UWM women’s basketball coach learns to cope with debilitating condition
There were the flights on the plane where she blacked out.
The drive through South Bend, Indiana, when she was so sick she pulled over to rest on the concrete pavement.
There were the feelings of faintness. Heart palpitations. Endless headaches. Stomach pains. Panic attacks. Sensitivity to lights and sounds.
There was one diagnosis, and then another, and endless questions for years before the truth.
So, when Kyle Rechlicz tells you today she is no longer obsessed about winning or losing or 20-hour workdays or the things in sports that she cannot control, even whether she will keep this job forever — she means it.
Because there was a time when she was young and fit enough to conquer half marathons and a Tough Mudder — and then her whole world was turned upside down by dysautonomia, a condition that most of us have never heard of or understand.
It’s a lot different from the anxiety, depression and irritable bowel syndrome diagnoses she had previously received. For nearly 10 years, Rechlicz treated and managed these other disorders the best she could with medicines and lifestyle adjustments.
But after she had her daughter Payton in 2005 — when Rechlicz was still in her 20s — she was sick much of the time with nausea and loss of appetite. She took meds for depression and anxiety but the symptoms never truly subsided. She kept it all to herself, too. “There’s a stigma that comes with anxiety, depression and even IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). It’s like an embarrassing factor,” said Rechlicz. “So nobody wants to admit that they have these things.”
The year 2012 was a breaking point and a breakthrough.
It was her second year as women’s basketball coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and she was on an early-morning flight. She did not feel good, so she turned to the person next to her for a nutrition bar. She couldn’t even chew one bite; her hands, jaw, everything had clenched up.
“I was hitting the call button with my wrist. At this point I’m thinking, I’m going to die,” said Rechlicz. “My heart was racing. And then I blacked out.”
After having some sugar and electrolytes, she believed her condition was due to the fact she didn’t eat breakfast.
It wasn’t. She got on the next flight that same day and felt all the symptoms return. She blacked out twice. Threw up.
“I had no idea what was going on,” said Rechlicz. “I remember sitting in the first doctor’s office when he said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’ And just crying because I don’t know how I can live my life like this. I’m a college basketball coach and I can’t stand up for more than 10, 15 minutes without feeling like I’m going to pass out.”
Finally, a doctor had the right suspicions and ordered the right tests — taking her blood pressure lying down, sitting in a chair, then standing up and doing more tests on a tilt table.
“And it drops considerably,” said Rechlicz. “Because part of it is my brain is not telling my blood vessels to constrict. So when I stand up, everything pools to my legs and that’s when you get the rush — like I’m going to pass out.”
She got a new diagnosis: dysautonomia (pronounced dis-oughta-NO-me-uh). Specifically, she has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), one of the most common forms.
It isn’t fatal but it is debilitating and the severity of the symptoms vary from one person to the next, from one day to the next.
Dysautonomia is an umbrella term that covers illnesses of the autonomic nervous system, which controls automatic functions of the body, such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, sweating, body temperature regulation, pupil dilation and more, said Christy Jagdfeld.
Jagdfeld is a volunteer with Dysautonomia International, serving as the national treasurer and the chair of the Wisconsin support group. Her daughter, Meghan, a swimmer at UWM, also has dysautonomia.
Doctors and cardiologists told Rechlicz that the number one rule of managing POTS was to eliminate stress.
“And I just had to laugh. I’m a college basketball coach,” said Rechlicz. “I said, OK, what’s next? I don’t think that’s going to change.’ ”
She has reduced caffeine and alcohol consumption, follows a healthy and clean nutrition plan and takes medications that allow her to do her job.
But functioning and thriving are two different things. That first year after the diagnosis? It was rough. Rechlicz put pressure on herself to make every practice and game. Coaches live with no days off. They travel. They manage a team of college kids, which means 15 individual challenges. It’s a stress avalanche.
She was having a lot of panic attacks. Couldn’t get into elevators. Couldn’t fly.
“If we had a game in New Mexico, I drove to New Mexico,” said Rechlicz.
“I just had to — through a lot of prayer to be honest with you — I had to just stop. And just trust that I was going to get through every day.”
The former three-point shooting ace with the Wisconsin Badgers also had to tap into her self-discipline skills to create a routine in a chaotic world.
She has 24 ounces of water before she gets out of bed in the morning because water helps with circulation and blood volume. She will drink 100 to 140 ounces of water by the end of the day.
She uses essential oils for anxiousness. She does PiYo workouts (pilates and yoga) when she can. She eats very healthy, small regular meals. Chicken and fish, almost no red meat and vegetables.
And she leaned on her staff and counted on her family, all of whom have been relentlessly supportive.
How have the UWM athletic directors treated her?
“Awesome,” said Rechlicz, who recently signed a five-year contract extension. “They asked what they could do. They asked me if I needed time off.
“Amanda Braun and Kathy Litzau were extremely supportive,” she said of the athletics director and senior associate athletics director. “Even now, they’re consistently asking, ‘How are you feeling? Is this a good day? Are you keeping your stress levels low?’
“My staff is great. If I’m not having a great day, they know that right off the bat — and they take over.”
Rechlicz took out the blaring horns at practice. Her office is low-lit and mellow, a perfect place for fiveminute meditation. She has tried to put her health first. But this is a job where coaches work 60 to 80 hours a week. And there are still days where Rechlicz pushes too hard and pays for it the next day.
“I spent that whole first year wondering if this was a profession that I could do,” said Rechlicz.
She can. She can fly now (she fights through the vertigo), she and her Panthers took on a tough nonconference schedule to prepare for Horizon League play, which will start a few days after Christmas.
“Year 7 is a lot easier than Years 1 and 2,” said Rechlicz.
“The other thing I’ve learned is this is who I am. I can’t change that. And that’s helped me with my panic attacks, too, because I think panic attacks get worse when you start buying into the panic attack. You feel overwhelmed.
“And then you feel judged.
“And then it makes it 10 times worse.
“So I’ve just learned this is who I am and I’m accepting of it. If other people want to judge me for that, then they’re not truly my friends or not truly people I want in my life anyway.”
Rechlicz and Jagdfeld are hoping that by telling their stories, they will increase awareness that will lead to greater funding for research, better treatment and, hopefully, a cure.
The Wisconsin support group has more than 850 members. Jagdfeld said more people are diagnosed with POTS than multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s.
“It’s an epidemic hidden under everyone’s noses,” said Jagdfeld. “Every day, someone new learns more and joins our group. It’s not rare and patients are desperate for help and travel the country for doctors.”
Rechlicz gives everything she has to her family and her team and to the condition that she must endure. What she no longer gives is energy to the things that don’t matter.
“I’ve changed my perspective on life,” said Rechlicz. “I’ve had this conversation with a lot of coaches who are very much like, ‘We have to win this game. My team is going to be terrible this year.’
“I look back and that used to be me. I used to overanalyze.
“Now, if it happens, it happens. If we don’t win — and I think we will because we have some excellent players — but if I were to happen to lose my job? It’s not the end of the world. I will find something else.
“I’m just going to do it the right way and hope that everything turns out for the best. That’s all you have control over.”