Athlete

I played soccer for 20 years until January 2023, when I had a muscle rupture in my thigh, which kept me away from training and matches. At the end of April, I had a throat infection. Within a few days, I was experiencing shortness of breath and felt tired after taking a few steps, but…

In the summer of 2021, I started to experience extreme back pain. At times, I was unable to sit down or move at all.   Being an active 20-year-old who grew up playing sports, I attributed my pain to a tweak that I just needed to stretch out. But the pain continued getting worse, and my…

I have been an athlete my whole life. I am a Division 1 swimmer and work out every day. One day, I started feeling a sharp pain in my lower back after lifting weights and thought I overdid it or used incorrect form. It began to progress and I started getting extreme pain that radiated…

I had a bad crash on my road bike in late February of 2023. My initial injuries were a broken clavicle, shattered elbow, fractured pelvis, three broken ribs, and subsequent collapsed lung. I had elbow surgery that night and waited a month for clavicle surgery. What wasn’t caught, however, was a brain bleed. I was…

On Nov. 17, 2021, I had a right knee arthroscopy, an outpatient procedure that only took only 15 minutes. I was told I would be back walking in two to three weeks. However, my healing time would be severely prolonged. Two days after my procedure, I began having a painful charley horse in my right…

I had been having pain while breathing and shortness of breath for a few weeks. I couldn’t speak full sentences without gasping for air, and I had been ignoring this and the pain because I didn’t feel like I had time to be sick. I tried to rationalize it as a pulled muscle or humid…

I had just gotten over a cold where I was laid up in bed for a few days, so I went for a run to get back on the exercise train. Shortly into my run, I felt an odd pain in my chest and decided to cut it short. The pain worsened over the next…

In December 2012, I was at work when a mild discomfort in my rib cage quickly become excruciating.   Upon arriving at the ER, I was given various tests, including an EKG and ultrasound, which revealed blood clots in both of my legs, or deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Further testing confirmed that I had blood clots…

I had been feeling bad for more than six weeks, experiencing shortness of breath while doing light exercise, like walking up a flight or two of stairs. I had gone from being able to run 8+ minute miles comfortably to struggling to walk at a normal pace in a matter of weeks. My resting heart…

I became committed to staying healthy in my late 40s. At 55, I was in the best shape of my life, hitting the gym three times a week.  One day after exercising, I felt a pain in my left calf, which I attributed to an overzealous workout. However, it continued through Christmas weekend. I planned…