I woke up and couldn’t walk, recalls Guttenbeil
Former professional rugby league player Awen Guttenbeil spent months in hospital as a child after he was diagnosed with rheumatic fever.
Now aged 40, the former Kiwis and Warriors player regrets that at 9, he concealed a sore throat from his parents because he didn’t want to miss out on playing sports. His illness got much worse.
“I remember clearly the morning I woke up and couldn’t walk,” Guttenbeil has written in the Herald.
“I couldn’t move my joints and I was in a whole lot of pain. I remember dragging myself out of bed and pulling myself up the hallway trying to stand myself up against the wall and leaning against it to stay upright.
“I called out to mum to come and help me . . . ,” he says in a video to encourage people to get a sore throat checked.
“They took me up to Whangarei Hospital and they diagnosed me with rheumatic fever. Pretty scary when you knew that it was something to do with your heart.
“I was put on a course of penicillin injections for 10 years. Monthly injections. It took me about two years before I got back to doing the things that I was before I became sick.”
He believes that if he had told his parents about his sore throat straight away, he might have avoided rheumatic fever.
“If you know your child is not well and has a sore throat, you’ve got to get it checked.”