The 26-year-old is recovering from the serious health scare according to North Melbourne doctor Dan Bates.
“He’s home recuperating now. His shortness of breath has settled down and he is on blood-thinners,” Dr Bates told kangaroos.com.au.
“In hospital he was put on a short, fast acting blood-thinner but now he is on the longer acting blood-thinner which he’ll stay on for the next six months. He will need ongoing regular blood tests which will become weekly in the near future.”
Wells went in for a minor shoulder operation following the club’s round 23 loss to St Kilda and experienced complications shortly after arriving home.
“Daniel called and said he’d been short of breath, developed some chest pain, some lower back pain and had coughed up a little bit of blood in the morning. From there we took x-rays of his chest and also a CT-scan. That’s when we discovered large clots on both lungs,” Bates recalled.
Wells’ situation was life-threatening and Bates has revealed the key to his survival.
“Without a massive lung capacity, without an enormous engine of a heart, there’s a good chance he would have died. His fitness as an elite athlete saved him.”
The challenge now for Wells will be getting back on his feet but Bates says he is almost out of the woods.
“He’s gone from life-threatening, down to career ending, down to six months on blood thinners and being a likely starter for round one…it’s a good outcome when you consider everything.”
Although he’ll be able to stay fit, Wells can’t be subjected to any heavy knocks until March.
“He can do as much as he wants from a fitness point of view but he will be more pre-disposed to getting bleeds from things like shaving cuts and from a football sense, knocks or corkies.
“You’re more likely to have a large bleed in the area that’s been hit and will be at an increased risk of a bleed inside the head. It’s simply not worth the risk.”
