- Michael Klim has opened up on his health battle
- Swimming great says he was ‘not a very pleasant person to be around’
- He has bounced back and is enjoying his new life
Michael Klim has admitted he was ‘not a very pleasant person to be around’ at the outset of his health struggle as the Aussie swimming legend opened up on how he has bounced back from his shock diagnosis.
The Olympic champion, 47, was diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) back in 2020, but did not go public with his health battle until 2022.
Klim has spoken openly about the challenging four-year period that has followed, with his health deteriorating to the extent that he was unable to walk and was bedridden.
CIDP causes the body to attack its own tissue – the myelin sheaths which insulate and protect the nerves – causing weakness and lack of feeling in the arms and legs.
The 47-year-old, who is father to two daughters and a son, told the Betoota Advocate podcast how the life-changing diagnosis left him a shell of his former self, and the knock-on effect it had on his loved ones.
‘I sort of got to a stage where I couldn’t really hide it: I was wobbly on my feet and needed a walking stick, I looked different, I had put on a lot of weight and my treatment was taking its toll,’ he said of his decision to go public in 2022.
‘Covid was a bit of a blessing but also a curse at the same time because I used it to hide from people. But then I needed to integrate again and I was in a pretty bad place mentally and I managed to get out of it, I sought help and all the things I love doing, like exercise and getting outdoors and surfing, a lot of things were taken away from me so I had to rebuild my lifestyle and come to an acceptance stage where “OK this is the new norm, you can still do a s***load’ because I couldn’t keep grieving for this life I left behind.
‘It was tough, it was tough on everyone around me, not just me. I wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around for that period.
‘I started getting symptoms about five years ago; for anyone who has little tingling in their feet or their quads, or even cold feet, anything like that get it checked out early, because a lot of this can be addressed and halted really quickly if you get onto it early.
Michael Klim has opened up on how he dealt with his shock health diagnosis
The Aussie swimming legend was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease in 2020
‘For me, it dropped really quickly. In six months I lost the ability to walk and lost all of my muscles from the knees down.’
Klim said the CIPD diagnosis was tougher to come to terms with than when he retired from swimming in 2012.
‘It was a tougher test than quitting swimming and integrating into real life,’ he said. ‘This was a different challenge where I didn’t have my physicality or my energy to fall back on.
‘I had to craft a whole new person. I’m still in my late 40s, I still hope to be around for a bit, I still need to be a present dad, a provider, all those sort of things, but there was a period where I was none of those.’
Klim, who lives in Bali with his partner Michelle Owen, is now able to walk with the assistance of a cane.
He undergoes rehabilitation including plasma treatment, which has helped him to become more mobile by reducing inflammation and restoring nerve damage.
He said he was ‘not a very pleasant person to be around’ when he was first coming to terms with his diagnosis
Swimmer Klim is arguably best known for his huge triumph at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, where he took home gold for Australia.
In the 4x200m freestyle relay, Klim sent crowds wild when he broke the world record in the first leg of the race, setting his team up for triumph.
Alongside Ian Thorpe, Chris Fydler and Ashley Callus, Klim took the gold medal home, with the previously unbeaten Americans instead nabbing the silver.
