Duquesne WBB’s Wasylson Overcomes Life-Threatening Scare To Return To Court

Lauren Wasylson has been teammates with Ayanna Townsend since 2018, but no day in their friendship was more pivotal than Sept. 1, when the latter’s keen observations proved lifesaving.

Wasylson, a redshirt senior guard on Duquesne’s Women’s Basketball Team, went with her family to Costa Rica and upon coming back and participating in a lifting session, experienced shoulder pain which initially was diagnosed as overdoing it in the gym. In the coming days, the pain would reach her back and she found it hard to breathe.

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This information reached Townsend and during a conditioning drill on that Sept. 1 day, Wasylson had fallen behind and immediately her teammate assessed the situation and explained that it was time to step out.

“It’s knowing a person for a substantial amount of time,” Townsend recalled. “Being a healthcare major, you hear what people are saying and we learn to use our clinical reasoning, now obviously it’s practice, but you can use it all the time wherever you are. I just felt that things that she was saying to me were red flags. I’m an occupational therapist, so we also are taught to be advocates for people around us. Taking those two things into account, these symptoms weren’t normal, they might be problematic and I’m a sixth-year senior, I have a green light in a way to say something is wrong, she needs to stop.”

Wasylson tried to be stubborn, but could feel her body starting to shut down, a further sign that she could not complete the drill.

With athletic trainer Travis Moyer looking on, he made the decision to pull Wasylson and tell her she was finished for the day.

After treatment resulted in feeling worse and being unable to put pressure on her calf over the weekend, her father Mark was called through tears and the pair went to the emergency room.

After a scan found blood clots in Wasylson’s right calf, doctors scanned her chest and explained that she had two big blood clots in her lungs. Tears again began to form as Wasylson feared the worst.

While Townsend expressed her happiness towards how appreciative Wasylson is, she explained that she just was doing what she was supposed to do.

As Wasylson explained, given the seriousness of the road ahead, the severity of the blood clots extended far beyond the basketball court.

“It still gives me chills to this day, they said ‘Lauren you had a guardian angel that day that saved your life,'” revealed Wasylson. “My guardian angel was Yanni. They said ‘if you finished that conditioning drill you wouldn’t be with us today.’ It still blows my mind.”

THE ROAD BACK

To understand Wasylson’s road back is to understand the choices she had to make. While this was not Wasylson’s first time being sidelined for an extended period of time, this journey had less control as to whether she could return to the court for her final season.

Wasylson’s brother had previously been diagnosed with blood clots, though his were attributed to COVID. In Wasylson’s case, it was a combination of not getting up on the plane during the Costa Rica trip and the medication she was previously on.

Early on it was challenging for Wasylson to turn the page from basketball and trying to shake that at an active 24-years-old, she was in the hospital for blood clots which nearly ended her life.

Wasylson was determined to return to the court, and this meant there was no Factor V test, given that a positive result would have yielded being permanently on blood thinners, ending her playing career.

The doctors explained that given the unique circumstance of trying to complete her college basketball career, she would not be in the position to play, but instead strictly have been on blood thinners for six months.

Photo credit PSN/Zachary Weiss

While previous injuries created their fair share of challenges, these circumstances were more dire since they was more out of Wasylson’s control.

There was no timetable to get back onto the court and even if a doctor cleared her, there were still several steps to be taken.

All of it was a lot for Wasylson to take. Though she is never one to give up, there was a question about making an exception. She was unsure if she could persevere this time. There was a thought and fear that she would get shut down by the doctors and she called her mom Kristen weeping.

“I called my mom and said, ‘I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this, it’s too hard,'” Wasylson outlined. “She said ‘I didn’t raise a quitter, Lauren.’ Damn. Okay. She’s absolutely right, my parents were a big part of this, they’re always there for me.”

Wasylson remembered her past refrain of God’s Plan as she continued to navigate and wait out the process.

Everything had to go perfectly and that began with a December Doppler scan which had to come back clean.

The individual, who essentially performed an ultrasound on Wasylson’s calf, walked through everything she saw and explained the importance of a clean result.

Unfortunately, there were still signs of it still being there and Wasylson started crying on the table. Her return was not meant to be.

The final decision would come down to the hematologist and doctors the next week. With both her father and Moyer present.

These doctors determined it did not make sense to be off blood thinners, it was too risky, but there was a way to tweak the system a bit.

That when was Wasylson was introduced to Lovenox. Self-administered in her stomach twice a day, these injections were painful and would not be easy.

“Whatever I had to do to get back on the court again, that was in my control,” decided Wasylson. “I had no doubt doing the injections.”

With that box checked off, Wasylson still had to get more approvals from doctors as well as coach Dan Burt that she could return to the court.

Each box was checked one at a time and so it was determined that Wasylson was back, just in time for Atlantic 10 play to resume at Dayton.

“You just have to be happy that we’re all here,” Townsend expressed. “At the end of the day if you wake up the next morning that’s the number one thing to be grateful for. The medication is a lot, that is a complex process. It reflects her willingness, her strength. Despite all of that she was able to play on Saturday. I don’t know too many people, or even if I could still continue to play after all of that. ”

Photo credit: PSN/Zachary Weiss

THE RE-RETURN

Wasylson had been stoic throughout discussing her experience, but when it came time to recounting what Saturday at Dayton meant to her, especially with her father and brother in attendance, she lost it.

Through tears, she explained how she took everything in during pregame warmups and all she could do was smile.

“I didn’t think I was going to get to that moment,” she stated. “Seeing my dad and my brother there and just looking around thinking ‘wow I’m blessed. God is so good that I have the ability to play basketball again.’ I thought my career had ended.”

Wasylson subbed in the first quarter and immediately grabbed a couple of rebounds, but it was in the second quarter when junior guard Megan McConnell found her cutting on an inbounds pass. Wasylson stepped back and netted a three-point shot as the entire bench got up and loudly applauded, a feeling she called “amazing”.

She would add a second make in the third quarter, playing a total of 17 minutes in a convincing victory.

March 2 is Duquesne’s senior day and while there is still plenty of basketball to be played before that, it will hold extra meaning for Wasylson given how many times the game and in this instance her life was taken away.

Instead, Wasylson’s will, belief, support and gratitude all won out. Now it is on to accomplishing one final goal.

“Just getting through all of the adversity that has come my way, through all of the peaks and valleys just being so grateful to experience college basketball and get to the point where I came from freshman year at Xavier and all of the ups and downs there to coming back home and playing at Duquesne,” concluded Wasylson. “Hopefully we can win an Atlantic 10 championship. That’s the goal.”