Boston Celtics big man Enes Kanter said he fainted twice the morning after suffering a severe hip bruise last month and spent a morning in a local hospital as doctors tried to combat the severe pain he experienced in the aftermath.
On this week’s episode of The Enes Kanter Show, Boston’s big man detailed how doctors believe a combination of pain and internal bleeding might have contributed to Kanter’s repeated loss of consciousness. Kanter missed five games with the bruise before returning on Monday night in Atlanta but said he’s still feeling the effects of the dive on the parquet.
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“I went to sleep [after a game against Memphis] and I had a very hard time sleeping. The next day I woke up and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I think I’m paralyzed,’” said Kanter. “No, I swear. I cannot move. I cannot move at all. I’m on the bed, I’m trying to move right to left, and I cannot move. I texted my trainer: ‘I cannot get out of bed.’ It was so serious, we were going to call an ambulance.
“So I’m trying really hard because this leg, this whole right leg, I couldn’t move it. This was probably like the worst pain I have ever felt in my whole career, probably my whole life. Anyway, I try to get up because the trainer was going to come. He was going to take me to the hospital, it was that bad. So I got up and then like my head started to spin. And I’m like, ‘This is so weird.’ And I fainted. I fainted and I fell on my face. I hit my cheek.”
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Kanter, who still has a small bruise below his right eye, said he regained consciousness only to faint again a couple minutes later.
“I never felt this much pain. I don’t know what was happening,” said Kanter. “I was like,’ OK, let me just calm down.’ I sat on the bed for like 25 minutes, I was drinking water, and I could not get out of bed. … Then I called my trainer again, he said, ‘OK, we’ll take you to the hospital.’”
Doctors performed a battery of tests and determined that Kanter had suffered internal bleeding from the bruise.
“They put me in a wheelchair, they did some blood tests and all that stuff,” said Kanter. “They tried to figure out why I fainted and the doctor came in and he said there’s two reasons. Just because there was so much pain, your body starts to shut down, that was one. The second, just because I hit my hip area and there was a lot of internal bleeding. I lost so much blood.”
Kanter said he stayed at the hospital for a few hours while waiting for his blood sugar to stabilize. He noted that, for the next four days, he could barely move while recovering at his apartment.
Still, in typical Kanter fashion, he maintained a sense of humor about the scare.
“‘I’m like, ‘This is so weird, I cannot miss — this is like the best [road] trip.’ You go to Orlando, you go to Miami,” said Kanter. “I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’ And Boston was freezing, I was like, ‘I gotta go to Miami.’
“I just started to put my socks on comfortably [this week]. I couldn’t even put my socks on. It was such an ugly injury. I literally texted Vincent [Poirier], ‘Tell Marcus Smart, I’m not diving for the ball ever again. This is it. I dive for it one time and I miss five games.’”
Kanter chipped in 8 points and 9 rebounds in just 16 minutes while making his return in Atlanta on Monday. He said he’s still only at maybe 50 percent health and noted he had trouble sprinting during his court time.
With Daniel Theis suffering an ankle sprain in Atlanta, and Robert Williams still sidelined by his own hip issue, Kanter might be Boston’s only healthy true big when the Magic visit on Wednesday night.
For more on the injury and what it’s like for a player to be involved in trade rumors as the deadline nears, check out Episode 12 of The Enes Kanter Show on YouTube or your favorite podcasting app.
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