The call came on the morning of an important game day.
Volleyball player Anna Czakan was preparing for the semi-final match against LP Kangasala, when the doctor called and said that Czakan’s heart had been found to have an arrhythmia. It was not yet known whether they were malignant or benign.
– The doctor gave permission to play tonight’s match and yes I played it. However, the game situations were not so in mind that day. It was quite a shock.
Still, the heart problem alone did not explain why Czakan’s volleyball career, which was on the rise, was suddenly cut short in the spring of 2022. His mind was also shaken.
In the spring of 2021, Czakan had led Salon LP Viest to the league championship and became a key player in the national team.
At the end of the season, Czakan was chosen as the best player in the Champions League.
He received contract offers from European professional leagues.
Soon, however, life and everyday life changed completely.
The road to the volleyball top was straight ahead, but Czakan still decided to stay in the familiar home scenery of Salo.
The decision was surprising, because at 25, Czakan was at the right age to take the next step in his career.
According to Czakan, the solution was based on his character traits. He has always been sensitive and timid and unsure of his own abilities.
– I like to spend time with family and friends. In Salo it worked and I was used to it. It also offered an opportunity to get away from the sport in everyday life. I was afraid of change and that I might end up alone abroad, says Czakan.
He also doubted the adequacy of his playing skills on international courts.
In the following season, the trials that shook Anna Czakan’s sensitive mind began.
First, his father’s sister died suddenly. The following spring, both of his grandparents passed away within a short period of time. Losing his grandparents was a hard blow for Czakan.
– They were people I spent time with every day. For example, I was with them every day off. They were my first big losses in my life.
In the spring, it also became clear that Czakanin Mia-mother’s serious illness had recurred.
Uncertainty about one’s own health and worry about the heart fueled stress and increased arrhythmias even more.
And the situation was not made easier by the fact that two different doctors gave different views regarding the continuation. It was no longer safe to play with one of them. Actually, Czakan’s season ended with an ankle injury.
– I feel that it was perhaps some kind of protection, that I no longer had to play under that stress. Even before the doctor’s call, I had been constantly listening to all the sensations of my body. Things got completely out of hand.
After mental health and heart problems started, life and everyday life changed completely.
Czakan was afraid to walk up the small hill in the backyard because he thought his heart rate would increase. Even exciting TV series could be scary when the heart started pounding. Since the severity of the heart problems was not yet known exactly, Czakan was forbidden to raise his heart rate.
She felt safe only with her boyfriend at the time or with her own parents.
Social situations and seeing friends were few and far between. He spent time with a group of girls he knew because he trusted that he would be in safe hands with them if something bad happened. He didn’t trust other people or himself.
– It took me to the bottom when I didn’t really dare to do anything in life. Before the situation was resolved, I was also afraid to go to sleep because I didn’t know if I would wake up again. The fear of death was present.
The heart symptoms started as a child
At the time of the interview, the Czakan family is having tea time at their home in Salon Tupur. It’s almost part of the daily routine, because Henry-father is British.
According to the parents, the arrhythmias that worsened the other spring were not new to Anna. However, for the first time, he feared for his health because of them.
Mother Mia Czakan says that the family paid attention to her daughter’s heart symptoms already at school age. However, there were rarely any symptoms, and in the past they had little effect on life.
– In middle school, it was investigated when the heart rate sometimes rose to 200, even though he was just sitting on the bed and reading a book. According to the doctor, the symptom was related to the last growth spurt. The heart somehow couldn’t keep up with the rest of the body.
Let’s dig up a memory from elementary school. It’s a presentation made about him by a classmate. The title of the text printed on A4 paper reads:
“Volleyball is close to the heart”
He glances through the text.
“..In the future, Anna wants to play in the women’s league or be a coach”.
– I do disagree a little about the latter, he says with a smile.
Anna had started playing volleyball when she was in the first grade of elementary school. It has also always been his only sporting hobby.
Mia Czakan describes her daughter as always being very shy. Even in his first volleyball game, he didn’t venture onto the field at all. When he finally got over the threshold, he wanted to go to every single game he could.
