I was a ticking timebomb with blood clots. It could have been it... the medics SAVED MY LIFE
GEOFF HORSFIELD has said a public ‘thank you’ to medics after a bout of pneumonia sparked a scare that almost cost him his life.
The former Fulham, Birmingham and West Brom striker has paid tribute to the doctors for their quick-thinking that prevented a disaster after what he thought was nothing more than a shortness of breath turned into an emergency situation.
Horsfield – a crowd favourite at all of his clubs – has already recovered from testicular cancer, but this latest attack on his health went undetected.
The 48-year-old said: “Early last month, I felt a bit lethargic, a bit under the weather. It had been going on for two or three weeks, I just thought to myself: ‘I can get through this.’
Sudden
“All of a sudden, I was at work – not carrying anything – but I was walking upstairs and I started heavy breathing, getting out of breath.
“I thought it would pass so I went with my wife, Tina, to her nan’s house. When I walked in, she said to me ‘Geoff, you don’t look right, you’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
“I was hobbling about. I sat on the settee and the chair and I went dizzy and so we called an ambulance. The paramedics came around and the first thing they did was to take my blood pressure. It was sky-high. Off the chart.
“Their first thought was that I was having a heart attack so they rigged me up to the machines and it showed there wasn’t a problem.
“So, they blue-lighted me to Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield. What they didn’t know was that I had blood clots.
“My own nan had them and that was her cause of death. I’ve always assumed it was hereditary.
“I had my bloods taken. What I didn’t know is that doing this can show up the possibility that you have a clot.
“So they then took a chest X-ray and also found foreign bodies on my lungs. The doctors asked me if I’d had any pain anywhere else on my body.
“I’d had a real soreness in my right calf and I thought it was a pull but they scanned me and found a clot the size of a 50 pence piece. They also found one in my lungs.
“They said if I hadn’t been taken to hospital when I was, that could have been it. Game over. Gone.
“I didn’t realise how serious it was. They scanned my chest and discovered I’d had pneumonia for three weeks.
“If I hadn’t contracted that we might never have known about it. I could have been walking around with the clots now. I was a ticking timebomb.”
Horsfield went on a course of antibiotics, receiving four injections on the first day of his treatment and then the blood-thinning drug Warfarin and will have to take one tablet per day for the rest of his life.
Horsfield who runs a charity helping the homeless in Birmingham, added: “They’ve scanned me since then and the drugs have dissolved the clot.
Lifestyle
“The doctors told me I’d had a narrow escape. They were brilliant. They saved my life, 100 percent.
“It’s given me a kick up the backside. I might have to change my lifestyle – do more walking or cut down on my drinking.
“It looks like more walking. I’m joking.
But I’m here. I’ve got my three kids. After this, every day is a blessing.”