Simmons lacrosse star Abby Stoller isn't letting multiple sclerosis slow her down
BOSTON -- Meet Abby Stoller, a graduate student on the Simmons Lacrosse team. For the second straight season, she's the Sharks leading goal-scorer.
The former Wayland High School star athlete has been racking up those goals despite batting multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord. Stoller started feeling the effects in November of 2021.
"I had no feeling in my left side and then my walking and my speech, my balance, everything became out of whack," Stoller recalled to WBZ-TV's Dan Roche. "It was definitely a huge shock for me and the doctors and everything, just how quickly my body went from being on the field one day, and within a couple days I was in a hospital for four weeks."
She had a lesion on her brain, and her doctors were puzzled as her symptoms worsened. They eventually sent her to Brigham's MS Center looking for answers.
"I had a nurse tell me I was the youngest patient he's ever seen on the Neuro floor," said Stoller. "So it was terrifying to be honest. It was really really scary, and for someone that already suffers from anxiety, that was traumatic."
Doctors officially diagnosed Stoller with multiple sclerosis in early December 2021. But she did not wallow in self-pity. Instead, she showed resolve.
"I was only 23, so I was really excited to kind of make that switch from, OK, I'm a sick person versus I'm someone that has MS but I can fight this, I can move past this," she said. "I can still live the life I wanna live."
Doctors told her she'd never be 100 percent again on the lacrosse field, and that playing with her team in the spring was a longshot.
Still, she asked for an exercise bike in her hospital room.
"I would have two nurses on both sides of me. I was going as slow as you could ever imagine, pedaling away," Stoller recalls. "But I was able to do five minutes on the bike."
But she never quit. And just three months later, Stoller stepped on the lacrosse field again.
"I remember it pretty vividly. I was not the player that I used to be, I admit," she said. "I struggled with gaining back feeling in my hands and my feet. And playing lacrosse, as you know, is being able to feel your stick.
"At first, I thought my perception was really off. I was missing shots," she continued. "Things that felt easy before were really, really difficult. Just getting back and doing running"
Even to this day, Stoller fights through physical issues to stay on the field.
"I get dizzy, I feel nauseous. I often times feel like I'm gonna throw up because of all of the symptoms," she said. "But, I'm doing so much better than I was. It definitely was a long road."
Despite those obstacles, Stoller still plays -- and does so at a high level. She's been the leading goal-scorer on the Sharks these past two seasons, and she played for Team Israel in last summer's World Championships.
"I wanna prove people wrong. I wanna show people that MS is not something that makes you lay in a hospital bed for the rest of your life," she said. "You still can compete. You can still live a life that you wanna live.
"But it's a lot -- it's a mental game. It really is," she added. "There's so much stigma with mental health and struggling with all of that. But I'm pretty open with my own struggles about my own mental health. I want to be the difference-maker. I want to show people that you can do more than you really think you can do."
And after what she's gone through, Stoller appreciates her time on the field, her coaches, her teammates, and her family.
"I am so beyond thankful for being out there, being able to play, getting to put my cleats on every day. It's a huge honor," said Stoller. "It's something I'm really thankful for. You don't know what you have until you don't have it. I just learned to be appreciative of everything."
And she has a message for athletes young and old diagnosed with MS or any other disease.
"Keep going. Don't stop," she said. "You can do a lot more than you think you can."