Czakan was not a top prospect when he was young. Having coached Czakan for a long time Tomi Lemminkäinen according to which the promotion to league player could depend on one phone call.
More than a decade ago, juniors from Salon Viest were included in LP Viest’s summer training ring. At that time, Anna Czakan did not play in the first team of her age group, but coached a hobby team Timo Kanerva called Lemminkäinen that they also had one player that would be worth taking along.
– Is there any other player in the world who has worked in the Champions League both as a ball girl and as a player during the same season, Tomi Lemminkäinen laughs, referring to the 2014–15 season, when LP Viesti played in the Champions League and Czakan was part of the lineup in one home match, even though he didn’t get on the field.
With health problems, the spark for the sport faded.
To treat arrhythmias, the doctor suggested ablation, where the heart’s arrhythmia-causing foci are separated with scar tissue in an operation performed with the help of a catheter. Another doctor considered the procedure too risky.
Ablation scared Czakan and he refused it once. He had never had surgery before.
In the end, he took heart, because it was the price to pay to get rid of anxiety. The first ablation was still not completely successful and it was finally done twice.
Anna Czakan’s heart underwent a successful ablation in April 2023.
However, the return to the playing fields took longer and longer, even though according to the cardiologist there was no longer an obstacle to it.
Self-understanding made it possible to return
Coach Lemminkäinen called Czakan from time to time to ask about the news and reminded him that the door to the team is open. However, this did not come to the training ground, except for a few random beeps.
During her convalescence, Anna got excited again about her hobby of the past years, watercolor painting. He liked to paint, for example, cards that he sent to his friends and family members. It was a way to get away from everyday life and have something else to think about.
He also started working on his mental well-being by meeting with a psychotherapist, a sports psychologist Hannaleena Ronkainen with. It helped him realize that he doesn’t have to try to change his basic nature. Sensitivity can also be an asset.
In addition to professional help and my own family, another volleyball player also offered invaluable support, Emmi Riikilä.
Czakan and Riikilä had become friends after debuting in the national team at the same time. The friendship deepened as a result of Czakan’s health problems and Riikilä’s own serious knee injury. They were in daily contact with messages or phone calls.
– That support was worth more than gold. She is like another little sister to me. I don’t know what I would have done at that point if Emmi hadn’t been in my life, says Anna, becoming very sensitive.
Sometimes Henry Czakan had also asked coach Lemminkäin to call Anna for training. Father knew that without the persuasion of others, Anna would not return to the volleyball court.
Last spring, Lemminkäinen says he noticed that there was a completely different Anna on the phone than when he got sick.
– I said that it would be worth coming to try it now, so that you won’t regret it later. Only after regular training can you know what the sport would feel like again.
Last May, Czakan joined LP Viest’s summer training and soon volleyball took him away again.
He returned to the league after a two-year hiatus, but there is something else special about his comeback season.
Emmi Riikilä is playing for LP Viest this season, for the first time in her career.
– For the first time we are playing in the same team outside the national team. I already know that it’s going to be a significant year, because I get to play on the same team with my best friend, Anna is happy.
The daughter’s return to the playing fields is a great relief for the parents.
– I was more worried about Anna’s mental well-being than her heart. I think the most important thing in this recovery is that Anna is the same again as before. He smiles and laughs and jokes. They were sometimes lost, Mia Czakan describes.
– I think it’s really important to talk about mental health issues. That it’s not that bad, mother continues.
According to Anna Czakan, her passion for competition has not disappeared anywhere. He enjoys playing again and also the everyday life of an athlete, where everything is precise. Then he tells how the volleyball player Anna Czakan separates from her civilian self.
– Such a certain unyieldingness and aggressiveness comes quite naturally when talking about sports. Otherwise, however, I am a very sensitive and soft person. In that, I’m more towards my mother, but with the ball in my hand, I’m more like Czakan, Anna laughs.
Anna and her little sister at the tea table Camilla pester Henry’s father to tell about his old rugby experiences.
– How many red cards did you get while playing?
– Not at all… No one ever saw anything, Henry Czakan grins and the whole family bursts into laughter.
Joy and sports have returned to Anna Czakan’s life.