The Power of a Team

By: Tucker Mullen

Sitting in my living room watching Sunday Night Football with my roommates, I could feel my body tensing up, a sensation that had been building for several days. My shoulders were inching closer to my neck, my arms tightly crossed, and my neck stiffened, making me feel on edge. When I wasn’t in this position, my roommates described my movements as unusual, saying things like, “It looked like something was hurting inside your chest.” I had hoped that after three or four days, this discomfort would simply vanish, but instead, it persisted, turning nights into sleepless struggles. As the pain refused to subside, my concern grew.

One of my roommates, Matthew Nunes, noticed the intensity of the situation and was adamant that we call our athletic trainer. Nunes wasn’t letting up. “It’s not worth waiting,” he kept saying, pacing back and forth. “What’re we doing? Are we just going to sit here, watching football, while you have chest pains?” His words rang louder and louder until he took matters into his own hands. He picked up the phone and dialed our athletic trainer, Rebecca Vozzo. It had become clear that this was not something I could keep brushing aside or simply wait out. Whatever was going on wasn’t going away on its own.

I’ve always considered myself fit, strong, and resilient. At 22 years old, as a D1 lacrosse player, I’m no stranger to pushing my body to the limit, enduring hard hits on the field, and bouncing back quickly. I rarely get sick, and I thought I had a good sense of how my body reacts. These chest pains, however, didn’t fit into any familiar category—they had nothing to do with my athleticism, lifestyle choices, or any off-the-field decision-making. That’s what scared me the most. I couldn’t make sense of it.

Over the following weeks, countless tests were conducted in Charlottesville and Washington D.C., as doctors tried to pinpoint the cause. Initially, they suspected panic attacks, thinking that the pressure and stress of being a student-athlete had taken a toll. But that didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t feel particularly stressed or overwhelmed. My workload hadn’t increased, and mentally, I felt in control. I knew, deep down, this wasn’t just anxiety. Yet, despite undergoing a barrage of tests—over ten blood labs, two CT scans, an EKG, an echocardiogram, and even a consultation with a pulmonologist—no one could tell me what was wrong.

I was stuck in limbo, not knowing whether this mysterious pain was going to disappear or something much worse.

Fortunately, my sister, Taylor, had interned at Washington D.C. Children’s Hospital years before, thanks to my mom's persistence and unwavering determination to find a solution, she was able to secure me a doctor’s appointment. to see Dr. Charles Berul, a highly regarded cardiologist and the co-director of the Children’s National Heart Institute. Dr. Berul is also a long-time family friend of my grandmother’s, and thanks to that connection, I was able to get in quickly. After conducting a heart MRI, Dr. Berul noticed an abnormality. As I was walking out of the exam room, he met me at the door with a concerned look on his face. He pulled me aside and, with my mom on the phone, told me that I would need heart surgery—and it needed to happen soon.

Just to be sure, Dr. Berul had me take a stress test on a treadmill to see how my heart reacted under pressure. The results confirmed what we feared—surgery wasn’t just necessary; it was urgent. My official diagnosis was an anomalous right coronary artery repair, a rare birth defect that had gone undetected my entire life. The major concern here is that blood flow from the lungs to the heart is restricted, increasing the risk of cardiac events. 

Heart defects like mine occur in 1/100 births and are the most common type of birth defect. Sadly, testing to check for congenital heart defects is expensive. Physicians will only carry out tests when they feel the concern is imminent. A large portion go undiagnosed for years, often only diagnosed when symptoms have exacerbated. 

The diagnosis left me with two choices: I could either quit all physical activity forever, or I could undergo open heart surgery to fix the problem and hope to one day return to the field. It was an overwhelming moment, but the decision was clear.

I needed the surgery.

Another caveat is that I received the news of my inevitable heart surgery alone; my mom had left to fly home to Florida as I went into the MRI scan, and the doctors instructed me to call her as soon as they started to deliver the news in the room afterwards. My mom naturally broke down as I struggled to understand the magnitude of what I was being told, and sat there in silence. 

“This issue would have come up at some point in your life,” Dr. Berul said, “but you’re lucky we caught it now.” The surgery was scheduled a month later at the D.C. Children’s Hospital. It was supposed to take four hours, but it ended up lasting six. During the procedure, they were able to increase the blood flow from my artery to my heart from a dangerously low 40% to a much healthier 93%. The operation was a success, 10 days later.

The night before surgery was the first time I fully processed what was happening. Up until then, I had been caught up in the whirlwind of appointments, tests, and diagnoses, not letting it sink in. But that night, it hit me—this wasn’t just a medical procedure. This was my life, my future, and my passion for lacrosse on the line. Everything I had worked for could have ended right there.

Now, nine months post-surgery, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s the importance of the people around me. My team’s support was more powerful than I ever imagined. Standing in front of 45 of my best friends, feeling their unwavering encouragement, made me realize just how much I had to fight for. This journey has been difficult, but with my team by my side, I know I’ll be back on the field soon, stronger than ever.