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Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton’s daughter Shayla Kelley Schrepfer is sharing an replace on her mother’s ongoing battle with pneumonia.
“She’s nonetheless preventing,” Schrepfer, 28, stated in a video uploaded to Instagram on Wednesday, October 11. “It’s going to be a daily course of, and we hope that you simply guys will respect her boundaries as we need to maintain the main points between her and our household proper now.”
Schrepfer added that Retton, 55, is receiving care from “the perfect of the perfect” medical professionals and thanked her mother’s followers for his or her outpouring of assist.
“My sisters and I are overwhelmed. We didn’t even notice that there are such a lot of individuals on the market that love her simply as a lot as we do,” Shrepfer stated. “It’s been a extremely onerous time for our household and so simply seeing that folks love her like that and displaying her that assist has meant the world to us and to her.”
Schrepfer’s feedback got here in the future after her sister McKenna Lane Kelley took to social media on Tuesday, October 10, to substantiate that Retton had been hospitalized because of issues from pneumonia. Kelley, 26, additionally posted a hyperlink to a SpotFund fundraiser, which has already surpassed its $50,000 aim.
Courtesy of Shayla Schrepfer/Instagram
“My superb mother, Mary Lou, has a really uncommon type of pneumonia and is preventing for her life,” Kelley wrote on the web page. “She will not be capable of breathe on her personal. She’s been within the ICU for over per week now. Out of respect for her and her privateness, I can’t disclose all particulars. Nevertheless, I’ll disclose that she will not be insured.”
Along with Schrepfer and McKenna, Retton additionally shares daughters Skyla, 23, and Emma, 21, with ex-husband Shannon Kelley, whom she divorced in 2018.
As a gymnast, Retton received a gold medal within the particular person all-around competitors on the 1984 Summer season Olympics in Los Angeles, making her the primary American girl to win gold at that occasion. She additionally received two silver medals and two bronze medals.
Retton went on to retire in 1986 and was inducted into the Worldwide Gymnastics Corridor of Fame in 1997. She later competed on season 27 of Dancing With the Stars with accomplice Sasha Farber in 2005. The duo had been despatched house in the course of the actuality competitors’s sixth week.
Farber, 39, has been in contact with Retton amid her present well being struggles.
“I’ve been speaking to her right now and she or he’s preventing,” the DWTS professional advised Leisure Tonight on Tuesday. “She sort of desires to surrender, however I’m sending her movies of her dancing and I’m telling her, ‘There’s just one Mary Lou Retton. You’ve bought this!’”
He continued: “You’ve bought to see the individuals [you care about], you’ve gotta say hello, you gotta name them. And I’ve been talking to her right now. She’s a fighter. She’s going to be nice.”