Ohio Mom Overcomes MS Diagnosis at 15 to Compete in Bodybuilding (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Kaleigh Napier’s multiple sclerosis symptoms began at 12, and the diagnosis was confirmed three years later

• A clinical trial at 18 stabilized her symptoms and helped her return for her senior year of high school

• The single mother of two trains six days a week and shares her experience online

Growing up in Columbia Station, Ohio, Kaleigh Napier was no stranger to the gym. Her mom was a gymnastics coach and Kaleigh started tumbling when she was 18 months old.

As a girl, she was active and adventurous. She thought she might become a police officer or join the Marine Corps.

But when she was 12, she started feeling numbness in her arm. “It would come and go,” she recalls. Doctors thought it was a pinched nerve or cartilage damage from years of training.

At the time, she was successfully competing in all four events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercises.

But then, at 13, she started falling during competitions.

“There’s a video of me eating the beam,” she says. “I would lose complete feeling.”

Her body would “freeze up” during floor work and she would drop to the ground. “It was scary — especially as it started happening more often,” she recalls.

Suddenly she started getting migraines and her vision was blurry. “I was in bed for days,” she says. “It became worse.” Kaleigh was referred to a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic, about 30 minutes from her home.

An MRI of her spine showed lesions on her C4 vertebra. The doctor told her mom Jodi Napier that he was pretty sure she had multiple scelerosis, a chronic, unpredictable autoimmune disease which affects the central nervous system. An MRI of her brain showed more lesions, and confirmed the diagnosis.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, no,’ ” says Jodi, 55.

Jodi was all too familiar with the condition. Her father, Kaleigh’s grandfather, Bill Stodahar, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was 40. He died at 77 in 2024.

“I knew Kaleigh was going to think, ‘I’m going to be like Papa. Am I going to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life?’ ” Jodi recalls thinking.

She was right. Kaleigh says her first thought was her grandfather. “I watched him do everything he possibly could before he went into a wheelchair,” she says.

When Kaleigh began treatments at the Cleveland Clinic, she was the youngest person there.

“It is super, super, super rare,” to be diagnosed that young, says Desiree Chizmadia, 43, a nurse practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis, who has treated Kaleigh since she was a high school student.

Luckily, she didn’t have the more severe type of MS as her grandfather. Her Papa’s was primary progressive MS, where neurologic function worsens as soon as symptoms appear. Kaleigh’s diagnosis was relapsing-remitting MS, where attacks are followed by periods of partial or complete recovery (or remission).

“My grandfather told me: ‘You are not gonna end up like me, you’re strong,’ ” Kaleigh recalls. “He was my biggest motivator. He was always there for me.”

His experience living with the disease brought comfort to Kaleigh. When she couldn’t find the words to explain what she was going through, her grandfather came to her aid.

“He knew how I felt,” she says. “He would help me explain it. He was always there for me for everything.”

But still, she admits, she found herself in “a really dark place.”

“I was feeling my life was over,” she says. “It was very hard. I was very angry. School was extremely difficult because I’d be fine one day and then in a wheelchair the next day, unable to walk, no feeling in my legs.” Some of her classmates thought she was faking her condition.

A few months into the school year, Kaleigh started homebound education. She was on a ton of medications, infusions and steroids. She went to the ER so often that the doctors there knew her protocol.

When she was 18, she joined a clinical trial that improved her symptoms and enabled her to go back to school for her senior year. “It wasn’t a cure, but the treatment helped stabilize my symptoms,” she says. She started to get used to her new normal and was able to graduate with her class in 2018.

“I look back at hard days and I’m honestly so proud of myself for getting through,” she says.

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The summer after graduating, one of her mom’s friends, a former bodybuilder, encouraged her to start strength training at the gym. Kaleigh was excited about the idea — she missed the strength of gymnastics and the confidence it brought. She started weightlifting and soon, powerlifting.

“It was to prove to myself that my MS wasn’t going to define me or determine what I was capable of,” she says.

Her first bodybuilding competition was during her freshman year of college in October 2018.

Her Papa was one of her biggest supporters.

“He was really proud of me,” she says, “He never said it, but I think he was really happy that I was taking after him, because he stayed really active, even while in a wheelchair.”

Now a single mom of two kids, Xavier, 4, and Everleigh, 2, Kaleigh lives with her mother. She just got hired as a delivery driver for FedEx. She and her dad are opening a food truck business.

“I’m a very busy mom,” she says. “I want my kids to realize we can be dealt the hardest cards, but we’re stronger than what we are dealt.”

She works out at the gym six days a week for 3.5 hours. “It’s like a home to me,” she says. Her mother, cousin, dad and step-mom all help with childcare. “I have a big support system throughout my family,” she says.

Her next bodybuilding competition is later this month.

The training helps her combat MS. “Staying active helps with my pain that I go through every day,” she says. “If I were to sit on the couch all day and do absolutely nothing, my body will slowly deteriorate.”

She also has an infusion every six months.

When she was first diagnosed, Kaleigh went on social media searching for other people her age with MS. “I was like, “Is there anyone else out there dealing with the same thing as me?” she says. “I never felt like anyone my age understood my struggles that I was going through.”

She shares her MS Journey and her bodybuilding with MS on Instagram. “I’m stronger than my MS is,” she says. “I want others to feel the same.”

By telling her story, she hopes people will understand they are not alone.

“This diagnosis doesn’t mean your life is over,” she says. “We can have a really hard day, but it doesn’t mean that tomorrow has to be a hard, too. Make it better.”

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