Monica Seles first noticed the symptoms of serious myasthenia while she was banished a racket as she had done so many times.
The 51-year-old salts, who won the first of his nine major trophies at the age of 16 at the 1990 French Open and played her last game in 2003, said that she was diagnosed with auto-immune neuromuscular disease three years ago and spoke about it publicly for MG.
“I would play with children or family members, and I would miss a ball. I said to myself:” Yeah, I see two bullets. “These are obviously symptoms that you cannot ignore,” said Seles.
“And, for me, that’s when this trip started. And it took me a while to really absorb it, talk about it openly, because it is difficult. It affects my daily life a lot.”
Seles won the last of his nine Grand Chelem titles at the 1996 Australian Open. (AP: Steve Holland))
According to the American National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Cerebral Vascular Accidents: “(MG East) a chronic neuromuscular disease which causes weakness in voluntary muscles” and “most often on young adult women (under 40) and older men (over 60 years) but … can occur at any age, including childhood”.
This can cause problems with speech, chewing, swallowing and breathing, and although many complications are treatable, some may be fatal.
Seles said that she had never heard of the state before seeing a doctor and being referred to a neurologist after noticing symptoms such as double vision and weakness in her legs and arms, while even “blow my hair … has become very difficult”.
The legend of tennis said that she wanted at the time of her diagnosis, she “had someone like me to talk about it”.
She talks about learning to live a “new normal” these days and characterized her health like any other in a series of life steps that required adaptation.
This year has marked three decades since the return of Seles in competition and reached the final of the US Open from 1995, more than two years after being attacked by a man with a knife during a tournament in Hamburg, Germany.
“I had, in terms of tennis, I suppose, reset – resetting hard – several times,” she said.
“I call my first reset lasts when I came to the United States as a young 13-year-old child (from Yugoslavia). I did not speak the language; I left my family. It is a very difficult period.
“Then, obviously becoming a great player, it is also a reset, because renown, money, attention, changes (everything), and it is difficult at 16 to deal with all of this.
“So obviously my stab wounds – I had to make a huge reset.
“And then, really, be diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis: another reset. But one thing, as I say to the children that I mentor:” You must always adapt. This ball bounces, and you just have to adjust yourself. “And that’s what I’m doing now.”
AP
