IT was confirmed earlier this week that Leeds Rhinos forward Zane Tetevano is set for heart surgery following a stroke whilst at training.
The news took the rugby league fraternity by surprise with Tetevano hoping to get back on the field before the end of the 2023 Super League season.
For the former Penrith Panthers man, he remembers the incident as clear as day.
“I’m feeling good so far and I’m in good spirits now, it’s been a few weeks now and the club has been good helping me through it,” Tetevano told the Leeds Rhinos website.
“I remember everything and how it all started. I was the first one out on the field at training, I had a spring in my step and was ready to crack on with my session.
“It was in the warm-up period where I began to slur my words and missed three plays in a basic drill.
“I remember speaking to a teammate and the response was that I was talking slurred but then I couldn’t feel my tongue and moouth and thats’ when everything started with the episode etc.
“I had the medical staff there and they knew what was going on. The ambulance came and it was quite a fast period.
“We get medically checked every year and I get mine checked quite often. They did the eco bubble test and then with the bubbles going through the veins they found the hole in my heart that I have had since birth.
Tetevano did explain how it was scary, but that he became close to another patient in the stroke ward he was in.
“It was a scary episode, you don’t know what was going on and then you get told you’ve had a stroke. Everyone knows around here that I’m a quite active person so it was a bit of a shock.
“It was an unreal feeling of ‘I can’t be in this position’ but I have come out the right side with LGI and the nurses giving me the medicine from the get go. Recovery was quick.
“I shared a ward and it was hard to ask the question of how their (stroke) episode started. I got close to one of them so it was nice when I got discharged to get him a Rhinos jersey and then I went back to see him the next day.
“Hearing him say he might lose his job, he’s been working on the railways for 43 years, it was emotional. It was a small gift I could give to him to lift his spirits.”
