Josh Sims

[The Mighty Brian Rowe]

Interesting article on "The Athletic".
Seems like the poor lad has been through an awful lot.

https://theathletic.com/2958956/2021/11/17/i-had-this-stabbing-pain-i-thought-it-was-a-heart-attack-josh-sims-explains-why-he-hasnt-kicked-a-ball-since-may?source=user-shared-article

Josh Sims had already been admitted to hospital several times, sometimes rushed there in the back of an ambulance, before he woke up one morning in August fearing the worst.

The Southampton academy graduate had gone through a wretched eight-month spell, which began with a hamstring injury last December and culminated in what he thought would be the end of his playing career aged just 24.

“I remember we had all our family and friends over for (partner) Zoe’s baby shower at the end of July, when we had that really hot week,” he tells The Athletic.

“I don’t know whether it was the heat, but I started to feel unwell. I went upstairs and I remember going to sleep quite early. I woke up the next morning, sat up watching TV and had this stabbing pain in my heart.”

Sims sits up in his chair and squeezes his hands together to demonstrate the sensation he felt in his chest that morning.

“I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack,” he added. “This was a stabbing pain and different to anything I had before.”

This came not long after Sims had been released by Southampton at the end of last season. At the time he was linked with several Football League sides, including the Premier League club’s neighbours and arch-rivals Portsmouth but, behind closed doors, illness had meant he would often not been able to get out of bed, let alone sign for another club.

Indeed, Sims was left bewildered when former team-mates and other friends in the game would message to check up on media rumours about his next move.

“It was funny, because I knew they weren’t true,” he says. “I had other players messaging asking whether I was joining their club.”

Clubs themselves would sometimes contact Sims, and his agent, too: “It was hard because at that point we didn’t know what was wrong. We didn’t want to say there was a major problem when there may not have been.”

As Sims says, how can you explain what you’re battling when you don’t even know what it is?

His story is one of multiple setbacks; injuries, coronavirus, ulcerative colitis and heart scares. But it’s also one of love, support and looking forward to the future after a turbulent year.

Sims had become accustomed to being sent out on loan, and last season was no different, with the forward joining League One side Doncaster in the October. Keen to play regular first-team football, he got off to a good start, scoring three times in his first month before he had to return to the south coast in December with a hamstring injury.

Due to strict COVID-19 protocols, he had to join a bubble at Southampton’s Staplewood training base to start his recovery. Looking back now, this is where he believes his near year-long struggle began.

“Just before Christmas, I think it was December 22, one of the boys I was rehabbing with tested positive for coronavirus,” Sims explains. “I had to self-isolate over Christmas because I had a last-minute call and was told to stay at home.

“At the start of January, my hamstring was all fine and I was fit enough to go back to Doncaster. I had signed all the paperwork and then had a call from the doctor at Southampton. I thought they were calling just to send me on my way, but they told me I had tested positive (for COVID-19). I didn’t have any symptoms, but back then you had to self-isolate for two weeks.

“Throughout the two weeks, I didn’t have any symptoms. I thought it was a false positive. I went back to Doncaster after a couple of weeks, but I never felt the same.”

Not long after returning to the Keepmoat Stadium, Sims started to feel fatigued. For a player who is lightning quick and prides himself on eating well and staying healthy off the pitch, he says he would be “shattered” as little as 30 minutes into a match.

“Towards the back end of the season, I just felt different,” he recalls.


Josh Sims in action against Peterborough during last season’s loan spell at Doncaster (Photo: Getty Images)
Unsure exactly what the issue was, Sims continued playing, as most footballers do, but then suffered another setback.

“At the end of March, I picked up a glute (buttock) injury — it was the onset of sciatica,” he added, “I’m a player that is never really injured unless it’s an impact injury, but all these little niggles started popping up and I wasn’t ever getting better, it was only getting worse.”

Although Sims recovered from that glute problem, he continued to feel lethargic and eventually lost his appetite, which then naturally resulted in his weight falling. Clearly in need of help, he sought medical advice.

“Around April, I started getting a really bad stomach, even though I hadn’t changed my diet or anything like that,” he recalls. “After a month of not being able to sleep or eat properly, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which is what (former Manchester United midfielder) Darren Fletcher had.

“It’s basically inflammation in your bowel. It’s normally a hereditary illness, but they thought in my case it was a long-term effect of coronavirus. I was feeling so bad for such a long time because of that.

