Tennis star Serena Williams suffers pulmonary embolism

story by News in a Box

written by Catherine Mar

Tennis star Serena Williams was seen visiting a medical center in Los Angeles, several times last week. Nicole Chabot, William's spokeswoman confirmed that the athlete's health is not so good.

After a set of analysis, a blood clot was found in her lungs. In medical terms that is called pulmonary embolism.

This seems to be a serious health problem, considering that Serena is kept under medical observation.

Her problems started in New York, where she went for foot surgery and shortly after that she jumped on a plane, going in Los Angeles, the place she lives at the moment.

She decided to seek emergency medical attention when she felt a sudden severe chest discomfort and experienced shortness of breath. These are typical symptoms for pulmonary embolism. Apparently a long plane trip having an immobilized foot was not a good choice.

Blood could not circulate the way it should and that caused occurrence of that blood clot. All this could have been avoided, if she had listened to her doctor and just rest for a period of time after the foot intervention.

Approximately 20 percent of population is supposed to have a gene mutation that increase the risk of blood clots; also those women who take oral contraceptives are exposed to this risk.

It is not known if Serena Williams fits in one of these two categories, but it's a sure thing that she is too young for this kind of problems (she has only 29 years old).

Anyhow according to her spokeswoman, at this moment doctors are continuing to keep her under medical observation to ensure that no other complications will occur.

Also Nicole Chabot added that her fans no need to worry too much, because she is a strong young woman : “She's doing okay and she's in good spirits.”

Over the time Serena Williams has faced many accidents and medical interventions more or less serious, but she always come back to her true passion, tennis and win more championships.