Senior Standout: Belt’s Shelby Paulson

Everybody remembers seeing this iconic moment of Michael Jordan playing through pain Now before you start yelling at your tv because you think I’m going to compare this week’s senior standout to Michael Jordan, I promise you that’s not the case. But Shelby Paulson has to play through pain in not just one game, but every game she’s a part of. “My legs get very heavy, numbness, tingly sensation sometimes. But pretty much heavy, they’re pretty hard to pick up and I’m trying to get my brain to move my feet. They’re just kind of half a second slower than I would like them to be.” Said Paulson Shelby suffers from a condition known as acute transverse myelitis. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s not surprising. Not even one thousandth of one percent of Americans have it. One of the problems with this condition is that it’s activated by overheating, and when Shelby’s going hard in the paint for the belt Huskies, she tends to work up a sweat. “I lose feeling up into my calves sometimes and if I get sick I lose feeling up into my legs.” Huskies head coach Jeff Graham says that Shelby is such a tough person that he’s never seen it affect her or get her down, even though it would happen to others “I think she plans almost too far ahead to enjoy things, that’s our big thing this year is enjoying things and not thinking too much, Just kinda letting things go. But she’s had a great year so far in volleyball, and cross country, it’s the healthiest she’s been, that new diet has been great. We’re just trying to get her to have a little more fun and relax this year.” Said Graham. Shelby’s toughness and perseverance through illness are what makes her this week’s Senior Standout.