Jessica Pegula tells the story of her mother's suffering
Jessica Pegula , currently the highest ranked American in the WTA World Rankings, spoke to The Players Tribune about the ordeal of her mother who suffered cardiac arrest last year.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Feb 08, 2023, 03:13 pm
When an athlete posts something to The Players Tribune, it's usually personal. Jessica Pegula was no exception. Pegula, currently fourth in the WTA charts and thus the best American, describes in a recent article how her mother Kim suffered a cardiac arrest last June. And how difficult the way back to normality has been since then.
"In June 2022 I just flew back to Florida from the French Open," writes Pegula. “I made it to the quarterfinals in singles and the final in doubles. It was two great weeks. In which I also made it into the top ten for the first time.”
Pegula - "It gets better every day"
A few days later, on her mother's birthday, around midnight, she got a call from her sister Kelly, who was staying with her parents. "Something was wrong with our mom and she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance." Her father woke up when mother Pegula suffered a cardiac arrest. Jessica's sister, Kelly, then began CPR until the ambulance arrived. "She saved her life."
Since then, nothing has been the same as before. "Right now my mom is still recovering. And even if I always give the same answer: It gets a little bit better every day. She is struggling with a significant loss of speech and memories are clouded as well. She can read, write, and understands us quite well. But she has a hard time finding the right answers. It's difficult to deal with and we need a lot of patience to communicate with her.” But the most important thing, according to Jessica Pegula, is that communication is possible at all.