In with the good, out with the bad - about 10 to 14 times a minute for an adult at rest. It is so simple and basic that it's safe to say most healthy 20-somethings take it for granted.
Not Danielle Hagen, at least not now.
“I could barely even walk because it hurt, the pain was so bad,” said Hagen, a native of Sidney who returns to her home state for the Big Sky Conference women's basketball tournament Thursday through Saturday at Dahlberg Arena.
Hagen had a pulmonary embolism, blood clots in her lungs. Some research suggests PEs play a part in as many as 200,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone.
Hagen was just starting to prepare for her senior season at the Greeley, Colo., school. She'd had surgery to repair an injured right shoulder three months prior to the first week of preseason drills.
“That whole weekend I just kind of felt weird,” Hagen said. “I thought maybe I was getting sick, then I woke up in the middle of the night with sharp pains in my side. I was also having trouble breathing. Every time I took a breath in, it hurt. As the morning progressed, it just got worse.
“You never realize how much you actually breathe.”
The diagnosis: pulmonary embolism. The recent surgery may have played a part, but so too did the fact that Hagen has a genetic disorder known as Factor V Leiden, a condition that predisposes those who have it to blood clots.
She was prescribed Coumadin - a blood thinner - for six months and backed off of training for basketball. She missed all of last season, sitting out what would have been her senior year as a redshirt.
She came back with a vengeance this season. The 6-foot-1 center, who has started all 112 games of her four-year career, is the Bears' second-leading scorer at 13 points a game and leads the team in rebounding at 9.4 an outing.
But the decision to return to the court wasn't an easy one. Hagen has already earned her undergraduate degree and toyed with going directly into law school rather than returning to the hardwood.
“It did cross my mind, especially at first when I was worried about coming back and all that entails,” she said. “Once I thought about it for a while, started feeling better and started running a little bit and shooting some shots, I realized I would really miss out if I didn't come back. I would have regretted it.”
Hagen earned Big Sky Player of the Week honors for the second time this season last week, when she had 20 points and 19 rebounds as the Bears clinched their first berth in the Big Sky postseason tournament with a win over Northern Arizona. On Tuesday, she was named second team All-Big Sky.
But her story has gained her notoriety beyond the relatively small world of the Big Sky Conference. Hagen was recently named a finalist for the V Foundation Comeback Award, a national honor inspired by the late basketball coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer. The award is given “to an individual or a team who has accomplished a personal triumph in the face of true adversity, be it in health, life or moral dilemma,” a news release from the V Foundation says. The winner will be announced during ESPN's coverage of the Final Four.
“As a national award, it's kind of exciting just to even be nominated for it,” Hagen said. “I read a lot of the stories on the other people and there's some amazing stories in there. Sometimes I don't think mine was all that intense, but my parents seem to think otherwise.”
Her coach thinks otherwise as well.
“Mainly because of her attitude she kept through the whole process,” said UNC coach Jaime White, who is versed in comebacks herself as a cancer survivor. “She had to sit out her senior year - she's smart, she was going to law school - and then does she play with maybe a little fear of a clot coming back? You can imagine going through preseason drills and every time she grabbed her rib area, you wondered.”
Any doubts about coming back have been erased.
“I definitely think it's been one of the best years I've had at UNC,” Hagen said. “Getting to play in an actual conference, how well I've been doing, how well we've been doing as a team for being the first year we're in the conference, making it to the tournament; it's an exciting time. It makes me really thankful for coming back and glad that I did.”
Now Hagen gets the chance to close out her collegiate career in her home state, unless of course the Bears earn a trip to the Big Dance by winning the tournament.
“It's exciting to get in the tournament, it makes it worth all the hard work and effort our team's put in and I've put in while coming back,” Hagen said. “Also being able to come back and play my last few games in Montana, that's pretty exciting to do that in my home state.”
White appreciates the significance.
“I think it's extremely exciting for her,” she said. “We're all excited for her. It's a great story and it will be a great ending.”
Sports editor Bob Meseroll can be reached at 523-5265 or at sportsdesk@missoulian.com.
Tournament tickets
All-session tickets are $15 for general admission, $20 for reserved, $25 for premium reserved, $13 for Big Sky Conference students and for children under 12. Single-session tickets are $5-8 for general admission, $6-10 for reserved, $8-12 for premium reserved, and $5-7 for Big Sky Conference students and children under 12.
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