To play or not? That is the question for one WNBA player
Elena Delle Donne still hasn’t decided whether she’s going to join her Washington Mystics teammates in the WNBA bubble in Bradenton, Fla., for an abbreviated season starting later this month.
But the league’s reigning MVP does know how she feels about being forced to make such a decision in the first place.
“I can either risk my life ... or forfeit my paycheck,” Delle Donne wrote in an open letter published Wednesday by the Players’ Tribune. “Honestly? That hurts.”
Delle Donne has Lyme disease. She says she takes 64 pills a day to help treat a condition that, in part, debilitates her immune system. So when the WNBA began revealing its plan to start the season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Delle Donne consulted her personal physician, who advised her not to play.
She got reports from the doctor who has treated her for Lyme disease and the Mystics team doctor, both confirming her as high risk, and submitted them to the league in an attempt to receive a medical exemption from playing this season.
“I didn’t even think it was a question whether I would be exempt or not,” Delle Donne wrote. “I didn’t need a panel of league doctors to tell me that my immune system was high-risk – I’ve played my entire career with an immune system that’s high-risk!!!
“I LIVE with an immune system that’s high-risk.”
But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not include Lyme disease on its list of conditions that could put a person at increased risk from COVID-19.