Darkness and Light

by Joe Thompson

  Christie Hospital is only about 20 minutes away from Rochdale’s training ground, so I had a steady stream of visitors to keep my spirits up. One of the lads who pulled up a chair by my bedside was Nathaniel Mendez-Laing. He’s three years younger than me and had only been at the club just over 12 months, but we had a lot in common. He was born in Birmingham and, like me, had quite a tough childhood, but football stopped him from going down the wrong path. His troubles had given him a streetwise confidence that you need in a football dressing room. At the start of the season, he found himself on the bench because I’d taken his place in the starting line-up. One afternoon, Keith put two teams up on a whiteboard; one was the first team and the other was the second string. Once again, he was playing second fiddle.

  ‘Don’t be thinking you’re going to be in that starting line-up for long,’ he said to me. I couldn’t believe he had the confidence to lay down that sort of challenge in front of the other lads. ‘Listen, you’re going to have to do something special to get this shirt off me,’ I replied. As shocked as I was, I respected his mindset. You don’t see enough of that in football dressing rooms because players are afraid to rock the boat and don’t want to be seen as a bad apple. But ultimately, you’re all individuals in a team sport. Nobody wants to be sat on the bench every week. You want to be on the pitch, scoring goals, making assists and receiving the plaudits for helping your team get three points. That sounds like a selfish mentality, but achieving your personal goals will benefit the team and push the immediate competition in your position to play better.

  That bit of tension between us made us closer. While I was in hospital, he took his chance in the first team and scored some brilliant goals. When he came to see me, the day before a game against Gillingham, he promised me he was going to score a goal and dedicate it to me. I told him not to put that sort of pressure on himself, but what did he go and do? That’s right, he scored. He celebrated by running to the bench, where they had a shirt with my name on the back and lifting it in the air.

  That was a really special moment, knowing that the dressing room hadn’t forgotten about me. It was also great to see Nathaniel fulfilling his potential, even though he was doing it in my position. He’d had a few run-ins with Keith over various things but had settled down now he was playing on a regular basis. At the end of that season he moved on to Cardiff and then got promoted to the Premier League last season. It’s amazing what can happen when the penny finally drops. I’m just glad I don’t have to fight him for my shirt anymore.

  You never really know how much people think of you until you're seriously ill, or at least I never did. I was amazed that two of my team-mates, Keith Keane and Andy Cannon, came to visit me. We got along perfectly well, but we weren’t best mates or anything like that. Still, they wanted to see how I was and offer their support. I was also moved by my mate Dan Handford, who drove all the way from Carlisle just a few weeks after his partner gave birth to their first child.

  We first met when he was a youth-team player at Rochdale and used to clean my boots. Our paths crossed again when I moved to Carlisle and we became good friends. Like several goalkeepers I’ve played with, he’s got a bit of a screw loose. He thought nothing of jumping in his car and driving two hours down the motorway with his newborn baby in the passenger seat just to come and sit with me for a couple of hours. My best mate, James Rothwell, was another regular visitor, as was my former Tranmere team-mate Max Power.

  At the end of my first week of chemo, my doctor told me I would have a three-week break before my next cycle. I’d felt better, but the full side effects hadn’t yet kicked in, so me and Chantelle booked flights to Spain. If I had a bad turn then we could get a flight home and be back within a few hours. Our plan was to land in Alicante and then hire a car and drive up to Barcelona, stopping off at various places along the way. Lula was in school but we persuaded her teachers to let us break the rules a little bit and take her with us, but we kept it a secret from her.

  When we picked her up, we told her we were going to the David Lloyd leisure centre, which she loves because they have a big outdoor pool. ‘We’re going the wrong way,’ she said, as we drove towards the airport. ‘No, no, we’re just taking another road,’ I replied. When we got there, I opened the boot with our cases in. ‘We’re going on holiday,’ I said. ‘You’re lying, I’ve school tomorrow,’ she said. She only believed me once I got her passport out and we started walking through the airport. That must’ve been amazing for her. One minute she’d been in school, probably getting a bit bored in class, the next minute she was on a plane to Spain, still wearing her school uniform.

  We stayed in a beautiful hotel with a pool, which was bathed in sunshine, but I couldn’t have a dip in case I got dirt in my Hickman line. Normally you’re supposed to get it cleaned every three days, but I’d convinced my doctor it would be fine if we waited a bit longer. I ended up having some really good conversations with the other holidaymakers by the pool, who seemed to be drawn to me because I was just relaxing on my own in the shade wearing a t-shirt.

  One morning, I was waiting for the lift when a 6ft 6in Norwegian guy came up to me. He looked like a Viking. I’d been watching a series set during that period and he would’ve been a perfect fit. The first thing he did was glance at my crucifix. ‘Do you believe in God?’ he asked me. I was a bit taken aback by his line of questioning. ‘Erm … yeah, I think there’s someone out there,’ I said. ‘I saw you by the pool yesterday, why didn’t you jump in? You’ve got lovely brown skin,’ he continued. For some reason I felt comfortable enough to explain my situation to him. ‘You are a child of God,’ he said. ‘Keep believing and walking forward and your life will turn around.’

