InThe Moment, a new podcast series from The Athletic,Kelly Cates and Geoff Thomas speak to sportspeople about experiencing and overcoming times of adversity that changed their lives forever.

In this weeks episode, former England footballer Thomas discusses his own recovery from leukaemia and his determination to raise millions of pounds for blood cancer research by completing the route of cyclings arduous Tour de France, just 18 months after undergoing a stem cell transplant.

When Geoff Thomas was told he had three years to live, it seemed like a lifetime.

Just 24 hours earlier, hed believed it was no more than three months.

It was July 2003 and the former Crystal Palace, Wolves and England footballer had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia. Id only been retired from football about six to eight months, he says. Id started suffering from fatigue and I was having night sweats and various things but, a typical man, was putting off going to see a doctor.

On the morning of July 4, Thomas finally went to see his doctor. Blood was taken for testing and he was sent home with the message that the results would come back in three weeks time.

About three or four hours later, I got the phone call that changed my life. It was a call that told me I had a form of leukaemia. I was told I could be in the blast phase which, when I stupidly went on the internet, meant it looked like I could only have three months to live.

The following day, Thomas was introduced to bone-marrow specialist Professor Charlie Craddock, who attached him to a machine which helped confirm that, in fact, he had three years to live. The only slim chance of him surviving his leukaemia was to find a stem cell match for a transplant.

Back in 2003, chronic myeloid leukaemia was more or less a death sentence if you couldnt find a match to have a stem cell transplant. And thats only 20 per cent of the population that can do that.

When youre told the brutal honesty about whats ahead of you, you know, the chances of you not surviving is really pretty high. So youre looking for any positives to put you on that positive track.

I read a book about Lance Armstrongs journey the second day I was diagnosed, and I know his name has been tarnished since (Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France and banned from pro cycling for life for doping offences), but his fightback and his desperation to find the best way of surviving his cancer put me on that track. I wanted to turn every stone to give myself the opportunity of surviving this.

Its almost 19 years now since that diagnosis but, mentally and emotionally, Thomas can put himself back on that ward in an instant. I can know exactly what the conversations were and exactly how myself and my wife were handling it: not very good for the first three days, but we had to protect our 10- and seven-year-old little girls, and make sure they were OK.

For the next couple of weeks from being diagnosed, I was looking at what their future looked like without me, to be honest. I was looking to see if they were insured properly, if the house was safe if I disappeared. That was extra comfort, but Ive realised that so many other people dont have that opportunity.

Four days after he was diagnosed, Thomas sister Kay went for blood tests to see if she was a stem cell match. It would take over a month for the results to come back and they were told there was just a one-in-five chance she would be suitable. In the meantime, Thomas and wife Julie made a list of trips they wanted to go on with their two girls. We went off to places like Disneyland Paris and just tried to shield them as much as we could by enjoying ourselves.

Bizarrely, I was in a really good space in my mind because for the first time I realised what was really important in life. And it wasnt the fast cars, it wasnt the bigger house, it wasnt getting a bigger garden. It was just purely your health and your family and being able to be around them.

Thats something I try to keep. When Im starting to have little down days, I try and keep that message within that things could be a hell of a lot worse.

Thomas was fortunate that Kay was a match. Not a very good match, he qualifies. So the doctors had to do some tweaking. But it was good enough for me to go into isolation for five to six weeks and really be beaten up with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. They more or less take everything down to ground level and build you back up again. You purely put your life in the hands of the great guys and nurses at the hospital.

He was put on an intensive course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy to prepare his body for the transplant. At that point, he says your immune system is gone. A simple cold could kill you. Then, all of a sudden, they bring this bag in. Its only about eight inches long, and its just full of a browny, horrible colour.

They hang it up on the little pole and you see it going down the tube and going through your body that was my sisters stem cells. It took a good eight hours to be put in.

The next day, I was really, really poorly. The nurses warned Julie, It doesnt look good. Hes been struggling. And it was probably the lowest point of everything I went through. I didnt think I was going to make it. But Julie just put her arm around me and gave me a hug for about a couple of hours.

After a few days, there were indications that his immune system was starting to work. It was a positive sign. But it would take around six months for Thomas to feel normal again.

