Photo: Supplied by Hachette
Former Olympic and world champion swimmer Michael Klim now wears leg braces every day after he was diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disorder.
The 47-year-old Australian is best known for his extraordinary performance at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he famously won gold medals in the 4x100 metre relay, the 4x200 metres freestyle relay, plus silvers in the 100 metres butterfly and 4x100 metres medley relay.
Four years ago, he started to notice symptoms, which he first thought were related to his athletic career. But a series of tests revealed he had chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIPD), a rare autoimmune disease causing progressive muscle loss, particularly in the lower limbs.
A successful businessman in his post swimming career, Klim was floored by the diagnosis, he told RNZ's Nine to Noon.
Champion swimmer Michael Klim on his biggest challenge yet
He was 40 at the time and pushing his body to the limit, he said.
"I was doing CrossFit, I was running…and I started getting some niggles that popped up from my swimming years, an ankle that I sprained in 2001 and my prolapsed disc that I had operated on in 2002 my body just started to kind of scream for help," he said.
"I could barely walk on my left ankle, I started getting a foot drop on my right side because of my back."
He took painkillers and anti inflammatories to mask the pain, he said, and kept pushing.
"I was spending a week in Australia working, and then a week in Bali with my kids and back and forth. So, it was a really high-paced lifestyle, that required me to be on wherever I went."
Klim then started to notice signs that there might be a more ominous underlying problem.
"I started having a sensation of hot water being poured down my legs and tingling on my thighs and numbness in my feet and then just the lack of strength and ability to walk long distances.
"And my balance started going really badly. I was rehabbing from that bad ankle that I had on the on the left side, and I noticed that I could not do a calf-raise on the opposite side."
A gamut of tests - nerve biopsies, muscle biopsies and blood studies - eventually revealed he had CIDP.
The diagnosis floored the six-time world swimming champion, he said.
"I was tripping up over myself. I wasn't able to walk up a flight of stairs. I needed a walking stick. I became a recluse, really.
"I didn't want to go outside and face the real world, because I wasn't able to do any of the things that brought me joy - or so I thought."
Unable to surf, play with his three kids at the beach or play basketball, he retreated into victimhood, he said.
"I took on that role of a victim very, very, very easily. And it was for two years that I sort of kept on regressing and mentally and physically."
His family and partner helped snap him out of it, he said.
"My partner, Michelle, my sister Anna, said, 'Look we can help you, we'll do anything for you but you need to start doing things for yourself, you need to start moving, you need to start getting outside.'"
He was drinking heavily and eating badly, he said, to numb the symptoms and then in mid-2022 he "changed his life".
"Looking for solutions and experimenting with diet and changing the outlook to thinking about the things that I can still do and what I can still give to others."
He became an ambassador for Life Blood in Australia which campaigns on the importance of blood donation and plasma donation.
He's in much better shape now than when first diagnosed, he said.
"I'm coping quite well physically, I'm in a pretty good condition.
"I wear AFOs [ankle foot orthosis] or leg braces, to help me get around, and I still have a foot drop and minimum sort of function from the knees down.
"But mentally I'm much more upbeat, enthusiastic and hopeful about the future."
The last few years have been perhaps his greatest challenge, Klim said.
"It's very hard to condense the last few years in a couple of minutes, but it certainly was a roller coaster from grief to denial to then self exploration, building a new identity and then using that as a superpower."