Jon Dorenbos visited his good friend Ellen DeGeneres on her midday show on Monday to talk about the wild ride he's been on since being traded from the Philadelphia Eagles to the New Orleans Saints this summer.
The trade helped doctors find a serious issue with his heart that required surgery and ended his career in the NFL.
We saw Dorenbos get a pretty nice ovation at an Eagles game a couple of weeks back but this is among the first times we've actually seen him talk about the serious nature of his open-heart surgery.
"The first thing I thought of is, 'Wait, that's Ellen's favorite team,'" Dorenbos said of being traded to New Orleans.
But after playing in the Saints' first preseason game, the team doctor sent him to get a test on his heart which showed he needed emergency heart surgery and that his football career was over.
"As my heart was pumping blood out, a lot of blood was leaking back in. It was working really hard," he said. "The aorta was expanding like a water balloon. It should be [about the size of a quarter] and mine was the size of like a coke can. They basically told me, 'Had you been hit in the chest on Monday Night Football, the odds were far greater that you'd die than live.'"
Jon and his wife talked to doctors all across the country and had the procedure done in Philadelphia. It went well and he's doing great today and in fantastic spirits.
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Dorenbos also talked about his new dog, who he just so happened to name Saint.
"My wife is my angel and that little guy right there is my Saint," Dorenbos said of his doggo.
Ellen gifted Jon with a pretty sweet dog house of cards. Because magic tricks.
You can watch much of the segment below.
