Blood clot could have killed me... it left my so unfit I couldn't even keep up with my 92-year-old nan!

Former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson has revealed that he was so unfit after suffering a potentially fatal blood clot on his lung that he couldn’t keep up with his 92-year-old granny.
Robinson has returned to training with Blackburn more than six months after the clot was discovered on Easter Monday in March following back surgery.
The 33-year-old explained the symptoms to Blackburn’s club doctor Duncan Robertson over the phone and was told to go to hospital for urgent treatment.

Low point: But Paul Robinson has returned to training with Blackburn

‘It was a Sunday night and my chest started getting really tight and I started coughing up blood,’ recalled Robinson. ‘The next morning I was coughing up a lot more. I just felt like I had a huge man stood on my chest.
‘It was about 5pm or 6pm at night when I finally got seen and found out what it was. “Am I going to die?” was my first question. I was told “yes, you could have died but no you're not because we’ve caught it this early.
‘If it wasn't for the doc here I don’t think I'd have gone to hospital in the first place. For him to diagnose it over the phone like he did I’m very grateful to him and he knows that.
‘After that, for the first couple of months I literally couldn't do anything. I’d get out of breath just walking upstairs.

Despair: The blood cut could have killed the former England goalkeeper

‘My nan is 92 and she came round to see me. I went for a walk outside and she came with me but was streets ahead of me.
‘It was a quite scary, a bit surreal. I felt like a 90-year-old smoker with asthma.’
Robinson has been unable to train with his Blackburn team-mates for six months because he has been taking the blood-thinning drug Warfarin to treat his condition. But now he is approaching full fitness and looking forward to play again.
He added: ‘I’ve done my running and work in the gym but the goalkeeping work – the power and the explosiveness – I’ve obviously lost some of that.

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‘So I’ve started my own pre-season programme now. I’ve had the gloves on a couple of times before but now I can dive around. It was the Warfarin that was stopping me doing that as it thins the blood.
‘We went to Alton Towers for my little girl’s birthday and the next day I had a huge big bruise where the bar had come down from the rides.
‘I would cut myself shaving at home and it would take four or five hours to stop bleeding. It was frustrating.’
Robinson admits that he is coming back to a very different dressing-room under Gary Bowyer after the boardroom chaos of last season saw Blackburn go through three different managers.

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‘I think the manager has done a great job,’ he said. ‘The relationship he has with the players is fantastic.
‘Spending time away from the place and coming back you do see a different place.
‘This year the atmosphere in the dressing room is brilliant. We've got a great team spirit and the boys socialise together. It’s a really good place to be and I think you see that on the pitch.’