Player injury diary: Will Parslow
The Queensland Rugby League’s player injury diary, presented by TPIL Lawyers, provides greater insight into how our Hostplus Cup athletes return from injury and how they overcome the physical and mental challenges that can come with being sidelined.
In this edition, young Wynnum Manly Seagulls playmaker Will Parslow reveals the unexpected battles he's faced for the past two seasons as he's dealt with myocarditis.
Player injury diary: Will Parslow
Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me over the past two years.
In 2022, while playing Colts semi-finals with the Wynnum Manly Seagulls, I suffered a serious concussion.
I had about five months off rugby league before I was cleared to return by a neuro-physiotherapist in early February of last year.
What I didn’t know at the time was I was quite sick.
I had a virus – which I now know thanks to a blood test was COVID-19 – but I didn’t really have any symptoms with it at first.
When I came back for that first week of pre-season, I couldn’t do any kind of fitness and I sort of thought it was because I hadn’t done any training or physical activity in such a long time.
I thought it was just stemming from having five months off and coming back from a bad concussion.
Within a week or two, I got progressively really, really sick. I thought it was the flu. But I kept training and pushed through it.
I was back running and one day after training, I couldn’t move my neck or my shoulders.
I was super stiff. It went from not having anything and just being a bit fatigued at training to not being able to move my head.
So, I went back and booked into see my neuro-physiotherapist and I asked if it was something to do with my concussion. She suggested I go to hospital but, to be honest, I didn’t go.
Then two days later I woke up with severe heart pain. It was so bad, I had a dream I was having a heart attack.
I woke up with the severe pain and I couldn’t lift my arm up. I was 20 at the time. As a 20-year-old, your brain doesn’t go towards heart attack. It went towards indigestion or something.
But that was about 2.30am in the morning. I tried to fall back to sleep for about an hour and when I couldn’t because of the pain, I knew I needed to go to the hospital.
It ended up that the virus I had caught had affected my heart and it was a thing called myocarditis. It’s inflammation of the heart. It comes from having a virus and sometimes if you keep exercising while sick, it’ll happen.
When I got to the hospital, they plugged me up to an ECG and said all the signs were saying I was having some kind of heart attack.
That’s when I realised it was serious. It wasn’t to do with my head after all, it’s something serious.
They did a blood test as soon as I got in. They check for a protein called troponin and it shows if the heart is under immense load.
The base mark is 0.058 and anything above that you need to be admitted. Mine was at 0.4. It was showing my heart was not in a good way.
I was in hospital for seven days and once I was diagnosed, they said no rugby league for three months minimum.
The hard thing was, I didn’t feel like I was injured. I felt completely normal once I wasn’t doing exercise. But I just had to live a normal life for a bit.
I eventually came back to Wynnum Manly and I was cleared for that return. I played the rest of the 2023 Colts season completely fine, no more symptoms.
Then this year came around and on June 8 I was meant to play my first game of Cup. I didn’t end up getting on the field and then the next day I was sent to do top-up conditioning and I had the same feeling of being really, really fatigued.
I couldn’t train hard. I nipped it in the bud and went home and was sitting on the lounge and started getting the same feeling around my neck. I thought I was having another heart attack.
I told my family and my girlfriend and, blow me down, I woke up at the same time of the morning with the exact same symptoms. This time I knew what was happening so I went straight away to the hospital.
They knew what tests to do immediately and gave me the right medications. It was like a nine out of 10 pain.
So, I’m sort of back at square one. Obviously it being the second time around, they’re taking it a lot more seriously.
The likelihood of getting myocarditis twice in 18 months is really low. The cardiologist doesn’t even think he’s seen someone get it twice.
They’re taking it a lot more seriously and making sure I don’t go back to rugby league and physical exercise until I’m ready.
I’m not allowed to do anything but work and I can’t exert myself. I can’t lift my heart rate above 80.
This time around they’ve really told me to prioritise eating clean and healthy and as much as I can walk at a moderate pace – taking the dog for a walk, helping at training as much as I can, that sort of thing.
Being as active as I can without overdoing it as much as I can.
The biggest issue for me over the past two seasons is because it’s not a physical injury, like an ACL or a shoulder, you’re having to sit back and not train but you feel completely physically fine.
I don’t feel like I’m hurt. That’s the hardest thing to deal with.
I’d say the first time around, when it first happened, I really missed rugby league as well. I missed being around the group. This time (Hostplus Cup coach Mat Head) Heady has made sure I’m around the group, helping with training, which has been a lot better.
I’m self-employed and own my own flooring business, which has helped a lot as well.
A lot of my time is consumed by working and now I can push my business a bit harder and try to grow it a little bit more, I suppose.
My dad’s been a great help with my work, helping me with physical stuff both there and around the house.
And the club has also been crazy supportive towards me, especially since June.
What all of this has done is it has shown me that I am more than just a rugby league player and more than an athlete.
There’s more to life. You get the same enjoyment out of owning my own business and trying to push myself in other ways, rather than physically. I didn’t even know I could do this for myself until I had these injuries.
Ultimately, of course, I’d still love to get back to rugby league.
I’ve gone and had a cardiac MRI. I go back in three months to get the results and see if I have scar tissue on my heart.
If I do, it would mean I wouldn’t be able to play rugby league ever again and I would need surgeries.
But if there is no scar tissue, I should be okay to go back to rugby league and to exercising in general.
They would obviously monitor me back into it and there’s no exact timeline.
But if I’m able to get back to rugby league, I’d love to be able to play at the Cup level.
