Danielle Rittenhouse was doing what she loved most — playing basketball in a pick-up game at her church.
She was 12.
That’s when her life, already altered because of a kidney disorder she was battling since birth, changed in an instant.
“All of a sudden I was having problems breathing, and my heart starting beating really fast,” said Rittenhouse, now a 16-year-old sophomore at Lampeter-Strasburg, and an integral part of the Pioneers’ first-place girls’ basketball team.
“I didn’t think it was a problem, but then it started happening more often,” she said. “I couldn’t catch my breath, and my heart would beat double-time.”
If the irregular heart rhythms weren’t enough for a 12-year-old to cope with, Rittenhouse was facing surgery the very next week for kidney reflux, an ailment for which she had been taking medication since birth to prevent kidney infections.
She had the surgery the following week, when doctors performed a Bilateral Cohen Ureteral Reimplantation, and she’s had no kidney complications since.
But the irregular heart rhythms that started that day during the pick-up basketball game lingered.
When she was in eighth grade, Rittenhouse’s doctors had her wear a heart monitor — a contraption she hooked to her belt that had wires and cords coming out of it.
“I even had to wear it around school,” she said. “That wasn’t much fun.”
Rittenhouse had patches attached to her chest, and any time she felt something funny, she pressed a button and the monitor would record it.
The verdict?
Rittenhouse was diagnosed with tachycardia, which causes abnormal heart rhythms — at any place, any time.
“Sometimes I’d just be sitting there watching TV and my heart would start beating really fast,” Rittenhouse said. “It was scary and it was painful, especially when my heart would start pounding and my chest would start pounding.
“I would literally shake.”
Last winter, just a couple of games into the Pioneers’ season, Rittenhouse’s doctors suggested a surgical procedure called an Ablation to correct the tachycardia.
The procedure would eliminate extra electric pulses in her heart, which caused her heart to beat, as she called it, double-time.
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Rittenhouse said. “My doctors didn’t want to take a chance that something worse could have happened. It used to happen like once a month. Then it was once a week. Then it was like three times a week.”
So Rittenhouse, L-S’ spunky 5-6 guard who is averaging 12.6 points a game for the Section 3-leading Pioneers, had the heart operation, and missed the rest of her freshman basketball season while recuperating.
She did return to the track team last spring, and she played volleyball last fall. And her return to the basketball court has been smooth.
“That’s pretty scary for a kid,” L-S coach Matt Wieand said. “She showed a lot of courage. To be 15 or 16 and to be going through heart surgery … that’s very courageous.”
Rittenhouse returned to the court this season with vigor. She is one of four sophomores in the Pioneers’ starting lineup, and she’s a big reason why L-S is 9-1 in league games and 13-4 overall.
Rittenhouse was at her best last week, hitting four 3-pointers and scoring 23 points in a win over Donegal on Tuesday, and scoring a game-high 16 points in a win over Northern Lebanon on Thursday, as L-S won its sixth game in a row.
She’s also quickly establishing herself as one of the grittiest defenders in the league, and she doesn’t have a selfish bone in her.
“It feels great just to be back out here playing,” Rittenhouse said, “and showing people that I can do this, and that I can really play even though I went through all of that. “I feel really blessed because nothing went wrong and the doctors did a great job. I had a checkup last summer and they said everything looks great.
“I don’t worry about it anymore. Now I can go out and play.”
Play without thinking about kidney pains.
Play without wondering whether or not her heart is going to start racing out of control.
Just play.
And that’s why Danielle Rittenhouse is on the road to becoming one of the best players in the league.
JEFFREY REINHART
