Rico Constantino has shared a substantial health update in the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, telling fans he is dealing with a new round of blood clots, a small heart blockage, and a return of sleep apnea, which have collectively kept him from a planned return to in-ring work.
Constantino, 64, retired from active police work years ago due to blood clots and has been navigating recurring vascular issues alongside his other health concerns since. He laid out the most recent stretch.
“It was great, and not until not this March, but last March I was doing great in the gym, everything, and Joe Matthews, as a promoter, brought me to New York, and my fiance has never been to New York, and I did a Friday, Saturday morning, Saturday night signing, and Sunday when I was leaving, the promoter out of his good graces took Julie and I to New York and gave us a tour of Times Square and everything, and took pictures with Julie, and everything, and it was great. He dropped us off at the airport, three hours delay, and so by the time I hit my seat, I was exhausted, and it’s five and a half hours to get back to Phoenix, and I didn’t get up once, so I developed DVT.”
He explained what the deep vein thrombosis episode produced.
“That’s blood clot in the legs. So I got one more in my femoral, but what other one that’s more dangerous is I got one in my poppative artery, which is harder to get rid of, and it was causing me pain behind the leg and stuff like that. Since then, I’ve been on a new blood thinner, and the pain behind the legs (has) gone away. I go for an ultrasound next month to see if all of it’s gone away, and in that, within that, they were, I was getting my physicals and stuff like that. They found a small blockage on the left side of my heart, so I’m going through that now, and my sleep apnea returned. So now I do a CPAP machine at night.”
Constantino went into more detail later in the interview on the broader three-year health stretch that preceded the most recent issues.
“I do. I thank God every day I open my eyes, and not to bring a downer, when I was sick, and I told you I had the blood clots, one in each lung, that made me medically retire, but I didn’t get better. I was getting sicker. I got peripheral neuropathy in the legs because of my spine, my neck, two joints were degenerating, ligaments in there, and then I got vertigo, where I couldn’t even get out of bed, I was crawling down to get to the bathroom, crawling up and down the stairs, and then I got migraines, and they were giving me botox shots in the head to get rid of the migraines, plus medication. So, for three years I was down, and after about the second year, you know, trying to fight, I think it worked through me.”
He framed the bottom of that stretch as a moment when he was uncertain he would wake up each morning.
“So before I went, and I had sleep apnea, so I was on a CPAP machine on top of all that, and I just finally came to terms with my condition, because of everything I’ve done. I’ve run my life in the red my whole life until now. Now I’m driving around like a Prius, a Prius. I just motor along, I’m not a NASCAR, but it came one time where I just finally look up to God, and I went, Okay, God, going to bed. If I wake up in the morning, I’ll take my medicine, and if not, I’ll be next to you.”
Constantino said being stuck in the house alone for two years during the worst stretch of the illness wore him down even with his naturally positive outlook.
“Plays with you, because nobody’s there to talk to you. You can’t talk to anybody, you know. I had rollade and shutters on my windows, because I worked graveyard, so I slept during the day. Those were always closed, so I never got sunlight, nothing. Nobody came to see me, you know, it was just me, and after a while, even the most positive person, I’m a double plus positive person, it wore me down to where I was like, okay, not in charge, and like I said, I’ll make a deal with you, God, I wake up, I’ll take medicine. If I don’t, I’ll be with you.”
He has since reconnected with his childhood sweetheart Julie Thompson, with the two engaged and living on a two-acre property in Prescott, AZ, with three horses, three rescued dogs, and 13 chickens. Constantino has the next ultrasound on his blood clots scheduled for next month.
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
