The COVID-19 infection that forced Alexander
Volkanovski from a title defense at UFC 260
proved to be a difficult experience for the reigning featherweight
champion.
Volkanovski shared the details of his experience battling
coronavirus in a video posted to his YouTube account. The symptoms
began after the UFC informed Volkanovski of his positive test.
“I started feeling it in the lungs a little bit, and I started
feeling uncomfortable,” Volkanovski said “I started coughing up
phlegm, and it was coming up pinky bloody with a bit of blood in
there … That’s when I thought maybe we should start looking into
this. I was having bad fevers and headaches, but that’s sort of
common. So I started talking with him about it, and that’s when I
was thinking maybe we need a check up.
“They end up doing some scans on my chest and lungs and Dr.
Davidson comes back to me and says, ‘Look, we’ve done scans and
you’ve got COVID pneumonia. So the infection has spread into the
lungs.’ Sort of mild case, it can be pretty common, but we didn’t
need too much there. It can be pretty common and me being young and
healthy, we don’t need no medication.”
Volkanovski was released from the hospital but given instruction to
return if his oxygen levels became too low. After a while, he began
coughing up blood again and his oxygen levels decreased to
worrisome levels, so the City Kickboxing standout returned to the
hospital. There was a point where Volkanovski began to get
concerned as his heart rate continued to drop.
“My heart rate started getting very low,” Volkanovski said. “There
was a stage where I started to freak out a little bit because I
talked to the doctor the second time I went in there and he said
I’d gotten a lot worse. The lung doctor came in and another doctor
talked to me and was explaining to me, ‘Look, you’ve got to be on
medication but don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We’ll keep monitoring.’
Then I asked him about can it spread to anywhere else, maybe the
heart and all that because I was noticing my heart rate dropping
each day. It just got lower and lower. So they said I would notice
because it would hurt and my heart rate would go lower so I had
that in my mind, which was freakish for me.
“The next morning, they had the ladies checking up on me because
they had the heart rate monitor on me 24/7 and the guys go,
‘They’re just checking up because your heart rate is getting a bit
lower so I need to just keep getting your vitals and whatnot.
You’re getting down to 37 [beats per minute].’ So that started
freaking me out,” he continued. “I start thinking, Oh s—t, maybe
this is starting to get into my heart now, infection in the heart,
so I started getting nervous. But the doctors assured me that I’m
very young and healthy and fit so don’t worry, your heart is fine.
So that made me feel better because I ended up averaging all night
37 and I got down to 35 beats per minute. That’s pretty low. After
that, each day in the hospital, there was no more blood in my
phlegm, my breathing started getting a lot better. Obviously, I was
very uncomfortable previous to the hospital visit but I started
really seeing improvements so the medication was working and that
made me feel a lot better.”
Now that he’s recovering, the next step for Volkanovski is to
gradually ease his way back into training. It’s going to take a
little bit of time for him to get back to his normal levels of
activity, however.
“Obviously, I haven’t done much training for the last few weeks but
now that I’m better, [the UFC doctor told me] I can slowly, no more
than 50 percent light week,” Volkanovski said. “Then 75 percent
next week and then start to pick it up. I’ve got to ease into it…
So I guess I can start to do about 50 percent. I wish I could go
harder but I’ve got to ease into it. Obviously recovery is very
important. It’s gonna be a fair few weeks where I need to ease into
it and recover. Obviously I don’t want to have problems like some
guys like Cody
Garbrandt and Khamzat [Chimaev] got. Obviously they had a lot
of lung problems and it was starting to affect them and now I feel
it.”
Volkanovski elected to share his experience to detail how scary
COVID-19 can be, even for a high-level professional athlete. His
matchup with Brian
Ortega that was originally scheduled for UFC 260 will now take
place after the two featherweights serve as coaches on “The
Ultimate Fighter 29.” An official date for that featherweight title
bout is currently unknown.
“This whole COVID thing is no joke,” Volkanovski said. “That’s why
I wanted to do this video. Again, everyone is going to have their
thoughts, but a lot of people were asking me how it was like
getting symptoms, and now you guys aware. The symptoms got pretty
wild. We got the normal symptoms, and they can lead to other
things. So I got the normal symptoms that led me to pneumonia and
other problems. It got pretty serious.
“I think if I was unhealthy, maybe I would’ve got other problems,
and you can see how people pass away and things like that. This is
quite serious. I’ve always taken it seriously, but know I
understand it’s very unpredictable and very, very contagious
because, again, it’s something that got in and got a few members of
the team, so it was a crazy experience, but we’re all good. I’m no
longer contagious, so I can go out and about, which is good. And
yeah, so now we just want to get home.”