Brian McKeever

Brian McKeever, a Canadian cross-country skier and 10-time paralympic games gold medalist lives with the progressive macular condition, Stargardt’s disease. McKeever was diagnosed when he was 18 and remembers clearly the day he found out. “The optometrist said, ‘It’s really strange, I can’t get your eyes any better with lenses’. I knew exactly what it was because my Dad and Aunt both have Stargardts.I was referred to an ophthalmologist and we did some blood tests and realised I was a carrier for the same dominant gene.”

McKeever, who became the first Canadian athlete to be chosen for both the Paralymic and Olympic teams in 2010, says those first few weeks post-diagnosis were rough. “There was a period of grieving and then I quickly realised I could look at my Dad and Aunt as examples. He was a teacher at an elementary school for more than 30 years. Okay, he doesn’t drive, he rides his bike everywhere, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as the initial knee-jerk reaction may have seemed.”

At the time of going to press, Brian McKeever was targeting further success at his fifth Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.