In the history of the Gregorian calendar instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, it’s difficult to imagine many sports weeks challenging the one recently logged by Dana Mathewson.
On a Saturday, the San Diego native became engaged to University of Central Florida medical student Dristin Hughes. The next morning, Mathewson hopped on a plane to compete at the immaculately manicured, strawberries-and-cream tennis dreamscape known as Wimbledon.
The week ended with a wheelchair doubles championship alongside Japan’s Yui Kamiji, making Mathewson the first American woman in her sport to win a Grand Slam title.
A ring. A trophy. A spot in history.
Welcome to wild, wonderful forever.
“The thing that gave me the most realization of what I’d done, I was like, wow, my name is going to be in gold on the wall at Wimbledon for the rest of my life, or Wimbledon’s life,” Mathewson said. “That’s pretty surreal to think about.”
When Mathewson was 10 and attending Mission Bay Montessori Academy in University City, she began to feel off during a soccer practice. Players were running during a conditioning drill when she felt pain in her back.
Thoughts raced through her mind. Had she been kicked? Did she pull a muscle? The coach suggested a possible muscle cramp.
“I remember my legs feeling heavier and heavier,” Matthewson said Tuesday from Nottingham, England, the site of her next event. “The pain got worse and worse. Cut to me getting driven home and I was just screaming in the car, the pain was so bad. At that point, I could still feel my legs.
“My friend had to help me up the stairs into my home. I was lying on the living room floor screaming. My legs started tingling, the same way they do when your leg falls asleep. I remember looking at my foot, trying to move it and nothing happened. From then on, (the feeling in her legs) was just gone.”
Mathewson’s parents, both physicians, recognized the medical emergency had the potential to be neurological and rushed her to Rady Children’s Hospital. Steroids were administered to relieve swelling in a section of the spinal cord.
She was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a disease that causes inflammation in a section of the spinal cord. It can occur to anyone at any age and can be as rare as one person among 1 million.
Though no one knew at the time, a magical Wimbledon moment may have been saved that day.
“I’m very lucky I was rushed to the hospital fast enough and got steroids in my system to combat the progression of the swelling that was happening in my spine,” said Mathewson, 31. “So the nerve damage wasn’t complete. I’m now able to feel my legs and walk a bit, but I need to use a wheelchair now.”
Understanding how a child processes dark thoughts hovering over a life forever and fundamentally changed in a relative blink seems difficult to comprehend.
