Rio dream is over but the road goes on for Smith
SAYS DAVID SMITH
A couple of weeks from now I’m going to be learning to walk again
The tumour couldn’t be outrun. Not this time anyway. In what seems the cruellest twist yet of David Smith MBe’s astonishing story, he has been forced to abandon all hope of making it to this summer’s Paralympics i n Rio and head for the operating table. Again. All when he was getting achingly close to realising his dream.
his body will still be pushed to the limit in the coming months but, instead of the pursuit of cycling excellence, he’ll be learning to walk again. For the third time.
Just a few days ago, the 37-yearold from Aviemore who has twice undergone life-threatening surgery and effectively rebuilt himself in a bid to eradicate his body of the growth in his neck which threatens to crush his spinal cord, had to admit that his Paralympic ambitions would not be achieved.
When Sportsmail spoke to him back in October, he was embarking on what he called an ‘8mm race’ in reference to the amount of cord, the margin of error, he had before it cost him his life. he was delaying surgery in the hope of keeping the tumour at bay long enough to allow him to compete in Brazil.
After a scheduled scan a couple of weeks ago, he was called back to see the surgeon. Smith has been down this particular road often enough to know what that meant.
‘ It’s so unbelievable that i t’s happening again,’ says Smith, a Paralympic rowing champion at London 2012 who reinvented himself as a cyclist following his first surgery, as he begins to prepare for his operation at the start of next month. ‘And what I can’t really believe is that I’m so strong and healthy right now.
‘I got on the track on Monday and I was putting out the best times I had put out on the track all year. I thought: “Oh come on, I could r ealistically go to the world championships with a realistic chance of getting a top five place”.
‘For me, it’s crazy because I’m strong. The two guys I was riding with today, I rode away from them on the hills. I had to stop and wait for them. It’s crazy to think two and a half weeks from now I’m going to be lying in a bed and learning to walk.
‘I went to a clinic in Belgium for some treatment. They did a scan and the guy I spoke to there said it was the cleanest and healthiest body he had seen in 15 years. he said: “I don’t understand”. he said my body was so alkaline and that cancer or a tumour usually just cannot survive in that environment. Not only is it surviving, it’s growing.
‘It’s testament to my exercise and my diet, and I think if I wasn’t so healthy then I probably wouldn’t survive this. Since the 8mm thing, it’s grown again and the only room that’s left on my spinal cord is the room that has been created through past surgeries.
‘I’ ll be starting again from complete scratch. At least I know what I’ m doing !’ In spite of everything he is having to face once more — not just an operation which in all likelihood will mean he will wake up with “a sore groin and a hole in the front and back of my neck” but the whole rehabilitation and proton therapy process that will follow — Smith betrays not a shred of bitterness about his lot in life.
To hear him talk about what lies ahead this year, and the fact that the word ‘excited’ crosses his lips, makes you realise he really is something out of the ordinary.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of mental preparation for this without even knowing about it,’ he adds. ‘I’ve been speaking to a neuro psychologist in America and it’s amazing how it’s helped. It’s not that I’m excited about the surgery, but I am a little bit excited about the goals I’ve set post-surgery.
‘he said that as you’re setting goals and targets you create pathways all ready to go and achieve them. You’re changing the environment of your mind, which will then change the environment of your outcome.
‘It’s really powerful stuff and I was sitting talking to a friend about the next five, six, seven months and it was actually quite exciting — “I’m going to get on the bike here and I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that”.
So what, exactly, is it that he’s going to do? ‘If all goes well, it woul d be great to do a Trans-America (ride from coast to coast). I actually asked my surgeon if I could go and do it this week before the surgery and he just looked at me…
‘I would like to do it this year, though. It’s good training and all part of the process of rebuilding. It’s what I did last year with the Ventoux (a cycle Smith embarked upon on one of France’s most infamous routes) and the process worked. It got me back to racing for Britain so if I follow a similar process, there’s no reason why I probably couldn’t pull on a GB shirt again.’
Given his astonishing positivity,
you simply can’t imagine Smith ever entertaining thoughts of giving up.
HEadmits, however, there are dark moments, adding: ‘You know what, I did give up last week. I sat in the surgeon’s room and thought: “I’ll rehab myself but I can’t go through what I’ve gone through again to get to this level”.
‘But I left hospital and I got an email from somebody. I have no idea who the person is but he said he followed my story and in the email he said: “My son suffers from cystic fibrosis and I tell him about you every day when he doesn’t want to do his physio and I show him the videos of you every day. That spurs him on and, more than anything else, you are giving me strength to be able to guide my son through this”.
‘He said: “Please never give up because there are people who rely on your strength and you don’t even know it”.
‘I read that and just thought: “I can’t give up”. I feel like I can’t give up.
‘There is one in two people now diagnosed with a cancer in the UK. There are people every day sitting in these rooms being told this sort of stuff. So there are maybe people I’ll never even know, who are reading the story and thinking: “OK, he can do it. I can do it”.
‘I don’t want to give up and I can’t give up. It’s about putting the right coping mechanisms in place and having those goals is so important.
‘I thought it would be nice to go over to America, stay at a friend’s house, get on the bike one day and cycle to another friend’s house. They just happen to be on the other side of America. I was thinking of starting on the New York side and heading over to California. I’ve got a friend who lives in Santa Monica, so I’m thinking that would be a nice place to finish.’