Tennis icon Martina Navratilova has beaten cancer for now. “As far as you know, I’m cancer-free,” revealed the 18-time Grand Slam tournament winner in an emotional interview on British star presenter Piers Morgan’s TV talk show. For two more weeks, she still had to have preventive radiation on her breast, “then I should be fit again”.
The 66-year-old Czech, who also has US citizenship, made her renewed cancer public shortly after the turn of the year. She had been diagnosed with early-stage throat and breast cancer. A swollen lymph node had prompted her to have tests.
“I noticed my left lymph node was enlarged and I thought it was from a shingles shot I had received a week earlier. But a few weeks later it wouldn’t go away, so I called the doctor,” she told Morgan. In 2010, she was diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer, and after six months of treatment, the former world number one was considered cancer-free at the time.
The renewed health setback put her in “total panic” for three days, as Navratilova now said. It took that long to find out where the cancer had taken root in her body. She feared “I might not see next Christmas”. She even thought of a so-called “bucket list” and thought about what else she wanted to do before she died. “It might sound superficial, but I was like, ‘Okay, what awesome car do I really want to drive if I only live a year?'” she shared.
“You can’t wait to ring the bell,” reports Navratilova
As her radiation treatment began, she choked back tears as the nurses played Sir Elton John’s I’m Still Standing. Navratilova had to wear a specially fitted mask during the proton therapy procedure, an uncomfortable procedure that requires a lot of discipline. Music is played in the room to make the time during the irradiation a little more relaxed. “Once I chose Elton John and then he started singing ‘I’m Still Standing’ which he dedicated to me at a concert in Paris during the French Open in the 80’s. So when I’m in this mask and this song came out, I was like, ‘Oh great, so I can’t really cry because I can’t swallow and I’m not allowed to move’.”
During the interview, Morgan shared a video of Navratilova ringing a bell at the clinic to signal the end of her treatment. She tearfully commented on the scene: “I cry when I watch it again because you can’t wait to ring the bell.” Her time as an athlete helped enormously during the suffering, which she calls “tennis mode”. : “In situations like this, it’s pretty handy to have been a top athlete to be able to switch back straight away. I was like, ‘Okay, so what do we do now?’”
All in all, however, she went “through hell”, it was a “constant up and down”. “Only when they find out it’s throat cancer, I thought I might die. But then I find out, no, it’s entirely treatable. Then when I had the biopsy on my right breast, the doctor said, ‘It doesn’t look good’. That’s when I started crying on the table while they were still poking and taking samples from my chest. And I was like, ‘Oh great, now I have two types of cancer at the same time that are unrelated. Who has two types of cancer at the same time?’” Navratilova said.
The nine-time Wimbledon champion has two daughters, Victoria, 21, and Emma, 17, with former model Julia Lemigova. Navratilova and Lemigova were waiting for a call to adopt another child before the diagnosis was made. When the cancer diagnosis came again, they put the plan on hold. And I don’t think it will happen yet. I think it’s just too complicated and I only have that much energy right now, no more,” said Navratilova.
While she was aware that the healing process would be difficult, “I didn’t know that it would be as difficult as it really was. I love to eat and eating was the hardest part of this whole treatment. I lost 15 pounds not because I wanted to but because I just couldn’t get enough nutrition in my body. The radiation affects the throat and mouth, which begin to close. I couldn’t even yawn or sneeze,” she said.
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Source: WORLD / Viktoria Schulte
By coincidence, she was treated in the same New York clinic as her once great tennis opponent Chris Evert. Last year, 68-year-old Evert, formerly number one in the world, had to endure six chemotherapy sessions to treat ovarian cancer. She is also considered cured for the time being. Navratilova said: “Our careers have always been intertwined and then we follow each other in that way. You can’t just make that up. The parallels are incredible. same place Some of the same nurses. She supported me in this as much as I supported her a year ago. We were and will always be there for each other no matter what.”
She “still doesn’t feel great, but I’m feeling better every day. I’m finally starting to taste things.” For the future, Navratilova is planning vacations in Kenya and on the Galapagos Islands – they were also on her “bucket list”.
check-ups
Medical check-ups can save lives – especially in the case of cancer. Nevertheless, they are often neglected. Common reasons: ignorance, lack of appointments, fear of the findings. In this episode WELT HEALTH Hendrik Streeck and Franca Lehfeldt summarize the most important check-ups.