of supplements.”

  I pretty much screamed. “Thank you! Thank you!” Then I set up another appointment, hung up the phone, and started to cry.

  I’m not crazy, I thought. All those doctors were wrong.

  • • •

  I took antibiotics for three weeks, but I felt better almost immediately. I was so improved, in fact, that I moved back onto campus, started practicing with my team again, and on February 3 played a full twenty-six minutes in a home game against Northeastern. We won.

  I’m back! I thought. I celebrated as my teammates crowded around me. Winning a game had never felt so good.

  At my next appointment with Rita, she put me on a strict regimen of supplements. Every single day, to keep the infections at bay, I’d take fifty pills and supplements—like vitamin C, Viragraphis, biotin, ATP Fuel, and probiotics.

  “We’ll tweak this over time,” she said. “But right now I want to focus on strengthening your immune system.”

  She also recommended that I cut out gluten, red meat, caffeine, dairy, and sugar. These foods are known to cause inflammation, and since I’d been suffering joint pain, the last thing I needed was for my joints to swell up after eating a meat pizza washed down with three Cokes.

  “You also need to keep your stress under control,” she said. “Too much pressure weakens your immune system and might lead to a flare-up.”

  “That’s yet another reason to avoid burning out,” I answered. “It’s not just mental. Being too hard on myself is going to affect my health, too.”

  “Absolutely,” Rita said. “Be good to yourself. You deserve it.”

  I knew I did. I realized it was my right to be healthy and happy. I was young, and I wanted to be at 100 percent. After all, basketball had once again become my passion, and I wasn’t just ready to finish my college season. I was also poised to hit the international stage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Elena International

  I can’t say that the rest of my second season was easy. In fact, coming back to the basketball court after almost two months away was even harder than the eleven months I’d taken off during my first year playing. While I’d been sick, my muscles had gotten weak, and I’d lost much of the confidence I’d felt on the court for the past season and a half. Every time I yawned, felt a pain in my joints, or noticed that my head was fuzzy, I worried, Am I sick again?

  Even my coach and teammates were concerned. The team had struggled while I was away, losing seven of the twelve games I’d missed, and our hopes of being CAA champions and making it to the NCAA championship were growing dim. Would me being back help turn that losing streak around? Or was that too much pressure to put on a player who was probably running at half capacity, and who might get sick if she pushed herself too hard?

  It’s my choice to make, I decided. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or is concerned about. Worrying about what’s expected of me will only make me burn out, so I’m just going to trust myself and play my best.

  I must have put some good vibes out in the world, because, luckily, our team and our style of play began clicking. After our victory against Northeastern, we won our next three games, the last against William and Mary in a nail-biter that ended in overtime. We lost a few games after that, but when we went into the CAA tournament, we were confident. We were playing cohesively, and all of us were feeling great, especially me.

  We almost won the CAA tournament, but we fell to James Madison in the finals. Still, we had a good enough record to advance to the National Invitati
on Tournament (NIT). We lost in the first round, but we still walked off the court with our heads high.

  We did the best we could in a really tough season, I thought. And I know we’ll do better next year.

  • • •

  I wasn’t fooling myself, though. I knew that if I was going to help UD be the best in the CAA and go to the NCAA tournament, I was going to have to be in tip-top shape. Not just physically, either; I realized I needed to mentally challenge myself to a higher level of play than I could find in regular college hoops. I needed to expose myself to different players, new coaches, and competitors who played differently than anyone I’d encountered before.

  Luckily, I was going to have my chance, and it would happen sooner than I’d ever imagined it would.

  The World University Games are an every-other-year college-aged tournament run under USA Basketball. You might not have heard of them, but they’re a huge deal. In fact, they’re second only to the Olympics in terms of worldwide participants, and in 2011, I had the chance to be among them.

  I was one of fourteen college players who’d been invited to a training camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. After three days of practices, we’d find out which twelve of us would advance to the World University Games, which were being held in Shenzhen, China, in the middle of August. Not only would this be my first shot at an international tournament, but it would be the most high-profile position I’d ever had on a team.

  That was, if I made the team.

  As you know, I was still recovering, physically and emotionally. I was open about it too, telling my parents how frustrated I was that I wasn’t at 100 percent, especially when I had the biggest audition of my life ahead of me.

  “Just work as hard as you can,” they said, “but don’t kill yourself. We don’t want you to burn out or get sick again.”

  That’s what I have to remember, I kept telling myself as I drilled into my head the fact that Lyme disease flare-ups could be brought on by stress. Burning out isn’t just emotional for me anymore. It’s physical. If I push myself too hard for too long, I’m going to get really, really sick again.

  I refocused my energy and never forced myself to the point of exhaustion. I took my supplements, got my joints limber with really dynamic warm-ups, and was strict with my new diet. I began to listen to my body in a way I hadn’t before, and over the course of the spring and early summer, I started to see real results. My assistant coach, Tiara Malcom, did too, and she approached me one day to tell me.

  “You’ve developed more in the last few months than any player I’ve ever seen. You’re at the top of your game, Elena. Seriously, watch out, world.”

  I just hoped the coaches at the Colorado Springs training camp agreed.

  • • •

  As you can probably guess, American women have typically dominated basketball internationally. The sport was invented in the US, we have the largest professional women’s league, and basketball is a part of our culture more than almost any other nation on earth. But by 2011 that had started to change. In Eastern Europe and Asia, basketball had become a huge sport, and even Australia produced massive stars like Lauren Jackson. In the World University Games, the USA had won eight gold medals since their first tournament visit in 1973, but they were by no means a shoo-in to win every year. The whole team knew we’d be facing some tough competition. To increase the pressure, we were defending the gold medal that the USA team had won in 2009, and winning twice in a row was something the USA had never done.

