Elena Delle Donne Gets Candid About Battle with Lyme Disease: 'I Take 64 Pills a Day'

Elena Delle Donne is speaking her truth and opening up about her battle with Lyme disease after she says that the WNBA and WNBPA's panel of physicians denied her request to sit out of the 2020 season for medical reasons.

The Washington Mystics small forward, who has battled the disease since 2008, shared an open letter about her struggles with the illness on Wednesday on The Players' Tribune.

First noting that she takes "64 pills a day," Delle Donne reveals, "That’s 25 before breakfast, another 20 after breakfast, another 10 before dinner, and another 9 before bed."

"I take 64 pills a day, and I feel like it’s slowly killing me. Or if it’s not killing me, directly, then I at least know one thing for sure: It’s really bad for me. Longterm, taking that much medicine on that regular of a regimen is just straight-up bad for you. It’s literally an elaborate trick that you play on yourself — a lie that you tell your body so it keeps thinking everything is fine."

"It’s a never-ending, exhausting, miserable cycle," she adds, "But I do it anyway."

The WNBA star adds that taking all that medication is the only way that she can keep herself healthy and keep her condition under control while remaining able to do her job — or as she describes it, "Healthy enough to live something approaching a normal life."

The six-time All-Star also discusses her illness in relation to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and how she has been told "time and time again over the years" that her condition makes her immunocompromised — a view that differs from that of the WNBA, whose panel of doctors consider the CDC's guidelines when evaluating high-risk cases of COVID-19, according to ESPN.

"So when the WNBA started the process of organizing the bubble, I paid careful attention to what measures they were putting in place to make it safe. I know how much work went into this, and I know so many people at the league put in crazy hours to protect the players and make it as safe as possible," Delle Donne writes in the Player's Tribune. "But the fact of the matter is, I was told that when it came down to it, it would be impossible to keep COVID-19 out of the bubble entirely."

She adds: "I still wanted to play, but I was scared."

Revealing that both the Mystics team doctor as well as the doctor who treats her Lyme disease wrote up reports that showed she was a high-risk contender, Delle Donne said that she filed both reports to the league along with a signed form waiving her right to an appeal.

She then notes that after the WNBA began reviewing players’ cases to see who should be granted a health exemption from the bubble, the league’s panel of doctors informed her that they were denying her request for a health exemption.

The WNBA declined to comment to PEOPLE about a player's personal medical matter when reached for a previous story about Delle Donne.

"I’m now left with two choices: I can either risk my life ….. or forfeit my paycheck," she wrote. "Honestly? That hurts."

"All I’m left with is how much this hurts. How much it hurts that the W — a place that’s been my one big dream in life for as long as I can remember, and that I’ve given my blood, sweat and tears to for seven going on eight seasons — has basically told me that I’m wrong about what’s happening in my own body," she added.

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Delle Donne then closes her letter by explaining why she was even writing it in the first place.

Noting that she wrote it to take a more public role in the battle against Lyme disease and stand in solidarity with others who are facing similar work-life decisions, the athlete adds that she hopes her tale will allow people to listen and to be compassionate.

"There’s so much in the world that we don’t know," she writes, "Which means the best that we can do is to listen to each other, and to learn from each other — with as much humility as possible."

In response on Wednesday, the Mystics' coach Mike Thibault read a statement in a video released by the team.

"The WNBA Player's Association and the WNBA legal office agreed to set up a process for an independent panel to review cases like Elena's ... and that's the process that was set up," he said. "HIPPA rules make it such that the player is notified of the decision by the Player's Association while the team is not. Elena shared the letter with us but we weren't able to make an announcement regarding the decision unless the player makes a public statement first."

He continued, "And Elena and her agent picked a time to share it publicly. The fact of the matter is that the Mystics organization will ever put Elena or any of our other players' health and wellbeing in jeopardy at any time. As in the past, both with Lyme disease history and her on-court injuries, all decisions about her ability to play will be made jointly with Elena."

Said Thibault: "She is part of our roster, she is being paid and is continuing to rehab from her off-season back surgery. If at some point later in the season, we are all comfortable, I mean all comfortable enough with both her physical progress and the safety of joining the team in Florida, then we will make those arrangements. If we don't feel that, then she will continue t0 do her workouts in D.C. and get herself ready for the following season. Her long term care and health as a major foundation piece of the Mystics will always take precedence."