Lumsden learns from health scare

To the long-timers in his life, Jesse Lumsden, sounds like, well, Jesse Lumsden.

The raspy, hoarse voice is a thing of the past for Canada’s most famous football-player-turned-bobsledder. From the top of the podium, from bottom the track, the former Calgary Stampeder can yell and holler with the best of them.

But in rare quiet moments on the World Cup bobsled circuit, the 30-year-old reflects on the frog in his throat that marked nine of the most stressful months of his life. First he blew out his knee in his first game as an Edmonton Eskimo, an injury that foreshadowed the end of his promising CFL career the following year in Calgary. Then he made Canada’s Olympic bobsled team.

On the urging of a friend’s mom, Lumsden went to the doctor because of weakness of his voice. Tests showed a collection of small nodes — or bumps — on his vocal cords.

Unable to schedule surgery before the Olympics, Lumsden suited up for his country in Whistler with the nagging fear that a cancer battle lurked around the next corner.

Looking back, Lumsden understands fully why he wept at the finish line of the most important race of his life.

“I tried not to think about it as much as I could, but there was always this dark looming idea that this could be very, very, serious, and that it could affect and change my life in a very serious way,” said Lumsden, who finished fifth with Pierre Lueders in both the two-man and four-man.

Competing at the Olympics, especially on home soil, ranks as one of the more stressful life experiences for any athlete.

Combine that with a health scare and all bets are off.

“I tried to stay in the now as best as I could and focus on what I was trying to achieve and the goal I was trying to achieve … But when you’re by yourself and you’re alone and wondering — that’s when it was hardest,” he said.

After the Games, Lumsden underwent surgery to remove the nodes. The test results came back benign. Slowly, his voice returned to normal.

His outlook on life, however, forever changed.

“I couldn’t talk at all for 10 days after the surgery, and I only slipped up once,” he said. “I realized the people who talk the most say the absolute least. … I never want to be one of those people who is talking, talking all the time but saying very little.”