Former Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton experienced a “pretty scary setback” this week while hospitalized with a rare form of pneumonia, her eldest daughter Shayla Schrepfer shared on social media Wednesday.
The 55-year-old was first admitted to the ICU earlier this month and had appeared to be on the mend as recently as last weekend.
However, Schrepfer said that by Tuesday, her mother’s recovery had taken an unexpected downtown.
“At the beginning of this week, we were going on the up-and-up,” she said in a short video posted to Instagram. “We were so excited, seeing so much progress, and then yesterday we had a pretty scary setback.”
Schrepfer went on to note that Retton “had a better day today” but was “really, really exhausted.” She concluded the video by expressing her gratitude to her mother’s fans for their constant support.
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“It’s so great to see people love on her,” she said.
Retton made history when she became the first American woman to win an individual all-around Olympic gold medal in gymnastics at the 1984 Summer Olympics. By the end of that summer, she’d nabbed four additional medals.
The West Virginia native parlayed her fame as an athlete into acting, with small roles in “Scrooged” and “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult,” among other film and TV projects. In 2018, she competed on the 27th season of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Retton’s hospitalization was first confirmed by her second eldest daughter, McKenna Kelley. Kelley launched a Spotfund campaign to raise money for Retton’s hospital bills, noting that her mother was not insured.
As of Thursday, the campaign had raised more than $455,000.