It was January 2004 when Thomas had the transplant, and a year later when he received the momentous news that he was in remission, albeit with the knowledge that the treatment hed received could put him at risk of developing different cancers later in life.

The attitude and mentality he developed during a 20-year long football career has played a key role in helping Thomas through the difficult times he suffered. In football, youve got to have good coaches. Youve got to have good trainers to make you the sportsperson you become, he says. But most importantly, you need to have your own determination to make that happen and to be willing to keep learning and keep improving on everything.

Theres so many parallels; the manager turned into the professor. Your team-mates turned into fellow patients. And the nurses were coaches.

And so my mindset was not to try and say, Im going to beat this. I was being honest with everybody. I said, I dont know if Im going to. Like in football, I dont know if were going to win on Saturday, but well try our damnedest to make sure that we do everything to get a good result.

In sport, you find that any negative thought is detrimental to your performance on the Saturday. And I think any negative thought when youre battling an illness is detrimental to your battle as well.

Ive even seen people who have had a positive outcome not able to move away from the illness itself, so they live with that journey theyve been on. And rather than taking it into a positive, theyve kept it like a shroud of darkness around them. Its tough watching these sorts of people.

Thomas still has days when the enormity of what he faced gives him the shivers. It hits me when I see other people going through it, he says. Selfishly, I dont sometimes respond to their story its like it brings my story back. There probably were times where I should have been a lot more open about my feelings but I wasnt. I just buried it.

Ive met a number of footballers who have been touched with blood cancer since. Stiliyan Petrov I met when he was just diagnosed and I just said, Listen, open yourself up to everybody and let your emotions out, because I didnt cry for a while and I felt so much better when I did.

From almost the minute he was diagnosed, Thomas was looking for ways to utilise the profile he had from football to help those who were helping him. On the second day after he met Professor Craddock, he asked him what he could do. I always remember his answer, Thomas says. Let me get you better first, then Ill come back to you. And thats what hes been doing ever since.

A sponsored run or walk is the first port of call for most people who want to find a way to say thank you to the doctors and nurses who have helped them. But as a former professional footballer, Thomas felt he needed to do something more.

Hed already seen former England cricketer Sir Ian Botham walk hundreds of miles to raise funds for leukaemia research and the competitive streak in him told him he needed to surpass that.

A good friend of mine now, Neil Ashton, was following my story he was a reporter back then. He said, Why dont you do the Tour (de France)?. I didnt know what the Tour was, really. I watched it now and then without knowing what was really going on.

Thomas said hed think about it and get back to him. That was February 2005. Id gone into remission in January 2005. And by July, I was doing exactly the same mileage as a professional cyclist just a hell of a lot slower. I found myself doing nearly two and a half thousand miles on a bike and riding some horrendous climbs in the Alps and the Pyrenees.

That was the moment I got my life back. There were stages in there that were so tough that it definitely brought tears to my eyes. But the strength I took on was of the people Id met over the previous two years who hadnt made it; all these stories Ive got deep in the back of my mind.

They always come to the fore when Im going through a little struggle myself, because these people would love to be in my situation when I was going up these climbs. Theyre the people I still call on now and then to keep me going.

Was it medically advisable to put his body through such an intense experience: 21 stages and 2,233 miles? Thomas smiles. Charlie said that in a similar sort of timeline, people normally come and ask him, Is it OK to start swimming?.

He raised over 150,000 that year from cycling the Tour route, and two years later set up the Geoff Thomas Foundation to fund clinical research into leukaemia. In the years since, he has raised hundreds of millions of pounds, helping to fund clinical trial networks, get more drugs into the treatment system and build an infrastructure that allows work to flow and benefits patients.

We need an awful lot more to enable us to fulfill the vision of the blood cancer professors up and down this country because they believe we can beat this in 10 to 15 years eradicate blood cancer. Its such a strong message to get out there and people can see the improvement over the last 15 years that we are getting there.

Collectively, we can beat this.

Listen and subscribe to The Athletics The Moment podcast, including the first episode with Gary Lineker.

(Lead graphic: Sam Richardson)

Link:
The Moment: Geoff Thomas After being diagnosed with leukaemia, I was looking at what my girls future looked like without me - The Athletic

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