Everything Suni Lee Has Said About Her Incurable Kidney Disease

• Suni Lee, 21, is competing in the Paris Summer Olympics after an incurable kidney disease forced her to stop competing and focus on her health
• The gymnast says she thought about quitting “because I was so sick” — but people like teammate Simone Biles “lifted me up”
• She’s now on the right combination of medication and in remission

USA gymnastics star Sunisa “Suni” Lee is taking on the Olympics after an incurable kidney disease nearly derailed her career.

Lee — who hasn’t shared her specific diagnosis (she has said it could change following additional testing) — first knew something was wrong when she began swelling to a point that doctors thought she was having an allergic reaction.

“I kept peeling off the bar. I couldn’t hold on,” Lee, 21, told SELF magazine. “My fingers were so swollen, and I couldn’t even do a normal kip cast to handstand on bars.”

The swelling continued, she told the outlet, until “I think I gained, like, 40 pounds.”

“It affected my whole body and how I looked and how I was feeling.”

Testing and an eventual kidney biopsy diagnosed Lee with kidney disease — which forced her to end her college gymnastics career last April, after her physicians at her school, Auburn University, didn’t clear her to train. 

“I am blessed and thankful to be working with the best specialized medical team to treat and manage my diagnosis. My focus at this time is my health and recovery,” she said at the time.

Symptoms of chronic kidney disease are wide-ranging, the Mayo Clinic reports, and can include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, sleep problems, decreased mental sharpness, and muscle cramps.

Her condition also forced Lee to opt out of the world championship team last September, due to challenges related to her medication.

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“They’re still monkeying with the medication to try to get it so she reacts the same way each day,” her coach, Jess Graba, told USA Today. “As they’re adjusting the medication, then some days aren’t very good, so we have to adjust our training and sometimes we don’t train that day.”

But, as Lee told the New York Times, in January 2024, she received a phone call from her doctor that changed everything: She was told her medications were working well — and she could resume training. 

”We have it under control now,” Lee said, according to the Associated Press. “We know what to do and the right medication to take.”

And, as she told Today, “There were so many times when I thought about quitting and just giving up because I was so sick. But once I had those people around me who lifted me up and supported me and just made sure that I was good, I knew that this is something I wanted.”

One of those people who lifted her up? Teammate Simone Biles, who supported Lee after she fell on the vault during the U.S. Nationals.

“I just know that she needed some encouragement and somebody to trust her gymnastics for her and to believe in her,” Biles said, according to The New York Times, which reported that Lee is now in remission for her disease.

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Despite all the health challenges she has overcome, Lee says, she believes it’s for the best.

“Whenever I’m talking to my coaches, I’m always like, I get really sad because I’m never going to be the same, like the same Suni, not the same athlete,” she said. “And they’re like, ‘Good.’ ” — because she’s now tougher.

“I decided I wanted to come back because I really was only getting better and I love gymnastics,” Lee said, according to the AP.

“I was not ready to be done.”