LSU's Kim Mulkey Reveals She Had Potentially Life-Saving Offseason Heart Surgery

LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey revealed that she underwent a potentially life-saving heart procedure over the offseason.

According to ESPN's Michael Voepel, Mulkey had not experienced symptoms of any heart issues, but numbness at the tip of her finger prompted her to visit the doctor, which resulted in the discovery that a procedure was necessary.

"I never even felt bad," Mulkey said. "I'm still kind of in shock that we accidentally found this. So my message in sharing this is, if you're over 50, go get a stress test.

"I've had some of my former teammates tell me, 'We're going to do it.' That's why I share these things. I'm an open book if it's something that can help people. It's just a great lesson for all of us who think that it won't happen to us."

Mulkey said she had two stents put into a coronary artery that had 95-99 percent blockage in late June. The blocked artery wouldn't have been found if she didn't have the wherewithal to request further evaluations.

After the numbness in her finger was unsurprisingly diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome, she asked during that same doctor's visit to do a scan of her neck to make sure things still looked good following disc-replacement surgery she had in 2018 while she was head coach at Baylor.

She initially was told that she checked out fine, but she received a call from a radiologist a few days later who directed her to see a cardiologist because further examination of her X-rays appeared to show plaque in her carotid arteries.

"[The cardiologist] said, let's put you on the treadmill and do a stress test," Mulkey said. "Then he said, 'I don't like the way this isn't pumping faster; it looks like there's a little blockage going on. We've got to do a cath.'"

Voepel noted that the official procedure is "a left heart catheterization with coronary arteriograms, followed by an intervascular ultrasound-assisted tandem stent placement to the left anterior descending artery."

Mulkey and the defending champion Tigers officially began practice on Monday, and on Tuesday, they are scheduled to undergo CPR training. Even before her procedure, Mulkey felt that was an important skill for players to have.

"As an athlete, your body gives you signals with injuries. And even with non-athletic things like kidney stones, you definitely feel it," Mulkey said. "The issue with my heart, it was really just luck that we found it. So I will keep telling people, 'Get yourself checked out. You have nothing to lose, and it could save your life.'"