SALT LAKE CITY — “You have rheumatoid arthritis.”

That’s something no 20-year-old wants to hear from their doctor. Let alone a decorated gymnast.

When Maddy Stover’s doctor diagnosed her in the summer of 2015, her response was “I’m still going to do gymnastics.”

Nearly three years later, Stover hasn’t let her health setbacks define her and insists on never letting herself stop.

Something was wrong

It began in the summer before her sophomore season at the University of Utah. Stover underwent surgery to treat compartment syndrome in her left forearm. According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition is “associated with increased pressure in a muscle compartment with exertion” and causes pain and swelling in the affected area. As Stover recovered from the surgery, she developed severe joint pain.

“I thought it was my body recouping from the surgery. It started sore and achy like anything else for a gymnast,” Stover said.

The gymnast kept pushing off the pain. For her entire life, Stover worked through any pain she endured as injuries are common in gymnastics. But it wasn’t until it hurt so bad that the athlete, who considers herself to have a high pain tolerance, couldn’t sleep.

Everyday tasks became miserable for Stover. She couldn’t stand with her legs extended for a period of time because her knees would ache terribly. She couldn’t open doors because her wrists hurt to twist the knobs. While writing a midterm paper, Stover was forced to drop her pen because her fingers were incredibly swollen.

“My daily life had me in more pain than ever before,” Stover said. “It really struck home when I had to walk down stairs one at a time. I’m a gymnast who was flipping and tumbling just two weeks before. Something was wrong.”

The debilitating pain became so excruciating that Stover returned to her doctor. At first, they thought she was fighting an infection from her surgery. Treating that didn’t help, so Stover underwent tests. In July, she finally discovered what was causing her so much pain.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another

When her arthritis was at its worst, the gymnastics team’s athletic trainer would have Epsom salt baths running for Stover when she arrived at practice.

“Everyone else was training and I was sitting in a bath,” Stover said.

As Stover started taking medication for her arthritis, she began wondering if the prescriptions would help. She worried about the possible side effects that could affect her performance and health.

“Will the medicine help me?” she thought. “Will the medicine have side effects that will affect other kinds of performances?”

What most people don’t know is that Stover’s fear of suffering from side effects did occur. One medication would conflict with another. One would work, but then she lost half of the shaft of her hair. On top of dealing with managing her pain, Stover still had to train for the upcoming season. In her words, it was “really tough” to balance not being too medicated but have enough relief that she could practice in the gym.

Stover fought through the trouble and as her sophomore season arrived, she felt well enough to compete.

“That was one of my best seasons,” Stover reminisced.

She was a starter on floor and anchored the beam lineup, while serving as an alternate on bars and training on vault. Stover finished the regular season as a beam queen, ranking ninth in the country on the event, a member of the All-Pac-12 Conference beam team and second-team All-American. Stover earned five victories, including a career-best 9.975 on the apparatus.

But while things were looking up for the California native, Stover injured her shoulder in Utah’s last regular-season meet. She missed the Pac-12 championship but debuted a new beam routine, which protected her injured shoulder, two weeks later at regionals. After the season finished, Stover had no choice but to go under the knife.

“I basically had a reconstruction,” Stover explained. “Labrum rotator cuff, Bankart repair, the list goes on and on.”

The surgery was successful, but the problems kept coming. After the shoulder repair, Stover suffered from a “pretty big flare-up” from her arthritis. She noticed that her movements became less fast. To be more fast-paced, Stover worked on improving her explosive power. She wore weight vests to do mat jumps and block jumps. She also performed water plyometrics.

“When I wasn’t feeling good, I wanted to make sure I had the strength to make me feel good,” Stover said.

No matter how much grief her arthritis gave her, Stover’s training significantly changed because of her shoulder. The injury forced the 2013 Junior Olympic all-around champion to forgo her spot on the bars and vault lineups. Just this season, Stover had to step away from floor.

“I was hopeful that I could be at full strength for my senior year,” Stover said. “It was a dream.”

She pushed herself until this past October when she confronted co-head coach Tom Farden.

“I’m not happy and it’s not working,” Stover told her coach.

Her shoulder wasn’t allowing her to do the things she wanted, and it continued to pop out of the joint.

The warrior keeps marching on

For her senior season, Stover has physically contributed as the team’s leadoff in the beam lineup. It isn’t what she envisioned, but she’s “as happy and healthy as can be.”

Her arthritis has finally become manageable. She hasn’t had any recent flare-ups, she said as she knocked on wood. And while her shoulder limits her to compete in just one event, Stover is thrilled she can help her team on a good, positive note.

“I’m loving the sport,” Stover said. “I’m not hating myself for not being able to be where I think I can. My body’s just not letting me.”

As her senior season is coming to an end, Stover admits it’s been quite a ride and a blessing that she’s come this far. After all, despite her setbacks, she’s only missed one meet in her entire career.

“As I was going through those setbacks and challenges, I never really realized how tough they were,” Stover said. “I haven’t missed but one meet in my entire collegiate career, which I thank God for every day — trainers in my corner, good doctors that have been able to help me keep up to speed.”

Stover’s tough mentality also helped push her through her collegiate career. She embodies the team’s warrior mantra, which was chosen during the team’s retreat in September.

Kim Tessen suggested the quote “Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ The warrior whisper back, ‘I am the storm,’” at the retreat where the team puts its goals on paper. The gymnasts loved it as it fit the team’s toughness throughout a long season, so they adopted it as their theme for the year.

“When we picked that warrior theme, I thought that it couldn’t be a better theme for me to finish my collegiate career,” Stover said.

Farden agrees. “Maddy was a Junior Olympic all-around champion. She was a big-time kid for us,” he said. “For her to have rheumatoid arthritis and have her shoulder deal that she has gone through and keep the attitude she has, to never quit, never die. It has rubbed off on our team. When the going gets tough and we lose, nobody pouts, ’cause Maddy keeps marching on.”

Rising leader

Stover has grown up a lot in the past four years. From booking appointments to calling insurance companies to getting her medicine, all of it has helped her see herself outside of the gym.

“I think any student-athlete at this point has done their sport for so long that you form your identity around the sport. ‘Hi, I’m Maddy Stover. I’m a gymnast,’” she said. “With what I’ve had to deal with, gymnastics hasn’t had to be my full identity as it was. I’ve been able to see that I have value in other places in life and that I could get involved.”

Stover has embraced being involved on campus. Not only has she been a team captain the past two seasons, but she is also a two-term president of Utah’s Crimson Council and has been more involved in the athletics department. As a junior, she was a co-winner of the Greg Marsden Leadership Award and won the Utah Athletics Female Ute Proud Award. She was also invited to attend the 2017 NCAA Career in Sports Forum in Indianapolis.

“I was able to see my value more — not just as a gymnast, but as a teammate and leader. I look at those roles’ values and where I can help people, and I feel as though I’m contributing,” Stover said. “That’s what I was struggling with when I wasn’t contributing physically to the sport. I made it a huge point to emotionally involve myself and contribute to my best ability.”

Stover’s holdups propelled her to reject the idea of giving up. If she couldn’t produce as much physical talent as Utah recruited her to do, Stover realized that she could leave a legacy of leadership.

“I know I have a voice and I’m not just a gymnast at the end of the day. I’m Maddy Stover and I have a future beyond the University of Utah gymnastics team. Hopefully, my little legacy I leave here is a good time of leadership.”

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