”You should listen to your body and take action” -Kanu Nwankwo Recounts How His Wife, Amara Saved His Life

Footballer Nwankwo Kanu has recalled how his wife Amara Kanu saved his life and nursed him back to health. He narrated how his heart failure ordeal started and how his wife was his knight and shiny armor at the time.

According to Mirrors, Kanu’s first open-heart surgery was in 1996 after a routine medical examination at Inter Milan revealed the serious heart defect. More than a decade earlier he had needed lifesaving open-heart surgery after being diagnosed with a heart valve defect.

Kanu recalled how a particular day he had just finished spending time with his family and retired to bed with his wife. But She couldn’t sleep as she was bothered about the fact that she could hear his heart beat so loudly and that was unusual.

Amara, on the other hand recalls how his heartbeat sounded much louder than normal as she was listening to his chest. She couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right and insisted her husband get it checked immediately.

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Not only did she save his life, Amara also nursed him back to health and has now written a book called Healthy Living with Amara Kanu, inspired by her battle to get her husband back on his feet. According to her, the book was also dedicated to ‘sport stars’ who also suffered cardiac arrest during FA cup march in 2012.

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Kanu was a professional athlete at the top of his game and had just helped his native country of Nigeria win gold at the Olympics. It took him a year to recover and return to Inter Milan, before being signed by Arsenal in 1999.

In 2000, he set up The Kanu Heart Foundation to help underprivileged children across Africa with heart problems. So far, it has helped save the lives of 538 children needing urgent heart operations. The couple’s next ambition is to open a new hospital in Nigeria so that families do not have to travel outside of the country for treatment.

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The Arsenal legend who retired from professional football in 2012 traveled to the US for his second surgery in 2014 of which they were apart from their children Sean, Ian and Pinky during the time. His wife knew he was always likely to need another valve operation at some point.

Kanu said that during that time his wife would always bring him messages from his kids and all he wanted to do was get well, get up and be with his family. She stood by him, encouraged him and helped him recover fast. He said:

 “Anything to do with heart operations is major. You don’t pray to be in that situation. The heart is the most important machine in the body and when it goes off it’s finished. Now I know that being fit and strong doesn’t make your heart 100%.

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I don’t want this to keep repeating, I am just one of the few lucky persons affected and all thanks to my wife-My wife is right, you should listen to your body and take action.”

He concluded by saying that players were dying on the pitch and it is because these things are not taken seriously enough. He requested that the football clubs should impose strict checks on the players and it should be done quarterly.

Photo credit: MirrorsUK