By IANS,
Sydney : Geoffrey Boycott makes no bones when he describes his excruciating battle with cancer.
Boycott discovered a lump in his neck while shaving and in September 2002 his doctor told him it was cancer.
“Cancer treatment tough? It’s horrific. It’s the sort of treatment that reduces strong men to tears. And it did me. Many a time,” Boycott was quoted as saying in Sunday Telegraph.
“I was so full of morphine I kept falling asleep. And then, when I woke, the relentless pain was still there. But in the end there are just two of you in that match: you and the bloody cancer.
“I would count my treatments like I once counted my runs. I had to have 35 laser sessions. ‘Just get to 18,’ I’d will myself, ‘then you’ll be on the home run.’ You have to be mentally strong to keep the crying and the depression at bay. And all the time, through all this pain and fog, there is this niggling question at the back of your mind: will it work?
Boycott, now 67 and once one of England’s greatest batsmen, was among the lucky ones. Three months ago he received the all-clear from cancer. The aggressive, fast-growing tumour on his tongue has gone and his prognosis is good.
His book The Best XI, in which he picks the best Test teams of all time, will come out Thursday.