Ella Scott
Kadeena Cox is a Great British athlete, a reality TV star, and a television presenter who was just 23 when she was diagnosed with an ‘invisible’ disability.
The Paralympian, who competed in athletics and cycling at the 2016 Summer Games, was gearing up to earn a place on the UK skeleton team when she was suddenly rushed to hospital two days after competing in the Loughborough International.
Prior to her shock hospitalisation in May 2014, Cox experienced ‘a little tiny spot of like tingling’ on her arm, which she ignored.
However, when she started losing feeling in the limb, the sportswoman’s friends informed her that what she was experiencing was ‘not normal’.
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Eventually, the spot worsened, causing her legs to stop working.
“It basically went from my neck downwards and then I was unable to walk, my speech was bad, there was a lot going on,” she said on an episode of BBC Morning Live.
“I literally went from being an able-bodied athlete to someone who had a stroke.”
Four months after suffering a stroke, Cox was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic condition that affects both the brain and the spinal cord.
The Mayo Clinic describes MS as an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation, demyelination, and gliosis.
It can manifest with a wide range of neurological symptoms, such as vision impairment, numbness and tingling, focal weakness, bladder and bowel dysfunction, and cognitive impairment.
Cox, now 35, said that she now recognises the ‘tingling’ sensation she experienced 12 years ago as an MS flare up.
She also credits her sports background for getting her through the most difficult points of her diagnosis.
“That's probably what saved me when I was diagnosed with MS because there were times when I was in a really dark place, there's times where I'd black out from the pain… but as an athlete, having those little mini goals, I remember one day being like: I'm just gonna get down the stairs like and not have to stop.”
In 2016, the former I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! contestant won a bronze medal in the 100 metres T38 sprint at the 2016 Summer Paralympics for Team GB.
She then won two gold medals, the first for the time trial C4-5 cycling event, and the second in the 400 metres T38 sprint.
Cox’s impressive haul landed her in the history books as the first British Paralympian to win golds in multiple sports at the same Games since Isabel Barr at the 1984 Summer Paralympics.
“It was all these little goals that eventually kind of got me onto the podium,” she said.
Day-to-day, the Leeds-born star experiences bladder problems. However, as people cannot physically ‘see’ her disability, she is often reprimanded for using the disabled toilet.
“I have things like problems with my bladder, which you can't see. And you look at a young person, you think, oh, they're not going to have issues with their bladder but I'm running into a disabled toilet and people are like; ‘You can't use that it’s for disabled people.
“Not all disabilities look the same. Or I'm pulling up to a disabled spot and someone says; ‘You can't park there’. I've got a blue badge, and they’re like ‘but you're not disabled’.”
For more information on MS, see the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America’s website.