BEING a rugby league player is no easy feat.
Professionalism, talent and the ability to bounce back from devastating injuries are all part and parcel of a rugby league player’s career.
Unfortunately, for some stars, the latter becomes all too familiar.
One of those stars is Gary Wheeler, who retired earlier in the year after a career of devastating injuries.
Wheeler began his career at St Helens, playing 64 games over a period of seven seasons before moving on to the likes of Warrington Wolves, Toronto Wolfpack and lastly, Barrow Raiders.
In the end, it was the after-effects of Covid-19 that forced Wheeler’s hand.
“The decision to retire was taken out of me hands in the end,” Wheeler told League Express.
“At the start of last season, I got Covid like everyone seemed to be doing at the time and I had some heart problems after it.
“I got myocarditis which is like a tear on one of my heart valves with scarring, so I had to wait three to six months for it to heal.
“But, when I got back to playing I got a reoccurrence of some of the symptoms such as leg swelling and chest pain.
“When I’ve gone back to the cardiologist and had all my testing done, my cardiologist told me to retire from top level sport, and that it wouldn’t be good to continue playing.”
That issue is still ongoing now, but Wheeler hopes it will heal eventually.
“The problem is still ongoing, it is up and down. I have chest pains most of the time, it’s sort of like under management. I’m under testing with regular scans from my cardiologist to make sure it doesn’t get worse.
“Myocarditis will heal but as it heals it leaves a scar, but that can then cause problems.
“What I did was, it was healing and then I started to play rugby too soon again and it opened again and put more scar tissue on top.
“There are few complications aside from the myocarditis. It can develop into arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. That’s what I’m getting tested for now which is like an irregular heartbeat.
“I’ve been through my whole career with setbacks but I have the mindset of just crack on, I don’t get too down about it.”
With reference to his setbacks, Wheeler had a career of torrid injuries, which limited him to just 120 career appearances for the likes of St Helens, Warrington Wolves and Toronto Wolfpack.
“I’ve had plenty of injuries and some have come at pretty bad times. In my last year at Saints, I ruptured my hamstring, so I had that redone and then I ruptured my Achilles at Warrington.
“They were two big ones, my Achilles took a longtime to come back from and was difficult to come back from. I then re-ruptured my hamstring at Toronto. Those three have been my bigger injuries.”
The toll it took on Wheeler was not just physical, but mental too.
“It was really challenging as you can imagine, it was tough going through that cycle of training on your own and being alone.
“Having fans saying ‘oh you are injured again’ and the pressure from yourself got me down. When you’re not playing you are down about it and for it to happen over and over again, it is really disheartening.
“I didn’t want to give in and I kept going through it. All of my family were telling me it was time to pack in but I thought of it as a challenge to come back and come back better.”
With such major injuries, the 33-year-old has had lasting effects following his retirement.
“I’ve had lasting effects, probably more so now I’ve stopped training.
“I’ve had to stop completely, so it does limit me but not a huge deal. My Achilles especially is in a bad way – I have chronic tendonitis in it and that does impair me a bit.”