Mark Gonzalez is recovering well following his health scare.

The former Liverpool winger was admitted to hospital in his native Chile earlier this month after experiencing chest pains.

Happily, though, the 36-year-old now feels like ‘nothing ever happened’ as he continues his period of recuperation at home.

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Speaking on the latest episode of LFCTV’s Extra Time, Gonzalez recalls: “I went to bed at midnight [with] a very low feeling of chest pain. 

“I didn’t really feel like it was something very important, so I just went to bed, slept and the pain went higher, it wouldn’t stop until 4am. I took the car and drove to the hospital because I thought it wasn’t normal.

“They did some blood tests and stuff and they said, ‘We have to take you urgently to another hospital because you are going to suffer a heart attack’. I said, ‘Are you joking? I need to take my son to school!’ because I wasn’t feeling that bad.

“I had chest pain but I wasn’t really bad, but I was going to be really bad if they didn’t take care of it immediately. So I had to go to the hospital, had a lot of exams, an MRI, blood tests… I was feeling really strange because I wasn’t feeling that bad. But at any moment I could even have died because I was having a very big inflammation in my heart caused by a virus. I had to stay for two days in the hospital.

“It wasn’t that easy for me because, like I said, I was feeling good. But inside I wasn’t that good, I could have died. But right now I am recovering, I feel like nothing ever happened. The worst part is that I have to be six months with no sports, I don’t know what I’m going to do! I just have to take care of myself.

“I’m happy to be here with you guys, to be with my family, and that it wasn’t worse. It already passed and I just need to take care.”

Gonzalez continues: “I was calm but I had this feeling four or five times before, it was very strange. But this time I think they detected it because they were doing the exams in the right moments with the pain there. 

“The other times I would feel the same pain, probably worse, but it would just be for 15, 20 minutes or maybe 10 sometimes. So I really didn’t know what it was before even if I did the exams and my heart was OK.

“So when they told me, ‘You are having a heart attack’ I said: ‘Is it that serious? I don’t feel that bad. I need to take my son to school, I need to do my daily routine. I’m alright.’

“I went to the hospital thinking that I was going to take some exams and they were going to give me a pill and I would go back home and maybe take it easy. 

“In general terms, in that moment it was strange. I was calm but it was strange, because like I said, I wasn’t feeling that bad.”

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