Mary Lou Retton is detailing for the first time what happened leading up to her sudden hospitalization with a life-threatening rare form of pneumonia back in October.
The day before Retton first went to the hospital, she was getting her nails done with her eldest daughter, Shayla Schrepfer, she told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb in an exclusive interview that aired Jan. 8. They were preparing for a “girls’ trip” and were set to go to Dallas, Texas, to see Retton’s daughter Emma Jean’s boyfriend play an away game, both getting red nails for the University of Arkansas.
During the manicure, Schrepfer recalls her mom saying, “I just can’t keep my eyes open. I am so tired.” Later that evening, another one of Retton’s daughters thought something was off when she started “to say things that don’t make a whole lot of sense.”
But Schrepfer didn’t think anything of it, and they shrugged it off as dehydration. Her mom was “like a little pistol,” she said during the interview, which was filmed at Retton’s home in Boerne, Texas.
Retton was supposed to meet her daughters at the game the next day. But she never made it.
The former Olympic gymnast was found by a neighbor lying on her bedroom floor the day after the manicure, struggling to breathe.
“I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” Retton said, adding that she was trying to take in a “big, deep breath,” but couldn’t — something she said she still can’t do as she remains on an oxygen apparatus in recovery from her monthlong stay in the intensive care unit.
Retton said she was laying on the floor for 15 minutes, awake but struggling, before her “dear friend,” a neighbor who lives across the street, noticed that one of the cars in Retton’s driveway had the door open.
“She came in the house. She knows my code, and saw me and found me,” Retton said. “And Magda pretty much saved my life.”
At first, Retton was taken to an emergency room, before they advised her to go to a hospital. The neighbor called Schrepfer, who headed home.
Retton’s…
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