When it comes to heart valve disease, professional athletes are just like us. We have heart valve surgery. Guess what? They have heart valve surgery.

In prior blogs, I have detailed the inspirational stories of several athletes including Teppo Numminen (Hockey) ^[1] and Ronny Turiaf (Basketball) ^[2]. Both athletes returned to professional sports after heart surgery. Now, Etan Thomas from the Washington Wizards is on his way back to basketball court. The Washington Post ^[3] issued this interesting story earlier today:

When Etan Thomas says that the process of recovering from open-heart surgery began with “baby steps,” he really means it.

“It started with just walking,” said Thomas, who missed all of last season after undergoing surgery last October 11 to replace a leak in his aortic valve ^[4]. Thomas suffered from a congenital bicuspid aortic valve ^[5].

“Just getting up and taking a little walk around this little track they had at the hospital. I’d walk around maybe twice and I’d be exhausted for the day. Not tired. Exhausted. Wiped out. There would be older people out there doing the walking too, and they were whizzing by me. I was like: ‘Man, I’m doing bad.’”

To read more regarding Etan Thomas’ Return To The NBA, click here ^[3].

Keep on tickin Etan!!!