FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – Two years ago, News13 told you the story of young man from Florence who at the age of 16 was diagnosed with renal failure.
It was part of a five-year journey that ended with him winning gold at the 2014 Transplant Games.
“I won gold in the doubles bowling. The most one that I always train for is always the shot put,” said Michael Sprauve as he separated his medals on the table.
However, the medals that Sprauve sports are no indication of where he started, but yet a 7 year journey that hit a bump in the road earlier this year.
“It was kind of scary because you don’t really understand how serious a rejection scare is,” mentioned Sprauve.
When we first met Sprauve, the 21-year-old at the time was five years removed from a kidney disease diagnosis and a week removed from walking away from the 2014 Transplant Games in Houston with some hardware around his neck.
Now, at 23, his biggest challenge was making it back to the 2016 games in Cleveland.
“You have a team of about 3-5 doctors who is putting through chemo,” he explained.
“People say you shouldn’t question God, but I said why God? And then I’ll say why not,” said his mother, Machell Sprauve.
He went through rounds of treatment at MUSC in Charleston after going through a recent rejection.
“You have to be strong and we have to strong for him,” stated Machell.
After going through treatment he finally went through nearly two months of recovery to training for the 2016 games.
Michael competed in shot put, discus, bowling and darts and brought home five medals.
“So it brought a lot more people that I haven’t seen before who I can now relate more to,” Sprauve said.
“He has a big heart. After every game whether he won or loss he wanted to shake their hands. He wanted to take a picture with him,” Machell mentioned.
Sprauve says he gave his silver medal to a donor mom at the transplant games and gave his bronze medal to his big sister.
He hopes to go to world games next year in Spain.