“I couldn’t keep food down. I was still playing at the time and Doncaster were managing the situation. But they were only aware of it once I had been diagnosed with it in April, towards the back end of the season.

“The thing with ulcerative colitis is that you can’t cure it, you have to take tablets which can calm it down. I had the choice to go on tablets or steroids (prednisone). Steroids would help speed up the process, but you would need to get certificates to be able to keep playing football. Or you can take the standard tablets, which would take a lot longer.

“I chose to take the tablets and by the end of the season it was starting to get better. I was eating more and had started putting weight back on. My normal weight is around 67 kilograms and I had dropped to 62.”

While all of this was going on, Sims also found out he was going to be released by Southampton once the season was over. He found out the news in a meeting with Matt Crocker, the club’s director of football operations.

He didn’t view this as a negative, though. In fact, he was looking forward to establishing himself at one club somewhere after a series of loan spells away from Southampton over the previous three years. Plenty of clubs had shown an interest and a move to the Championship looked likely.

During those conversations with other clubs, and around a week after the season ended in May, Sims thought he had caught coronavirus again.

“I went to get a coronavirus test and it came back negative,” Sims tells The Athletic. “The day my result came back I was lying in bed and I can remember how tight my chest was getting.

“It was squeezing like this (he presses his hands together again) and I was gasping for air. I was thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’ You have all these things going through your head and I was as white as a ghost.

“Zoe took me to hospital and I couldn’t walk up the hill outside. I thought I was going to collapse. I sat in A&E and even though they push you forward when you have chest problems, it felt like I was sat there for a year.

“I remember sitting there, freezing cold, shivering and struggling to breathe. I didn’t know what was going on.

“Someone came to get me, took me upstairs and carried out all different tests. That same day, they said it was myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle. My heart had swollen from what I thought was a virus.

“I had never heard of myocarditis. I was moved to a ward and I remember lying there and Googling it. I lay there crying as I thought I was never going to be able to play again because of a heart problem.”


Sims takes on Romelu Lukaku during his Premier League debut vs Everton in 2016 (Photo: Getty Images)
Sims stayed in hospital for three nights while further tests were carried out and it became evident that his myocarditis was an incredibly rare side effect from the medication he was taking for his ulcerative colitis. Because of this, they immediately took him off the tablets.

However, that then led to his ulcerative colitis worsening again. And upon his release from hospital, Sims’ health took another turn for the worse.

“Within three hours of returning home, my chest pain was so bad,” he adds. “I couldn’t even get out of bed. Where my heart was swollen and I was lying down, it was just putting pressure on my heart.

“Zoe called the ambulance and I had paramedics in the bedroom putting wires on me, and I honestly can’t describe the pain I was in. It was unbearable. My heart rate when I was lying in bed was between 120-130bpm. The paramedics took me to hospital and I was there for about a week.

“All the swelling in my heart had got a lot worse second time around and the actual lining around my heart had also become swollen. Every time my heart would beat, it rubbed on the lining. That’s called pericarditis, so I now had myocarditis and pericarditis.

“They put me straight on the steroids and at that point it just needed to be sorted out and they would also help my ulcerative colitis. I was getting better and my ulcerative colitis was put to one side in the middle of June.”

But, when Sims gradually started weaning himself off the steroids, he took another turn for the worse. It was at this point Zoe, who was heavily pregnant at the time, went behind his back to try to help him.

“When you’re that ill, you don’t know when you should start feeling better,” he conceded. “I was lying in bed, had no appetite at all and started losing a lot of weight again. Luckily, I had Zoe. Looking back at it, I was in such a bad way. I remember telling her that I would get better in no time and that I was supposed to feel the way I did. But she was so worried and knew I shouldn’t feel or look like this.

“I was home for a week and then she started speaking to the doctor at Southampton. The club knew what was going on, but not to what extent. They weren’t aware how bad I was at this point.

“She spoke to the club doctor without me knowing, as I was unable to get out of bed for about two weeks. And because I couldn’t lie down in bed, I had to sit up all the time. I was still getting night sweats and a good night’s sleep was about three hours.

“It didn’t matter what I did. I was taking morphine and that didn’t help at all. Zoe kept telling me I needed to get help and I kept saying no.”

