SLIPPERYROCK — Sanda Busser lay in her hospital bed, her heart straining to beat 17 times per minute.

She grabbed her brother's hand and squeezed it as if it were for the last time.

"Jeff," Busser said. "I'm dying."

Warning signs

Just days before, Busser was a typically active 20-year-old athlete.

Always moving at a frenetic pace, Busser was on the cross country, track and basketball teams at Padua High School, located just outside of Cleveland.

She parlayed her skills as a high-energy guard into a spot on the Slippery Rock University women's basketball team.

Just a month away from her junior year at The Rock, Busser expected to see ample playing time.

But in early July, she awoke drenched in sweat on a nightly basis. She had chest pain and shortness of breath.

Finally, the symptoms became too pronounced to ignore and her mother Judy took her to a nearby hospital.

Doctors diagnosed her with an irregular heartbeat and admitted her for observation.

"My heart was at 42 (beats per minute)," Busser said. "Which, for a young athlete, wasn't all that bad."

Doctors ran tests. As they did, Busser's condition deteriorated.

At 3 a.m., Busser was asked a startling question, one she was not prepared to answer.

"Do you know what a pacemaker is?" the nurse asked.

Stunned, Busser simply shook her head and said, "No."

"I had never heard of a pacemaker in my life," Busser said.

Because of the extensive tests doctors were running on Busser, she wasn't able to sleep.

That might have saved her life.

By 5 a.m., her heart rate had dropped to 20 and she briefly lost consciousness. Doctors had a defribillator ready in case her heart stopped.

Busser then was told something even more startling.

"If I would have fallen asleep at any time during the day, I wouldn't have woken up," she said. "If I was on the basketball court, I would have just dropped dead."

The tests had revealed the severity of her condition.

Busser had complete heart blockage and needed immediate surgery to install a pacemaker to keep her heart from failing.

"Everything in the top chambers of my heart was getting pushed down into the nucleus," Busser said. "And it didn't push out down to the bottom."

Her heart was drowning in its own blood.

As she waited to go into the operating room, her heart rate plunged to 17 beats per minute.

Busser prepared herself for death.

"I should have died that day," Busser said. "It was scary wondering if I would make it to my 21st birthday."

The aftermath

After three hours of surgery, Busser emerged with a pacemaker and a good prognosis.

Her life would be changed forever, but she would have a life.

During the ordeal, Busser never thought about basketball, the sport she enjoyed so much that her friends often had to pry her off the court to do simple things like go to the movies.

Busser lay in bed several days after the surgery when Jeff walked into the room with a serious look on his face.

"I think you deserve to know the truth," her brother said.

Busser had no idea what he was talking about.

"You can't play basketball again," he said, softly.

"I immediately kicked everyone out," Busser said. "I swore about a million times. I just sat there for three hours and went through the worst."

Fighting spirit

Busser won't be denied. She's not built that way.

She started her collegiate basketball career at Baldwin-Wallace University, a Division III school near her Cleveland home.

But she wanted more. She wanted to play at a higher level, so she transferred to SRU and earned a spot on the team through hard work, energy and guts.

With the roster decimated by injury last season, Busser started 11 games and averaged 4.3 points and 2.1 assists per contest as a sophomore.

"She played a lot and played well for us last season," said SRU women's basketball coach Laurel Heilman. "We were expecting her to do the same this season."

Busser's recovery was long. She had to wait patiently as her heart muscle grew around the leads of the pacemaker.

For months, Busser was confined, unable to run or do anything remotely strenuous.

By November, Busser was thinking what at first was unthinkable — a comeback.

She informed her surgeon of her desire to play basketball again.

"I've never had anyone ask me if they could go back," he told Busser. "Six months ago, your life was on the line. I saved your life. Now, you want to play basketball?"

Busser did, more than she ever thought she would.

She took a stress test and passed it with flying colors. Her pacemaker barely had to work to keep her heart from failing.

On Dec. 3, Busser was cleared to practice. On New Year's Eve, she waited by a fax machine at Morrow Field House for word that she was cleared to play in a game that day against Seton Hill University.

"I was on the phone all morning calling doctors," Busser said. "I had to get the fax by 10 a.m."

She got it at 9:30 a.m.

Busser's line in the box score was far from eye-catching: 14 minutes, zero points, one assist, three rebounds.

But the biggest statistic she put up that night was beating the long odds.

Busser was a basketball player — with a pacemaker.

"It was like the first time I had ever played," Busser said. "I didn't care what happened."

Busser plays with a protective pad under her jersey that cushions blows to the pacemaker and its wires, which visibly protrude through her skin.

The range of motion in her left arm is comprised and, when she raises her hands to shoot, her left arm is six inches shorter than her right.

Her shot is coming back, and with the knee injury to point guard Nikki Presto, so will her playing time.

To Heilman, her return was nothing short of miraculous.

"I thought the best case was she would be allowed to shoot around on the side hoops," Heilman said. "It was shocking she got the green light to play."

Busser has played in 13 games since her comeback and is averaging 12 minutes and 2.2 points per contest for The Rock, which is battling for a spot in the conference tournament.

"Basketball was everything for me," Busser said. "To get basketball back was the biggest thing. No one comes back from a pacemaker."

Busser's pulse

On the basketball court, Busser is free.

No thoughts invade her mind about her pacemaker, her heart rate, whether she will wake up the next morning.

It's just her, the basketball and the player guarding her.

Off the court, it's a different story and the next phase of her recovery.

"After the surgery, I didn't go to sleep for days," Busser said. "I was so scared to fall asleep because I was afraid I would die."

When Busser walks to class, she checks her pulse. When she hoofs it up one of the steep hills on the SRU campus, she checks her pulse. While sitting in class, listening to a lecture, she checks her pulse.

"I check my pulse about 30 times a day," Busser said.

Friends tell her to forget about it, but thoughts of that day in July when she almost died make it impossible still.

"Every day I wake up knowing I have a pacemaker," Busser said. "It's big. I'm glad I'm alive.

"My first life is over," she adds. "I'm on my second life now. I can never go back to the way I was before."