PaCkFan_n_MD
08-07-2006, 10:33 AM
By LORI NICKEL
lnickel@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 6, 2006
Jason Horton thought he was a perfectly healthy 25-year-old professional athlete.
The reserve cornerback had just completed his rookie season in the National Football League playing special teams for the Green Bay Packers in 2004. Just a couple of months after the season ended, he was back home in Ahoskie, N.C., waking up with the chills, his bed soaked in sweat. He couldn't eat. He dropped 10 pounds within a few days.
Confused and alarmed, Horton called the Packers, flew to Green Bay and underwent one test after another until doctors finally found what they were looking for.
X-rays showed white spots near his lungs.
"They thought it was cancer," Horton said.
A biopsy was ordered for first thing the next morning. Tests, instructions and procedures were planned so fast Horton didn't even call his parents and tell them where he was or what was going on.
He figured he'd get the biopsy that March morning in 2005, learn the results that afternoon and then contact his loved ones. But the next thing Horton knew, he woke up in a haze in a Green Bay hospital, tubes coming out of his stomach, bandages on his chest, and a doctor explaining something about his trachea being torn during the procedure.
"When they were trying to remove one of those (lumps), they ripped my trachea," Horton said. "But I don't really know (what happened). Honestly, I don't.
"I woke up thinking I was going to go home, but I was out of it because of the anesthesia. After he told me, I was, like, OK, something went wrong, blah blah blah blah. I went back to sleep because of the anesthesia.
"Bleeding internally like that, I could have died. For me to go to sleep and never wake up again, my mom and dad would have been devastated because they didn't even know."
It wasn't until Horton woke up at a Green Bay hospital, with his parents John and Clara Horton at his bedside, that he realized he was in serious condition. Instead of his scheduled outpatient biopsy, Horton was hospitalized for six days. He was down to 169 pounds, 21 below his playing weight.
He thinks he had a handful of lymph nodes removed. Thankfully, they were benign. But he was told he had sarcoidosis, the disease that killed Reggie White.
Horton was devastated, figuring his NFL career was over.
"It really set me back football-wise," Horton said. "Pretty much, like, my career was over. I couldn't move. I couldn't walk. My parents took care of me until my girlfriend (Tryce Vinson) took over, and she took care of me. I couldn't do nothing on my own. My baby was just born, and I couldn't hold her for three months. Do you know how that made me feel, that I couldn't pick my own baby up?"
Yet Horton recovered to make it back last exhibition season and played for the Packers as a reserve cornerback. But then he injured his right shoulder, tearing his labrum in a training-camp practice.
He's not sure whether he came back to football too quickly and hurt his shoulder as a consequence, but after what he went through with the lymph nodes and trachea, Horton couldn't imagine not playing. So he dragged himself onto the field and played nine regular-season games, mostly on special teams, with the bad shoulder.
"I played 12 weeks on a torn labrum," Horton said. "Same thing Drew Brees had, I played 12 weeks on. Just happened in practice, a freak thing. I took three MRIs and nothing showed up. I ain't no doctor, so I don't know, but that's what they said."
Finally, Horton's shoulder could take no more. He was placed on injured reserve on Nov. 23.
Horton's future was in doubt again. That's nothing new to him. A North Carolina transfer who played two seasons at North Carolina A&T, he has often felt the odds against him.
"But I didn't want my career to go out like that," Horton said. "I've been counted out so much I just wanted to prove that I'm a good football player if I'm given the chance."
He has another chance. He signed a one-year contract extension with the Packers in March. He got back into the weight room and can now bench press 320 pounds, a hefty amount for someone his size, especially considering his shoulder injury.
A year and a half after the spots showed up on his chest X-ray, Horton still isn't sure what his final diagnosis is. If he has sarcoidosis, he said he didn't have any more symptoms. Another doctor's opinion was that Horton might have had an infection in his lungs. Packers trainer Pepper Burruss declined to get into specifics of Horton's case, and associate team physician John Gray did not return a message. Federal laws protect a patient's medical history, and many physicians do not discuss specific cases.
A long, dark scar glides down the center of Horton's chest where the lymph nodes were removed. Another scar sits at the base of his throat. Another is in his abdomen. He has an indentation in his right shoulder where he might have a bad nerve from the shoulder surgery. And he can't fill his lungs with a deep breath the way he used to.
Yet he's one of nine cornerbacks fighting for a roster spot in training camp, third string behind Al Harris and Mike Hawkins on the right.
"I look down at my body and go, 'OK, I've got scars for life, got a dent in my chest,' " Horton said. "Doctors never made no promises to me. I always feel less wind than I usually have, ever since that happened.
