Imagine you are one step away from making your dreams come true, and a trip to the doctor sends that dream crashing into the ground. That’s the story for former Baylor center Isaiah Austin. Austin left school early to enter this week’s NBA draft, but doctors discovered he has Marfan syndrome; a rare genetic disorder that affects his heart. Austin also suffers from partial blindness.
According to the Mayo Clinic, complications from Marfan syndrome can weaken the aorta, the artery that supplies blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
“They told me that my arteries in my heart are enlarged and that if I overwork myself or push too hard that my heart could rupture,” Austin said in a brief interview with ESPN. “The draft is four days away and I had a dream that my name was going to be called.”
The 7-foot-1 center declared for the draft after his sophomore season, in which he averaged 11.2 points and 5.5 rebounds on a Baylor team that reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Wisconsin, a Final Four qualifier. During his final season with the Bears, Austin revealed that he had a prosthetic right eye after multiple operations couldn’t repair a detached retina. The eye was damaged when a previous injury was aggravated doing a routine dunk before a middle school game. He started 72 of 73 games for the Bears during his college career.
Austin took to Twitter after making his announcement about his condition on ESPN, “Words can’t explain how thankful I am for the time I had to play this wonderful sport. It changed my life forever.”
He also went on to thank his fans and supporters, “ I would love to thank EVERYONE who has reached out to me. Toughest days of my life. But not the last! Life goes on. GOD IS STILL GREAT!”