PAT CASH: My back is smashed
After years of ignoring his injuries, tennis ace says spine is crumbling
WHEN Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood turned up at Wimbledon in the summer – after the birth of his twin daughters in May – he had an old pal by his side who attracted as much, if not more, attention.
Pat Cash’s crucifix earring, the chequered bandana and the trademark spiky mullet of his playing days may have been swapped for a more age-appropriate white shirt (untucked) and blue jeans, but the 1987 Wimbledon champion still put on as much rock ’n’ roll swagger as his music legend friend.
It was a typical show of bravado from the Australian.
But away from the public eye, Cash, 51, is struggling with ill health. Now a BBC and CNN tennis pundit, he admits his back is crumbling.
He is in pain, every day. ‘The only time I’m not is when I lie down,’ he reveals.
Next summer will mark the 30th anniversary of Cash’s memorable victory over Ivan Lendl – but his back trouble started even before that. When he was 19, he was sidelined for six months because of problems with his spine. Despite medical advice to rest, he soldiered on.
‘My girlfriend at the time [Norwegian model Anne-Britt Kristiansen] was pregnant with our son Daniel and I thought I’ve got to pull my finger out,’ he explained. ‘I had a baby on the way and had to get a career.
‘I had three good years or so from 1986 to 1988, then I broke my Achilles,’ he recalls. ‘That was the beginning of the end. I did my knee, then my other knee, then my back, then my knee again. So I never got a chance to get back into it.’
I meet father-of-four Cash, who lives in London, at the Medserena Upright MRI Centre in Kensington, where he is having a new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan known as an upright MRI. He hopes it will shed light on what is causing the persistent pain in his lower back and buttocks, which seems to disappear whenever he lies down.
He will be scanned sitting and standing and asked to adopt a number of different positions.
Traditional MRIs – which allow doctors to view inside the body, in a similar way to an X-ray but showing up soft tissues rather than bones – require the patient to lie and remain motionless in a narrow, enclosed tunnel.
The advantage of being scanned while standing is that body weight will put pressure on the muscles, bones and joints, making any troublesome areas, such as problematic discs in the back or trapped nerves, active so they show up more clearly on the images.
Professor Francis Smith, a clinical professor of radiology at the University of Aberdeen and clinical director at the Medserena Upright MRI Centre, explains that pressure on the intervertebral discs is 11 times higher in an upright position than when lying down.
Cash’s lower back scan takes 45 minutes, while those performed on his left shoulder and neck take 20 minutes each. The results are almost instant, and not good news: two of the lower vertebral discs – discs of cartilage between each vertebra, that cushion and allow smooth movement – have worn away.
Prof Smith says: ‘Bone rubbing on bone, and compression of the nerves in the spine, are what is causing pain.’
Cash will eventually require an operation to replace the missing discs with artificial ones. For the time being, a local anaesthetic and injection of anti-inflammatory corticosteroids will give four to six months pain relief.
Cash says it is ‘a miracle’ he can still play – in September he won the 2016 US Open’s invitation men’s doubles with Mark Philippoussis for the third year in a row.
His doctors say he can carry on as long as possible before having surgery, and he believes his recent holistic approach to health has been his saving grace.
He enjoys regular gyrotonic training (a blend of yoga, dance, tai chi and swimming), as well as weekly massages.
So does Cash wish he’d rested his body when the injuries arose? Like his old pal of 20 years Ronnie Wood, it seems Cash is irrepressible.
‘It’s more sensible to stop,’ he admits, before adding with a smile, ‘but that’d be too easy.’