Lundstrum battles debilitating condition to earn spot on FHS girls tennis team
Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008
It's difficult enough to earn a slot on a Class 7 A high school tennis squad as a sophomore. Add a debilitating physical condition and the odds are heavily stacked against it.
That's what one Fayetteville High 10 th grader has endured to make her mark as the No. 3 singles player for the Lady Bulldogs. After a barrage of tests and visits to multiple specialists, London Lundstrum was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS ).
Lundstrum said she experienced headaches and nerve pain last February. A visit to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., uncovered the problem.
Lundstrum said before she was diagnosed she was unable to stand at all and was even forced into a wheelchair during her visit to Johns Hopkins.
"I would always get real faint and no one could tell us why," Lundstrum said. "I couldn't even read because everything looked blurry."
Lundstrum developed POTS while fighting a viral infection and missed over two months of school. That infection combined with what specialists called "a small heart "to generate the physical imbalance required for POTS to develop.
"Your body has to have the perfect storm for POTS to develop," said Tonya Lundstrum, London's mother. "It was a secondary condition as result of a viral infection where she went down and her blood volume went down. And unbeknownst to us, she was born with a smaller-than-average heart, which combined with everything else to allow it to develop."
The disorder is characterized by orthostatic intolerance, a condition in which a person's body cannot effectively adjust to the pull of gravity. A person with POTS will experience excessive heart rate increments upon upright posture caused by a physical imbalance in the autonomic nervous system, which affects the body's ability to control blood flow. The autonomic nervous system regulates the necessary adjustments in heart rate, blood pressure and vascular tone upon standing.
Experts say that incidence is on the rise, estimating that one out of every 100 teenagers suffers from POTS. Women are also five times more likely to develop the condition.
POTS experts say that teenagers often develop the condition during years of rapid growth and that 75-80 percent of sufferers can expect to be asymptomatic once they reach adulthood.
As for her life in the present, Lundstrum said she's under doctor's orders to consume large quantities of sodium for her headaches, which helps suppress her POTS symptoms, and to engage in a rigorous exercise regimen to aid her heart's growth.
"I even salt my pancakes," Lundstrum said. "I eat ungodly amounts of salt every day and drink lots of Gatorade. Before, I never salted anything. The doctor even told me to drink two cups of coffee every morning because it's good for my headaches. But I just always have a headache and I'm used to it now."
Lundstrum, though, said her the nerve pain she initially experienced still hasn't subsided. Doctors currently can't explain why she is still experiencing it.
"I can't even push on the sides of my arms or tops of my legs because they always feel like they're bruised," Lundstrum said. "And sometimes it's a stabbing pain but not like a cramp. Every doctor we've been to still hasn't been able to explain why I'm still having it. I've been on several different medications and I've had trouble with some of them."
Lundstrum began easing back into tennis in mid-May. It wasn't easy climbing back to the level required to be a key player on the FHS varsity team.
"My footwork had really gotten clumsy and my endurance obviously wasn't where it needed to be," Lundstrum said. "But I worked hard to get back, though I was pretty shocked that my coach put me at No. 3."
Fayetteville coach Kim Dutton expressed confidence in her young pupil, lauding her knack to battle on and off the court.
"It's a miracle she's even out here at all," Dutton said. "But to be playing the quality of tennis that's she playing after what she's been through is nothing short of amazing. She's a great all-around player with all the strokes. She's only a 10 th grader so there's a real bright future ahead for her."
Lundstrum, who played doubles last year as a freshman, said she suffered from more than just the sophomore jitters in her first varsity singles match of this season.
"I was nervous because I still wasn't quite sure if I was just supposed to push through the pain," Lundstrum said. "I didn't know if I could hurt myself worse if I did. A doctor in Dallas told me I could push through it and I'd be fine. By the middle of a match, I'm feeling the effects of it and I just have to push through it."
It's not often children become examples for their parents but Tonya Lundstrum said her daughter's spirit through a very trying time has been an inspiration for their entire family.
"It's been torture as a parent," Tonya said. "To watch her go through this was very hard for us as a family. London's been amazing through this and she's a real fighter. We all know that she really has a very big heart."
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