Sims agreed to get more help once he saw how swollen his ankles and feet had become after being bed-bound for so long. There was, however, yet another health scare on the horizon.

“Because all I could do was watch TV, I remember watching it one day at the end of June and laughing at something I saw and I then got a shooting pain all the way down by my lungs,” he recalls.

“I told Zoe about it and I was told to go to hospital as they thought it may be a blood clot. Luckily it wasn’t, but the swelling had moved to the outside of my lungs. Every time I breathed, it hurt.”

Sims was immediately put back on his full dose of steroids. By mid-July, he started to feel better.

Meanwhile, the medics were still trying to determine what had caused his myocarditis. There are two viral infections that can lead to it, but Sims tested negative for both. This led to the conclusion it must have come from his ulcerative colitis medication.

“It felt like I couldn’t catch a break,” he says. “I was probably in hospital for, in total, about a month. It’s hard for me to talk about it now because Zoe saw me in that way, but I don’t remember much from it.

“She said from how I looked that she didn’t think I would be able to play football again. She just wanted me to be healthy enough to do normal things. But when you’re in your own body, you don’t see any of that. I was rushed to hospital in the back of an ambulance three times.

“Thinking rationally, this all started from the hamstring injury in December. We still don’t know whether COVID caused the chain of events, and I will never know. It’s really frustrating, because you want to know what has made you ill, but it’s something I’ll never find out. I’ve had countless tests and still nobody knows.”


Sims hasn’t kicked a ball since his loan at Doncaster ended in May (Photo: Getty Images)
Sims’ last trip to hospital was in August, when he thought he was having a heart attack, and he has been on the mend ever since. Although he’s still taking medication for his heart, he has been completely weaned off the steroids.

He is eternally grateful to Southampton, who have stepped up and offered their former player all the medical support he needs. In October, the club’s cardiologist gave him a patch to wear next to his heart for two weeks, which gives them 24/7 feedback and allows them to check for any arrhythmias and other irregularities.

“All the data got sent back to Southampton and the cardiologist at the club — I won’t forget it — messaged and said he’ll give me a call later on,” adds Sims. “I was so nervous, because it was pretty much make or break.

“Because of my myocarditis, I have scar tissue on my heart and that means part of my heart doesn’t beat. The cardiologist said you can have up to 20 per cent of scar tissue before being told you can’t play football.

“But it was really good, positive news. There is a tiny bit of scar tissue, which is to be expected, but the patch would determine whether it was going to affect my heartbeat — and it didn’t. It was all really positive and that was a massive weight off my shoulders.

“That was a big turning point for me, because it meant I could start thinking about playing football again.”

Southampton have asked Sims to come in and train at Staplewood three times a week to help him build up his fitness levels. He says he hasn’t even kicked a ball since May. The club will also allow him to take part in training sessions so he can become match-ready for any interested clubs.

After spending some time on the exercise bike and in the gym last week, the expectation is that he will be able to start running outside on the grass this week.

Incredibly positive in his outlook, the hope is that he will be medically signed off in January after he has a final MRI scan.

The clubs who showed an interest in Sims after last season have remained in contact and, all being well, he could finally be playing again early in the new year.

“We are still taking it slow, but I’ve got a goal now,” he explains. “January is the best-case scenario, and we will work from there.

“Where I move next, they will obviously be aware of my heart. There are still a lot of clubs interested, which has helped me a lot. Knowing clubs still want you is a really big thing because, at the start, I was thinking nobody would want me.”

It’s hard to ignore how often Sims refers to Zoe; heavily pregnant throughout his ordeal, there was never a day he didn’t have her full support.

The couple welcomed Otto, their son, into the world at the beginning of September and this, Sims says, gave him all the motivation he needed to ensure he returns to professional football. And always looking for a positive, he admits that without his health issue, he wouldn’t have been able to spend every day since his birth with Otto.

“Since December, it was always one step forward and two steps backwards, starting with the hamstring injury,” he reflects.

“Otto being born was a major thing in my life that I could look forward to. Before that, it was just negative after negative and it was hard to stay motivated because it was taking its toll. But Otto inspired me to get better and I want to do well for him. That has been the overriding positive from it all.”

[ctay]

Wow, the lad has been through a massive amount. It explains his drop off with us. I hope the lad gets back to playing regular. Interesting read. Good to hear Southampton supporting him. Hopefully gets to have a good rest of his career without any issues.

