Kelsey Mitchell played until her wheels fell off. Literally.
There is a cruel bit of irony that this Fever season came to an end because their star player experienced a “once-in-a-lifetime” injury, as she described it. In the second half of Tuesday’s Game 5 against the Aces, Mitchell suffered rhabdo, officially known as rhabdomyolysis, which is a condition where muscles break down and release proteins into the bloodstream.
It’s a very serious injury, but one Mitchell was fortunately able to walk away from, figuratively and literally, as she rejoined the team on Tuesday night. By then, though, the Fever had lost the win-or-go-home contest in overtime, having finally run out of gas.
“I feel fine,” Mitchell said during her exit interview on Thursday. “I don’t think I could play in a real game…I probably should just take some time to kind of reset because I lost a lot of fluid. I think in that experience alone, I kind of felt scared because, for a while, my legs were so numb and so paralyzed, so to speak, that I couldn’t feel my feet.”
Mitchell said the injury was likely the result of overusage, citing that she had never played as many games or gone as deep into the postseason as she did this year. During the regular season, she played a career-high 1,381 minutes before adding another 261 to her body in the playoffs.
Considering how taxing those minutes are for Mitchell, which often include her running around the court off screens before even receiving the ball, it’s not hard to believe that played a role. That being said, it was also not something she could have really prepared for, either.
“When I got done with the Vegas doctors and our doctors, they were like ‘That’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,’” Mitchell said. “Nobody thought [about rhabdomyolysis] in Game 5 or anything like that. For me, it was just about, going forward, knowing what my body needs but I think, specifically, any athlete, competitive, if you want to be at the top of your game, you kind of just got to keep pouring in.
“So I wouldn’t have changed anything from me, if I’m honest.”
Mitchell had a much lighter, joking tone on Thursday — including playfully suggesting the number of practices from head coach Stephanie White caused the injury — which was much different than how things felt on Tuesday as Mitchell was on the floor.
She described feeling her “stomach drop” to her legs after the made 3-pointer. On the next possession, after a foul call, Mitchell said her legs locked up. She admitted to panicking at first after not being able to feel her legs. But a mixture of regaining feeling in her toes and her teammates being by her side helped calm her down.
“Without them, I don’t even think I would have got through it because when I was on the floor, I was emotional,” Mitchell said. “I think back to Aliyah Boston praying over me. I think back to Lexie Hull holding my hand. I think back to Bri Turner, she was like ‘Kels, [your legs] are going to eventually move. They’ll eventually move.’ It’s great to be able to play with the group that I play with. I can honestly say I’d go to war with them on any kind of day.”
Around the same time she began to calm down, those watching the game realized the severity of the situation as a stretcher was wheeled onto the court. It was a stretcher, though, that Mitchell had no intention of leaving the court on, even if she still couldn’t lift her legs.
“We’re not doing a stretcher man,” Mitchell said of her reaction when she saw it wheeled onto the court. “Walking out of here on a stretcher is just not going to happen. Not doing that. I was like, ‘If you guys just get me off the floor so you can finish the game, I’ll be fine.’ But I don’t know if you guys saw my feet, but they were like dangling because I had no blood flow.
“I wasn’t going to use the stretcher because I didn’t deem it fitting. Like, you were going to see me leave on my own. I think that was just making an impact on myself to say like ‘You’re going to get up and you’re going to figure it out without a stretcher.’”
Eventually, Mitchell did make her way off the court and into the locker room where she was able to watch part of the end of the game while receiving an IV before being transported to the hospital for more fluids. Without her, the Fever fought valiantly, improbably forcing overtime before coming up short.
Mitchell said that there were no long-term effects and that she would use this as a learning experience regarding her body and how to best prepare physically in the future. Still, even knowing the outcome, she would have done it all over again to compete with her teammates if given the opportunity.
“I wouldn’t have changed anything I done, any practice, any workout I done prior to because it was worth it,” Mitchell said. “I guess I played until my wheels fell off…I wouldn’t trade any of it at all. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I’d trade my body in every time.”