Mountain Ridge graduate Allysa Seely has never been the type of person to ask “why me,” and after being named to the 2016 Rio Paralympics team, she is showing others how to achieve their goals.
Seely, who graduated from Mountain Ridge in 2007, was diagnosed in 2010 at age 20 with Chiari II malformation, basilar invagination and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Seely said that basically means her brain is herniated into her spinal column brain stem, outside of her skull and inside her spinal column.
The basilar invagination means the part from her skull to spine is bent at a weird angle, like it has a kink in it. Ehlers-Danlos is a connective tissue disorder, but she never let it stop her from her goals.
Seven weeks after making the tough decision to get her leg amputated below the knee, Seely swam 1.2 miles as part of a relay team. Three months after the loss of her leg, she ran a 5k. A few months later, she completed her first triathlon as an amputee.
“One of my biggest accomplishments, along with making the US team to go to Rio, was competing at the 2011 Collegiate Nationals,” Seely said. “It was eight months after my surgery and there were a lot of naysayers about competing in that event.”
