Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remembers feeling like something was off.
"I started noticing symptoms about two or three years ago," he tells PEOPLE. "I was having irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath and had no energy or stamina. I couldn't walk more than 30 yards without having to sit down and rest to catch my breath."
When the symptoms went away, he dismissed them. "I thought it was a temporary issue," says the basketball legend, 75. "I had been an athlete and was in shape, so I felt it wasn't going to bother me for any length of time. But I was quite wrong."
A few months later he was at an Los Angeles Dodgers game when he started feeling ill. "I was sitting in the sun and the sun seemed to suck all of the air out of my chest," he says. "I tried to get up from my seat and head to my car and while people were helping me to my car, I collapsed and almost crashed into the Dodgers trophy case."
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