Just ten days after winning his third Super Bowl championship, New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi’s life nearly changed forever.
On February 16th 2005, Bruschi was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital after suffering from temporary numbness, blurred vision, and headaches.
He was diagnosed by doctors with a mild stroke.
Bruschi recounted his diagnosis in a 2014 interview with Men’s Health;
“My doctors told me I had a congenital heart defect called a patent foramen ovale, or PFO, which is basically a small hole in my heart. A blood clot had formed in my body, and it found a sort of a shortcut through my heart defect to my brain.