“I literally did not understand how to get out of bed in the morning” – Olympic champion Bobrovnikova about cancer symptoms

Olympic handball champion Vladlena Bobrovnikova on , she spoke about the cancer symptoms she experienced before learning of the diagnosis.

In mid-April, the 35-year-old announced that she would end her playing career, in accordance with doctors’ demands. On May 13, Bobrovnikova said on social media that doctors had discovered that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an oncological disease of lymphoid tissues. In August, Bobrovnikova announced on social media that she had recovered from the illness.

— It all started in the spring of 2022. Before the semi-final in Togliatti, I wake up and realize that my wrist just seems broken. I couldn’t even lift my coffee cup. A month before the final, the second hand started to hurt. Then there were the holidays, the summer, I felt bad and I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. I took many tests, trained at the same time and constantly did it in pain. I literally didn’t understand how to get out of bed in the morning.

I was later diagnosed with scleroderma. It is an autoimmune disease. It affects the joints of the arms and legs. Additionally, as one of the symptoms, Raynaud’s syndrome. This is when the blood vessels in the hands narrow so much that the fingers turn white and blue. And there were times in the game where I caught the ball, but I realized I couldn’t feel my hands at all.

The doctors told me they would let me play the last few months of the season and that would be the end of my career. But even these plans were not destined to come true. The next examination showed that it was necessary to remove the lymph node and take a biopsy. In the spring of 2023, I had it removed and ten days later found out I had cancer – lymphoma. This is already the fourth step. And it turned out I didn’t have scleroderma. And these were all symptoms of lymphoma. At that moment I realized that I would not return to the handball court as a player,” Bobrovnikova said in the film from the series “Faces of the Country” on .

Bobrovnikova turned 36 on October 24. As a member of the Russian national team, she became an Olympic champion (2016), an Olympic silver medalist (2020), and a bronze medalist at the 2019 World Championships. She is also a six-time Russian champion and seven time winner of the Russian Cup as part of the Rostov-Don team.