  We got out of the lift but before I had the chance to say goodbye he’d vanished. I couldn’t believe that a giant of a man had disappeared into thin air. I had some breakfast and then went to find Chantelle and tell her about the conversation I’d just had. I was halfway through my story when my phone started ringing. ‘No caller ID’ flashed on my screen. Whenever I see that I know it’s the hospital, so I answered it immediately.

  Dr Gibbs was on the other end of the line. He told me my scan results had returned and though I still had tumours in my body, the cancer had turned off and wasn’t growing. I would still have to continue chemo, but it was positive news. I was heading in the right direction. Chantelle could see my reaction and came over to find out what was going on. I explained what he’d said and she was elated. We decided to prolong our holiday for another few days. It was against doctor’s orders but we’d just had some good luck so thought we’d keep rolling the dice.

  Our next stop was Salou, where I had a feeling of déjà vu. I went there on my first foreign holiday when I was nine years old with my dad and his girlfriend at the time. I remember it broke my mum’s heart. She couldn’t afford to take us away anywhere in England, never mind Spain, and she knew dad had funded the trip through illegal means. Returning was like stamping a tattoo over an old wound. Lula had the time of her life and before we headed back we spent a couple of days in Valencia to round off the trip. The combination of sunshine, good news and the company of my two girls did wonders for my morale.

  When I returned for my next round of chemo the following week, I felt like my batteries were well and truly recharged. It turned out they needed to be because I was about to experience the scariest day of my life. After pulling through another six days of intensive chemo, I returned home, but suddenly everything went horribly wrong. I was used to being sick, but in the space of three hours I vomited 60 to 70 times. It started off as sick, then water, followed by cola-coloured bile. There was nothing left inside me but my innards, but I still couldn’t stop retching, while my temperature continued to soar.

  Chantelle pressed the emergency red button on my personal alarm and an ambulance arrived within minutes. Two paramedics came into the house and found me lying down on the floor in my bedroom. They helped me to my feet and then slowly ushered me in
to the back of the ambulance and took me back to hospital. The first 100 yards of the journey was torture. Our house is on a long, cobbled road, so I was wobbling from side to side like I was on a roller coaster. The paramedic threw special salts into my bowl so the sick solidified quickly and didn’t splash back into my face, but still I continued to vomit.

  I was so scared. People can die from chemotherapy and I thought I was going to have a heart attack or one of my major organs was about to fail. Chantelle is a strong woman but I could see the fear in her face. When I arrived at the hospital they put me on a drip for 24 hours to replace the fluids I’d lost and thankfully my sickness began to subside. It was a huge blow to the momentum I’d built up and the guy in the bed next to me dented my mood even more. He kept moaning about the food he’d been given and later told me that he was going to die. I felt for him, I really did, but I’d managed to shield myself from negativity and hearing his plight really messed with my head. I became short-tempered and snappy with people. I felt like I’d gone one-nil in front but had been pegged back.

  After each cycle of chemo, I became progressively weaker. Every day a nurse would come round and ask me to fill in a questionnaire. It was a series of simple questions, asking me if I could still use the TV remote, brush my own teeth or get out of bed without help. At first I thought they were daft, but I began to understand why they needed answers as even the most basic of tasks became difficult. I began to suffer terrible vein pain in my wrists and at one point I couldn’t fasten the buttons on my shirt because my hands were hurting so much. It felt like that throbbing feeling you get when you’ve been out in the cold in the middle of winter without gloves on and then put your hands in hot water, but ten times worse.

  I was determined to remain as independent as possible even when a fire broke out at the hospital. I looked out of the window and could see the flames and smoke from my bed. Workers had been carrying out welding work on the roof of the Paterson building, but hot debris had fallen off and landed on cardboard and fabric below, sparking the blaze and causing millions of pounds worth of damage. Research papers had gone up in smoke and hordes of patients had been evacuated. The nurses warned us that if it continued to spread then we would be taken out via a lift. I told them that if it did I would leave of my own accord and sprint down the stairs.

  I still had plenty of fire in my belly, but I could tell the flame had gone out in the eyes of some of the other patients. There was one guy who was waiting to be taken home in an ambulance. He’d been made redundant, he had no wife, no kids and no support apart from the doctors and nurses treating him. He won’t be alive now, no chance. Cancer hurts, but fighting it alone must crush your spirit beyond repair. The pain can only go on for so long and it only ends one of two ways. You hope it stops because you’re cured, but not everyone is so lucky. If you’re in constant pain every day then there must be a point when you just want to be put out of your misery.

  I was lucky to have different teams fighting my corner. I had doctors and nurses with years of experience in their field behind me and a close-knit family unit who lived round the corner to keep me company. I also had my team-mates on hand for moral support. And of course, I had my boys on the ward, who were the only ones who truly understood what I was going through. Collectively, I had a squad of people who I could draw energy from, but nothing they said could prepare me for what would happen next.