  The head coach for the US team was Bill Fennelly, who was from Iowa State University. It was his job to watch fourteen women practice for three straight days, then announce the two players who hadn’t made the team and send them home. I knew that his eliminating only two people meant that my chances for making it to the games was good, but when I looked out onto the court and saw my competition, it was scary.

  These are the best players in college hoops, I thought.

  Yet after three of the hardest, most rewarding days of my life, Coach Fennelly announced that I’d made the team. Eleven of the top college players in the country and I would remain in Colorado Springs for another week of practice. Then we’d fly to China, get adjusted to the time change, and play our first game on August 13.

  Just six months after an illness that had almost sidelined me forever, I hadn’t just made my basketball comeback. I was about to play with the world’s best female college basketball players in a country halfway around the globe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  China

  Now that I play in the WNBA and have competed in the Olympics, I’ve found myself in games with all kinds of players, a lot of whom are far more skilled than I am. But as members of an elite league, we’re all on a level playing field. In 2011, though, a big part of me felt like the comeback kid from the small university in one of the smallest states in the country. Did that mean that I was out to prove something? Not really. I was just humbled to be on a team with amazing women from powerhouse schools, like Nneka Ogwumike from Stanford and Skylar Diggins from Notre Dame.

  The wonderful thing about basketball—or any team sport—is that when you’re on a team together, you’re playing as one. No one is—or should be—trying to show up anyone else. You just want to play up each other’s strengths, make up for any weaknesses that come out on the court, and sink as many baskets as you can. Ego shouldn’t matter. Performing your best should.

  In the World University Games in August 2011, that’s what happened. The USA team totally steamrolled the competition in the first four games, defeating Brazil, then Slovakia, then Great Britain, and finally Finland by more than fifty points each game.

  I was feeling great on the court. In the game against Brazil, I’d been the leading scorer with seventeen points, and over all of the initial games, I was the top rebounder. I think listening to my body had helped, but more than that, I was working with a team whose basketball skills were so impressive that, for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t expected to be the best player on the court. My team wouldn’t lack anything (or almost anything!) if I sat out for a few minutes—or even an entire game. Every single player on the USA team brought a very particular kind of leadership to the court, and each and every one of us learned something that elevated our play to a higher level.

  We were set to compete against Australia in the semifinal round, and if we beat them, we’d advance to the gold medal game. We knew they were a good team; they were big and physical, and they’d medaled twice before in the World University Games. But even though we were prepared, they put up an incredible fight.

  USA hadn’t trailed a team the entire tournament, but the moment the ball was tipped, Australia took off. They grabbed the lead right away and held it till there were just over seven minutes left in the first quarter. Honestly, we were shocked at how aggressively they were playing. They must think we underestimated them, I remember saying to myself. And maybe we did? Right then, though, all of us decided to step it up a notch, and Nneka Ogwumike nailed two foul shots, tying the game. Then I made a jumper, followed by a three-pointer, giving us a five-point lead.

  We went on a 10–2 tear after that, but Australia answered with a 9–4 run, and by the end of the first quarter, we were up by only three points. The second quarter wasn’t much better either. While we were always in the lead, Australia kept the pressure on, and neither team ever scored more than four points in a stretch. By halftime we were up by only four.

  We have to play stronger, I thought as we headed into the locker room. We can beat them. We have to.

  Coach Finnelly had said throughout the tournament that we tended to play our worst during the third quarter, and as he started talking to us, he stressed that.

  “This quarter, don’t make the same mistakes you have in the last few games. Come out strong and stay that way. You’re all faster than them, so make some baskets quickly, then wear them down.”

  When the whistle blew for the thir
d quarter, we did just that. Skylar Diggins and I scored inside the paint right away, and Devereaux Peters followed with a jumper. Then we capped a 9–0 run when Shekinna Stricklen sunk a three-pointer.

  We’re pulling away, I thought. This is how it’s done.

  From that moment on Australia was playing catch-up. We did just as Coach Finnelly had ordered and outran and out-rebounded them, but with almost five minutes left in the quarter, Australia went on another run. With 3:50 left in the third quarter, we’d only extended our lead to five points.

  We knew we had to change the course of the game in the final stretch, so when the fourth quarter began, we started pushing harder than we had all game. Within a few minutes we scored nine unanswered points, and we didn’t let up after that. We finally locked into how to cut across the paint and set screens, and we outmuscled Australia using that knowledge. When the final buzzer went off, we’d won, 79–67, and we couldn’t have been more relieved.

  “Even though it was sometimes close, you played hard, like a team in the semis should,” Coach Finnelly said afterward. “You had to earn this game, and you did that.” Then he paused. “But we’re going to have to change our strategy in the gold medal matchup. Taiwan is scrappy and fast.”

  We had only two days to practice before the game, but it turned out that was plenty. The gold medal game against Taiwan was absolutely no contest. We outmaneuvered and outmuscled them, and we won the game easily, 101–66.

  What amazed me more than the fact that I’d actually won internationally, though, was just how much playing at a high level—with the best players in the country—hadn’t led me to burn out. You’d think that with all that pressure, I would have, but I didn’t. I think that’s because I wasn’t always expected to be the best, I realized. Sure, I’d ended up being the leading scorer overall, but in the final game against Taiwan, Nneka Ogwumike had sunk more baskets than me. I hadn’t always been the top performer, and the game hadn’t all been on my shoulders. Instead I’d relaxed into team play, where one person’s near foul-out or series of missed baskets can be made up for by someone else’s three-point shot.