[Chris Black come back]

Top player. Hope he can get his career moving again. Great talent.

[drfchound]

Wow, the lad has been through a massive amount. It explains his drop off with us. I hope the lad gets back to playing regular. Interesting read. Good to hear Southampton supporting him. Hopefully gets to have a good rest of his career without any issues.

He certainly has been through the wringer but it also highlights that when fans get on players backs for poor performances that there can be underlying problems that we don’t know about.
Players are just like us, they have “bad days at the office” and should get a bit of slack from fans when they don’t give a good performance every week.
I remember Josh got plenty of stick when he came back after his his injury.

[MachoMadness]

Unbelievable, really. Can't imagine what that must have been like for the lad, just one thing after another like that.

Looking back it was clear he wasn't right last season, hopefully once he gets back on the grass he'll be flying again.

[Monkcaster_Rover]

Hard to read. Bless him.

Fingers crossed he can crack on from January!

[Campsall rover]

That certainly explains why he wasn’t the same player when he retuned in January.

Wish him well for the future whatever he goes.

[The Beast]

Very interesting, insightful piece. Hope he can get back to some sort of good health and relaunch his career!
Reminds me a bit of the Kieron Brady situation, hope he manages to play pro again unlike Kieron.

[Spud]

Wow, some grim reading there !
Good luck Josh, & credit to Southampton for their part

[DRNaith]

Wow, the lad has been through a massive amount. It explains his drop off with us. I hope the lad gets back to playing regular. Interesting read. Good to hear Southampton supporting him. Hopefully gets to have a good rest of his career without any issues.

He certainly has been through the wringer but it also highlights that when fans get on players backs for poor performances that there can be underlying problems that we don’t know about.
Players are just like us, they have “bad days at the office” and should get a bit of slack from fans when they don’t give a good performance every week.
I remember Josh got plenty of stick when he came back after his his injury.

Absolutely this. As fans, we don't have the right to know people's personal information, even if it is affecting their performance on the field.

[Canadian Rover]

Insightful article. I hope Josh can find a way back to full health and fitness and eventually get his career back on track.

[wilts rover]

That's some of the symptons I had after getting a virus acouple of years ago. They are still doing tests and still can't identify what is for me. Poor lad.

[steve@dcfd]

Well it shows now why he was never the same player. How the virus affected the rest of his body and the medication he was taking then cause other problems. Very depressing for him he will be wanting to get back to good health then if he can prove his fitness so he can get back to football. It’s whether any team will take the risk let’s hope so.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Incredible that he went through all that. Wish him all the best with his recovery and hope he can resume his career.

I think we need to cut John Taylor and Fejiri some slack when they try to get back.

[Pancho Regan]

Thanks Mighty Brian Rowe for sharing that.

What an incredible set of events for Josh to have suffered. He must have been so worried and desperate at times.
I really hope he gets back to the fitness he had before this terrible run of ill-health and back to the tremendous form and ability we witnessed.

I'd have him back here like a shot.

[NewDonny]

Awful luck..............hopefully he's through it all now.

Good luck to the lad, I hope he comes back bigger, better and stronger in the New Year and puts this all behind him!

[Colin C No.3]

It’s so frustrating when you’re that ill but have no proper diagnosis he must have felt so low. Thank goodness he had Zoe by his side, she certainly sounds like she’s been a rock for Josh.

Hat’s off to Southampton for all their continued help for him too.

I sincerely hope we’re one of the clubs still keeping in touch, as Pancho says, I’d have a fully fit Josh Sims back here in a shot.

[WarwickRover]

What a journey

Anyone know how I can can a message of support to Josh?

[elmsallrover]

Probably one of the best rovers players during my time watching them I never saw

[Sammy Chung was King]

No sentiment involved here  as you can’t as a football side, I would get him training with us ,and give him an opportunity to get a deal with us.
Horrible what he has been through.

[jmt23]

Thats what I would do as a club, almost a calculated gamble.
Short term deal or pay as you play

[ForsolongaRover]

Very few, if any Rovers players, have made such an impression as Josh did, especially in such a short time here. It was obvious in his approach to his football that he had exceptional determination and courage, qualities that he has had to draw on heavily during these successive  life-threatening  medical conditions.

It would be wonderful if he could play again for us, but whatever course he follows we surely all wish him the very best wishes for the future.