"I'll go to the cardiologist and everyone there's at least 30 years older. I'm going, 'This isn't fair. Why me?' It's given me a different perspective on a lot of things."
The former Frankford High School all-stater and Penn State All-America wasn't much over his playing weight of about 200 pounds. In his case, it didn't matter.
"I wasn't a workout fanatic, but I stayed in good shape," said Thomas, who lives in King of Prussia with his second wife, Lisa, and their 6-year-old son, Preston. "I see most running backs when they're done and they're all blown up. You'll go to a convention and say, 'Man, what position did you play?' They look like a defensive tackle. I was never going to be that guy.
"If you see me, you think I could still play."
Nonetheless, on May 27 his life would begin to change. In a profound way, even though he didn't realize it at first. Actually, nobody did. The initial incident just seemed like some kind of freakish speed bump.
Three months and several procedures later, he's still out on short-term disability from his full-time job as a commercial salesman. But he has been fitted with a defibrillator, and plans to resume leading a regular existence for as long as "the man upstairs" allows.
"He just decided it wasn't my time yet," Thomas insists.
Yet on that day in late May, as he was doing chores around the house to get it ready for his son's birthday party, he was sent a warning sign. Merely the first, as it turned out. He thought it was nothing more than dehydration, when he lost his balance not once but twice within the span of an hour.
"I was nervous," he admitted. "I knew it was something unusual, but it didn't seem that bad. The day before I had to take three showers, I was doing so much work outside."
He went to a hospital, where he was given three IVs and underwent a catheterization. Thomas was told that he did have some plaque buildup but it wasn't enough to be "concerned" about.
