After spending seven months away from competitive cricket action, Australia batter Nic Maddinson recently revealed his battle with testicular cancer as he aims to charter his return to the field soon.
The 33-year-old Maddinson, who made his international debut 12 years ago in a T20I against India and played his last in national colours in a Test nine years ago, described the chemotherapy process starting mid-May as the “longest nine weeks” of his life.
Maddinson has been out of action since being dropped from the New South Wales side in March. He had since undergone surgery to remove a tumour before receiving more grim news that the cancer had spread.
‘Losing hair, feeling average’
“Once I found out I had to have chemo, that was pretty hard to deal with,” he told Nine newspapers. “It had spread to parts of my abdominal lymph nodes and lung. That was a bit where it was pretty daunting.”
Maddinson was also expecting his second child with his wife, Bianca, around the same time, with their second child, Wilder, who arrived recently.
“By the second or third week, I lost all my hair,” he said. “I was feeling pretty average. I was taking types of steroids to manage side effects, but they would keep me up at night … I’d sleep until about 1am, but sometimes I’d then be awake until 6 am. I found that difficult. I was super drained and felt like I had to sleep 24/7.
“It was the slowest and longest nine weeks.”
With the chemo process ending in mid-July, the left-handed batter with over 10,000 professional runs across formats, made his return to training at the NSW headquarters at Olympic Park.
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The good news arrived in September that he would be free of cancer, but Maddinson said it was frightening to learn that it had spread to several parts of his body within a short span.
“To know that I caught it probably as early as I could have, and it still spread into other parts of my body, that was scary,” he added.
“I just think it’s so important if you have anything you’re worried about, get it checked out.”
