When did you have your first swimming lesson?
When I was 10 months old. My mom took me to Mommy and Me classes at the local YMCA. I took lessons until I was 6 or 7. Then I saw the YMCA swim team and decided I wanted to join. Soon I was winning a lot in my age group.

You stopped swimming for six years. Why?
Just before I turned 10, I began having problems with a shoulder that kept dislocating. It wasn't painful, but my parents thought I should see a doctor. During the visit, the doctor, who thought the dislocation was caused by swimming, told me I needed to immobilize the arm or it would get worse.

What revealed the real cause of the dislocation?
That same year, my parents and I drove to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. On the way, my arm fell asleep and never woke up. Then my other arm started to feel weak. I couldn't pick up utensils, and I was really lethargic. My father took me to the emergency department, where I underwent an MRI, a lumbar puncture, and a whole physical workup. I was eventually diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a degenerative nerve disorder.

How did you recover from your initial symptoms?
I had to learn to walk again and to understand what I could and couldn't do with this new body. The attitude my parents communicated to me was, “No matter what it is, if you practice, you'll be better than before.”

How has the disease affected you physically?
I have numbness and weakness from my knees to my toes. I've sprained and twisted my ankles more than 200 times. I drag my feet and often trip—and I can't jump.

When did you get back into swimming?
My sophomore year in high school, I transferred to a school that had a swim team. That first year, I swam just during the season. By the time I graduated, I was swimming seven months out of the year—and I won the 50-yard freestyle at the district championships.

Did you swim in college?
Yes, but my career was unimpressive. In my junior year, during the championship meet, I swam poorly. It broke my heart and I fell into a depression. I realized then how much swimming meant to me. I called my parents and told them I wanted to defer my education and concentrate on swimming. My parents were fully supportive, so I left college in Ohio and went to train at the University of Southern California (USC).

What happened at USC?
My coach noticed something unusual about me right away. She said, “The way you move reminds me of someone with cerebral palsy.” That was the first time I told anyone about my disease. Thanks to her, I started training differently. I was resting more and swimming fewer laps. I joined the Paralympics movement in 2018, and in Tokyo last summer I swam the race of my life and won the bronze.

What are your plans for the future?
I'm training for the 2024 Paralympics, and I've established a foundation called Swim Up Hill, with the goal of teaching a million people a year worldwide how to swim.

Listen Now

Dr. Audrey Nath spoke to Jamal Hill about winning bronze at the Paralympics on the Brain & Life Podcast.