Cancer nightmare lingers for Williams
INSPIRATIONAL Queenslander Jesse Williams has made a stunning admission as he fights for a spot on the Seattle Seahawks roster: He may still have cancer.
The big defensive tackler has been the most incredible story of the Seahawks’ preseason, returning less than three months after surgery that removed a cancerous kidney.
Although he has been training with the team and played pre-season games against Denver, Kansas City and San Diego, he is unsure if he is free of his grave illness.
“They removed the whole kidney, which is Stage 3. But they also removed the lymph nodes around the kidney,” Williams, 24, told The News
Tribune newspaper. “The lymph nodes are like the (blood) highway for the body.
“They also found cancer in my lymph nodes around my kidney.
“So that then prompted more scans and testing just to see if it is anywhere else, or where it might be going next.”
Williams’ final pre-season game was against the Oakland Raiders yesterday.
After two years in Seattle ruined by injury, it is the last chance for the “Monstar” to prove he should be given a spot on the Seahawks’ final 53man roster.
Williams said he was just trying to put the extraordinary burden of his cancer treatment aside, and football had allowed him to do that.
“I’m still going through scans and a couple of other tests at the moment but trying not to let that show when I’m playing,” he said.
“Obviously, I’m still recovering. It’s kind of a major surgery to come back from.
“If I feel good I come to work. If I feel bad I still come to work.
“Football is the one thing keeping me going right now.
“It gives me something to work for, something to wake up for.”
Making the roster would be a just reward for the Queenslander’s remarkable courage.
“It’s been a long and obviously still-continuing process to get where I am,” he said.
“Depending on how the rest of the testing goes, hopefully I can continue my football.
“It depends on what the Seahawks want to do.”