via InsideLacrosse.com, Photos Courtesy of Tucker Mullen and Virginia Athletics

Excerpt:

A Year After Open-Heart Surgery, Virginia’s Tucker Mullen ‘Like a Kid Again’ on the Lacrosse Field

by Matt Kinnear

This Thanksgiving was a far cry from last Thanksgiving for Virginia attackman Tucker Mullen.

This Thanksgiving featured a trip back to Florida. The traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Even celebrating his grandma’s 80th birthday.

Mullen hardly remembers Thanksgiving Day 2023 because of the painkillers. He’s almost sure his family brought some sort of Thanksgiving meal to the hospital, but it was all a haze really.

Mullen, then 21, was recovering from open-heart surgery he had undergone the day prior. He had diagnosed with coronary artery anomaly, a congenital heart defect that most often goes undetected. It’s a leading cause of sudden death among young athletes.

But Mullen’s story is a happy one because he went to the doctors, and he had the trust of his teammates, his coaches and his trainers.

“The biggest thing is listening, listening to what your body’s telling you, because if it is nothing, they’ll get you back out on that field as soon as they possibly can,” he said, exactly a year to the day of his first heart surgery. “Athletes, we push our bodies to the max. We do what we can, fight through the pain and play. There are times to do that, 100%. You get a bruise, it’s OK, it’s a bruise, play through that. But you know yourself, you know your body, and there are times where you really got to step up and advocate for yourself and talk to people and make sure you’re being aware.”

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