"My chest is not the same chest as I used to have, but it's my dream. This is what I always wanted to do so I'm going to give it all I got to the last day. I'm determined to be more than just a nomad in this league, if I can help it. If I can help it."
lnickel@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 6, 2006
Jason Horton thought he was a perfectly healthy 25-year-old professional athlete.
The reserve cornerback had just completed his rookie season in the National Football League playing special teams for the Green Bay Packers in 2004. Just a couple of months after the season ended, he was back home in Ahoskie, N.C., waking up with the chills, his bed soaked in sweat. He couldn't eat. He dropped 10 pounds within a few days.
Confused and alarmed, Horton called the Packers, flew to Green Bay and underwent one test after another until doctors finally found what they were looking for.
X-rays showed white spots near his lungs.
"They thought it was cancer," Horton said.
A biopsy was ordered for first thing the next morning. Tests, instructions and procedures were planned so fast Horton didn't even call his parents and tell them where he was or what was going on.
He figured he'd get the biopsy that March morning in 2005, learn the results that afternoon and then contact his loved ones. But the next thing Horton knew, he woke up in a haze in a Green Bay hospital, tubes coming out of his stomach, bandages on his chest, and a doctor explaining something about his trachea being torn during the procedure.
"When they were trying to remove one of those (lumps), they ripped my trachea," Horton said. "But I don't really know (what happened). Honestly, I don't.
"I woke up thinking I was going to go home, but I was out of it because of the anesthesia. After he told me, I was, like, OK, something went wrong, blah blah blah blah. I went back to sleep because of the anesthesia.
"Bleeding internally like that, I could have died. For me to go to sleep and never wake up again, my mom and dad would have been devastated because they didn't even know."
It wasn't until Horton woke up at a Green Bay hospital, with his parents John and Clara Horton at his bedside, that he realized he was in serious condition. Instead of his scheduled outpatient biopsy, Horton was hospitalized for six days. He was down to 169 pounds, 21 below his playing weight.
He thinks he had a handful of lymph nodes removed. Thankfully, they were benign. But he was told he had sarcoidosis, the disease that killed Reggie White.
Horton was devastated, figuring his NFL career was over.
"It really set me back football-wise," Horton said. "Pretty much, like, my career was over. I couldn't move. I couldn't walk. My parents took care of me until my girlfriend (Tryce Vinson) took over, and she took care of me. I couldn't do nothing on my own. My baby was just born, and I couldn't hold her for three months. Do you know how that made me feel, that I couldn't pick my own baby up?"
Yet Horton recovered to make it back last exhibition season and played for the Packers as a reserve cornerback. But then he injured his right shoulder, tearing his labrum in a training-camp practice.
He's not sure whether he came back to football too quickly and hurt his shoulder as a consequence, but after what he went through with the lymph nodes and trachea, Horton couldn't imagine not playing. So he dragged himself onto the field and played nine regular-season games, mostly on special teams, with the bad shoulder.
"I played 12 weeks on a torn labrum," Horton said. "Same thing Drew Brees had, I played 12 weeks on. Just happened in practice, a freak thing. I took three MRIs and nothing showed up. I ain't no doctor, so I don't know, but that's what they said."
Finally, Horton's shoulder could take no more. He was placed on injured reserve on Nov. 23.
Horton's future was in doubt again. That's nothing new to him. A North Carolina transfer who played two seasons at North Carolina A&T, he has often felt the odds against him.
"But I didn't want my career to go out like that," Horton said. "I've been counted out so much I just wanted to prove that I'm a good football player if I'm given the chance."
He has another chance. He signed a one-year contract extension with the Packers in March. He got back into the weight room and can now bench press 320 pounds, a hefty amount for someone his size, especially considering his shoulder injury.
A year and a half after the spots showed up on his chest X-ray, Horton still isn't sure what his final diagnosis is. If he has sarcoidosis, he said he didn't have any more symptoms. Another doctor's opinion was that Horton might have had an infection in his lungs. Packers trainer Pepper Burruss declined to get into specifics of Horton's case, and associate team physician John Gray did not return a message. Federal laws protect a patient's medical history, and many physicians do not discuss specific cases.
A long, dark scar glides down the center of Horton's chest where the lymph nodes were removed. Another scar sits at the base of his throat. Another is in his abdomen. He has an indentation in his right shoulder where he might have a bad nerve from the shoulder surgery. And he can't fill his lungs with a deep breath the way he used to.
Yet he's one of nine cornerbacks fighting for a roster spot in training camp, third string behind Al Harris and Mike Hawkins on the right.
"I look down at my body and go, 'OK, I've got scars for life, got a dent in my chest,' " Horton said. "Doctors never made no promises to me. I always feel less wind than I usually have, ever since that happened.
"My chest is not the same chest as I used to have, but it's my dream. This is what I always wanted to do so I'm going to give it all I got to the last day. I'm determined to be more than just a nomad in this league, if I can help it. If I can help it."