  After my last round of chemo, I would have to undergo a stem cell transplant, which meant I could face up to two months in an isolation unit. It was essential to give my immune system the chance to repair itself away from the outside world and deal with the worst of the side effects, which were about to unleash hell on my body. If I came into contact with germs, it could prove fatal because I only had a small number of white blood cells to fight them. The prospect of spending that length of time in my own company, away from Chantelle and Lula, filled me with dread. I was given a couple of days to go home and gather my thoughts before beginning the toughest battle of my life. I packed up my things and readied myself for war.

  Chapter 16

  18 days

  THE room was a blank canvas, filled with the stench of bleach. All I had for company was a television, an en suite and a lonely window, which offered me the only glimpse of the outside world I would have for up to two months. I’d overcome battles at home, in the playground and on the football pitch, but this was different, this was life or death, and my opponent was hell-bent on getting revenge.

  It was 3 June 2017, and I was sat on my bed in one of the dozens of isolation rooms at Christie Hospital, preparing for my final week of chemo, before undergoing a stem cell transplant. The chemo was that powerful, it had attacked cancerous cells, but also killed white and red blood cells and platelets I needed to fight infections, transport oxygen around my body and basically stay alive. This meant I had to be locked away for an indefinite period of time until my immune system was strong enough to survive in the outside world without medical assistance.

  Before my treatment, my doctor had removed thousands of healthy cells from my body, which had been stored in a freezer, and would now be fed back into my system via a drip inserted into a vein over a period of four to five hours. If everything went to plan, they would slowly begin to grow and multiply in the weeks ahead until I was healthy enough to leave isolation. My time alone would also give me the privacy to deal with the worst side effects of chemo, which were about to hit me like a tsunami.

  Players are often perceived as alpha males, devoid of emotion, and trained to bottle up their fears as a way of surviving in a ruthless sport. That might be true for some, but I’ve never seen myself as a macho man, and would openly admit I was scared of what lay ahead. However, I’m certain I’m mentally stronger than 99 per cent of the people I come up against because of the things I’ve been through. I was convinced that would give me an edge, because this was a test that would challenge my mind as well as my body.

  When my doctor came in to explain the process, I asked him not to tell me which symptoms I was likely to experience and make sure the nurses did the same. It was my way of waging mental warfare against cancer – if I knew exactly what was coming, then perhaps my mind would begin playing tricks on me and I’d imagine pain that wasn’t really there. Instead, I wanted to know the record time a patient had recovered from a stem cell transplant and made it out of isolation. His answer was 21 days.

  Footballers relish having targets to hit and in my head I vowed to break that barrier.

  The night before a match I often visualise certain situations I think I’ll encounter so I’m mentally and physically primed for every possible scenario. Although I didn’t know specifically what I was about to endure, in my head I went through the same process of imagining how my body might break down and waste away over the days and weeks ahead. I imagined I’d be like a drug addict, shivering and sweating, after trying to go cold turkey following years of abuse. It turned out my imagination had painted an accurate picture of what would be the loneliest weeks of my life.

  I’d been in isolation for 72 hours when my mobile phone began to ring. I instantly recognised it was a prison phone number. It was my dad. Our relationship had been pretty much non-existent since I moved to Manchester when I was eight, but he’d found out about my plight from a relative. ‘We’re in the same boat now Joe, we’re both locked away,’ he said.

  His words angered me; I was in this situation through no fault of my own, but he was behind bars because he’d repeatedly broken the law. I put him in his place and he apologised immediately. The conversation was over in a matter of minutes but I told him that once, or if, I got back on both feet, I wanted to see him face to face to get answers to the questions that had rattled around my head since I was a little boy. He said he was going nowhere fast and promised he’d tell me everything I wanted to know.

  Isolation gives you a rare opportunity to reflect away from the constant distractions of daily life. I wondered how my dad could sleep
at night knowing he’d missed out on so many important moments in mine and Reuben’s lives, as well as the other kids he’d fathered over the years, purely because of the selfish mistakes he’d made. At some point he must’ve been haunted by his actions. Part of me feels sorry for him; at his age he should be a proud granddad, reflecting on a successful life. Instead, he’s just another number in a prison cell, living with the dead weight of regret hanging round his neck. In a way, that is a bigger punishment than a prison sentence.

  I don’t know whether it was a side effect of the treatment or because I had so much time on my hands to think, but I also started to feel paranoid about the motives of some of the people who had come to see me. A few I’d class more as acquaintances than friends had asked if they could take a selfie while I was in bed looking like death. It made me feel uncomfortable – I wanted them to visit me because they cared, not to show the world that they’d done a good deed so they could get a few likes on Instagram or Facebook. Perhaps I was thinking too much into it, but I do find it strange how the world has changed, nothing seems to be private anymore.

  To pass the time, I’d spend hours scrolling through my phone looking at old pictures and videos and seeing what my friends were up to on Snapchat and Instagram. In hindsight, it wasn’t a wise decision. I saw team-mates on holiday in Las Vegas with smiles on their faces. I’d been there 12 months ago for my stag do and had the time of my life with my closest friends. I wondered if I’d had my last holiday, but I tried to combat those negative thoughts by reminding myself of the rich life I’d lived up until that point. I’d played football for a living, married the girl of my dreams and recreated life. If this was the end of the road, I was content with everything I’d achieved at 28.