Newcastle Lecturer Set To Complete Cancer Comeback At Ironman Australia

This Sunday, Adam will affirm his recovery from cancer when he takes on the 35th anniversary IRONMAN Australia in Port Macquarie
– a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and 42.2km run.

On Boxing Day in 2019, Adam started experiencing double vision and was admitted to hospital for the first time on New Year’s Day at the turn of the decade. It took another two months, until 14 February, before he was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma.

“When I went to see the specialist, they finally found out that I had cancer. The PET scan apparently lit up like a Christmas tree,” said Adam. “It came on really quickly, they think they caught it within about two months of it hitting me. The only reason why we knew that there was something wrong with me was because I basically lost all vision in my left eye, it closed completely because the growth in my case was actually behind my left eye on the optic nerve.”

Up until February 2020, Adam was fit, healthy and in training for what would’ve been his ninth IRONMAN later that year. Adam says it was this level of fitness that doctors attribute to saving his life when he was first diagnosed with cancer.

“The doctor basically said if you hadn’t been fit you wouldn’t have survived that first night. It’s kind of a sobering experience to get told that sort of thing,” he said.

On that first night on 14 February, Adam was placed in ICU and 16 litres of fluid were removed from his right lung. On top of that, the first round of chemotherapy treatment given to Adam put him in coma for five days and he was held in ICU for 11 days. By the time he was ready to move up to the hospital ward, Adam’s weight had dropped from 89 kilograms to 62.

The complications didn’t end there. In March, Adam suffered a chemotherapy induced brain injury and once again Adam’s life hung precariously in the balance.

“I woke up on a Wednesday morning in March and I couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk, and the specialist said if you want to have a conversation with your family, you’ve got 24 to 48 hours to do it,” said Adam.

Miraculously, Adam pulled through and two weeks later told he could leave the hospital and go home.

Through the eight months of chemotherapy he endured, Adam underwent 130 blood and plasma transfusions, suffered six bacterial infections and a near 30-kilogram loss in weight.

Despite everything thrown his way, Adam entered remission at the end of August 2020. After that, the next chapter of his recovery began – learning to use his body again.

Adam says he still has residual issues from the cancer and chemotherapy that are ongoing to this day.

“With the chemotherapy impacting my brain I had to learn to walk again, so my legs don’t talk to my head,” said Adam. “Every step when I’m running is a conscious thought because I scuff my feet because I can’t really feel them.

“I’ve also got a deficit I my left eye. Unfortunately, I don’t have any vision out of the middle of my left eye, I only see out of the periphery. It’s perfectly fine, I can drive, I can cook, I can teach in the labs and the lectures,and I can walk around so that’s all great, it’s just a bizarre feeling on the left side. That causes problems with balance so running is fun but is manageable.”

“It’s definitely been an interesting journey, I’ve been very fortunate having some amazing doctors and nurses looking after me and my colleagues in the office have been fabulous. My wife and my kids have been absolutely incredible,” he said. “I had 12 months of exercise physiology with a guy called Adrian Cunningham who heads up a team and he’s got a Masters in Clinical Exercise Recovery majoring in Cancer Treatment and Recovery, so he’s taught me how to balance again, how to move my feet, basically just how to get around. It’s all pretty good at the moment.”

Completing another IRONMAN was always in the back of Adam’s mind. Having used exercise his whole life to control migraines and stress, added to the fact that his greatest joy is running hard up hills, Adam was determined to get back to a start line somewhere, somehow.

Adam was also starkly aware that exercise significantly boosts the chances of cancer survival.

“Your ability to survive is 30 to 50 percent better if you exercise. If I feel really crappy and I’ve done a weights session or a run session, yes it hurts like hell but it does actually boost me,” said Adam.

Just getting to the IRONMAN Australia start line on 1 May will be a huge achievement for Adam.

“Getting to the start is me saying I got through it, everyone survived. I can still do the things I want, and that’s one of the things I’ve been trying to do here is, I used to run, bike, swim, I’m doing that, I’m not the same person I used to be, I’m slower but in many ways I’m more patient and more tolerant, I know what the deficiencies I’ve got are, and every time I do something I hadn’t done last week is a step forward and I feel better for it,” he said.

“I still go backwards, it’s not a linear thing. But I’ve got the luxury of a family and a job that I love and I can still do everything else, so getting to do an IRONMAN is something I’ve loved doing. I’ve made some incredible friends along the way and I know that no matter where I finish, the reception is going to be great.

“This one is special for me because there was a whole period of time when I was cooped up in hospital that I never thought that I was going to have that opportunity again.”