Basketball Player Chris Wright Details Early Days of MS Diagnosis, How He Didn't Let It Stop Career

 

Basketball Player Chris Wright Details Early Days of MS Diagnosis, How He Didn't Let It Stop Career

By Lindsay Kimble

March 30, 2022

 

Chris Wright, who played college basketball at Georgetown, was playing overseas in 2012 when he began to lose function in his limbs

 

Chris Wright is opening up about the devastating diagnosis that almost derailed his career — and how he persevered.

 

The basketball player, 32, recounted getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) back in 2012 in an interview with ESPN published on Wednesday. The athlete, who played college basketball at Georgetown, was in an overseas league in Turkey at the time, with symptoms of the brain and spinal cord disease developing quickly.

 

According to the interview, it began as tingling in his right foot — which Wright brushed aside as a side effect of tireless practice and training. But by the next day, the tingling had spread throughout his entire right side, leaving him numb.

 

Soon, he couldn't even get out of bed: "I couldn't walk. I fell to the floor. I was paralyzed."

 

His official diagnosis followed, with a doctor telling Wright he would never play basketball again. But he refused to accept defeat, he told ESPN. "I never cried one time, I never had that feeling it was over," he said. "I just said, 'We're going to figure this out.' "

 

Wright returned home to Maryland, where he continued to struggle with walking and dealt with what is described as "excruciating pain." He found the right doctor, who put him on a treatment plan: a once-a-month injection called TYSABRI.

 

Luckily, it helped. "I kept grinding out, told myself I would walk again, run again, jump, shoot, dribble, everything," he said. "[Relearning] was the hardest part, but it happened quick."

 

A year after Wright's diagnosis, he was playing so well he was signed to a 10-day contract with the Dallas Mavericks, and in his debut, became the first-known NBA player with MS.

 

He's since returned to playing internationally — now, with Italy's Derthona Basket. And he married his childhood sweetheart, with whom he shares three children.

 

After years of treatment with TYSABRI, he's now finished a two-year, 20 pill round of Mavenclad. Now, he's medication-free.

 

"The universe spoke to me," Wright said in the ESPN interview. "Making the NBA solidified it for me. I did it [and] it wasn't supposed to be done. This is a live universe and I'm living testimony to that."