“MS has taught me to redefine my strength.” Paralympic Skier and medal winner Danelle Umstead is talking about her life and the challenges she’s overcome to make the most out of the opportunities she’s been given.
Danelle Umstead is a paralympic skier and three-time bronze medalist who recently spoke about her life as an athlete who is blind and battling multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system, impacting the brain and spinal cord. It comes with a wide range of symptoms including dizziness, numbness, fatigue, and more.
Umstead recently spoke with People Magazine about her journey and life as an athlete, going back to 2010 when she first noticed something was off with her body. After a long day of training and skiing, her right foot was tingling intensely, making it difficult to take off her ski boot.
Initially, she thought she was experiencing frostbite, and her husband Rob Umstead, who’s also a ski guide, thought she was fatigued after intense training. It wasn’t until the next day that she knew something was wrong.
“From my rib cage all the way down to my toes on my right side — I couldn’t move. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t sit up. I screamed to Rob, and he picked me up and took me to the emergency room. I thought I’d had a stroke.”
She then spent the next few months going to various doctors looking for answers. She received many diagnoses, took prescribed steroids, and went through physical therapy, however, nothing helped her continuous numbness. Eventually, she was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
“I had to learn how to walk again, how to run again – and I had to learn to ski again. And that’s when it really sunk in how MS had control over my body.”
Around 1 million Americans have multiple sclerosis. There is no cure for MS, however, there are now dozens of treatments available for patients to help them live a longer, fuller life. Dr. Tanuja Chitnis, a neurologist, also spoke to People regarding modern treatments for this disease.
“I’ve been practicing for over 25 years, and in the early days, we had one or two treatments with efficacy rates in the 30 percent range. Now we can get up to 70% efficiency. Thankfully, it’s a very different state for patients. Doctors are getting better at using the high-efficacy treatments early on, and this is very important,” Dr. Chitnis said.
Umstead knew from the beginning how much of a fighter she was, and that she was going to be faced with a multitude of challenges after receiving her diagnosis. Alongside her husband, she went on to compete in three more Paralympics and gained three bronze medals in the downhill and super combined.
“He’s [Rob] my best friend. Rob sometimes believes in me more than I believe in myself,” Umstead said. The athlete went on to compete on Dancing With The Stars in 2018, and founded a nonprofit organization called the Sisters in Sports Foundation for disabled female athletes.
“MS has taught me to redefine my strength. I’ve learned to listen to my body, slow down, adjust and not fight.”
This was not Umstead’s first experience having to readjust her life due to disability.
“I learned at a very young age that I was going to go blind. From the age of 2, I had these very thick Coke bottle glasses. I was running into things, falling off curbs, running into parked cars. I grew up feeling ashamed of my disease,” she said.
At 13 she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that causes gradual deterioration of the retina. “I remember being in the doctor’s office and hearing this disease is incurable. The only thing in my mind was ‘You’re going to go blind.’ I felt like I was drowning.”
Working through initial insecurity and struggle, she went on to become a debt collector in the 90s until her mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 1996. Her mother passed away in 1999, and at just 28-years-old, Umstead had lost both her mother and her vision within the same year.
One year later, her dad invited her to go skiing with him in New Mexico to help lift her spirits.
“I was terrified, [but] it was the first time since I’d lost my mom and my vision that I felt pure joy. I truly believe my father gave me life twice. That man led me to my husband, he led me to the Paralympics — and led me to who and where I am today.”
Speaking of her husband and their wedding day in 2008, she recalled how “from that day forward, he’s guided me in life and on the slopes. We started a career together from the day we married. We’ve learned so much about each other through our sport; I couldn’t imagine my life without him.”
In 2010, Umstead competed with Rob at the Paralympic Games in Vancouver. Rob would ski ahead of her and call out commands in which Danelle would hear through a headset. “Everyone told me it was impossible. I had just learned how to ski and race as an adult, and I was at the age where elite athletes retire.”
They won two bronze medals in the downhill and super combined, but then her MS symptoms began to appear and she received her diagnosis. Once she finally understood what was happening to her body, she began taking medication and worked to manage her symptoms and maintain her athletic career. “I had to relearn the skiing on my right side all over again because I wasn’t doing it every day, like walking and running.”
“Sometimes resilience means resting. Sometimes it means asking for help. I’ve learned a lot from my MS — to step back and give myself time and permission to adapt.”
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
