After urgent surgery to remove cancer, triathlon has given Greg Lord inspiration to recover from the darkest of places.
The 37-year-old, originally from Wales, first got into the sport of triathlon around six years ago as a personal challenge after many years in rugby.
Following several years of progression, Greg had built himself to the point of making a bid for world championship selection.
Just days after recording one of his fastest ever training times, he was hit with a bombshell in November last year.
A seemingly routine visit to the doctor for a sore neck soon turned into something much more serious.
The doctor sent Greg for an ultrasound and a growth was found in one of his thyroid glands. No-one was too concerned until biopsy results came back as inconclusive.
"They said I needed to go for surgery to have the thyroid removed just as a precaution and when the tests from that came back they found it was cancer,” Greg says.
"The next day I was back in for major surgery and had a full neck dissection to remove the remaining part of the thyroid and all the lymph nodes in my neck.”
Greg was forced to endure an unfathomably nervous wait for results from the surgery after being told his type of cancer wouldn’t respond to chemotherapy.
Finally relief came when he was told by specialists that surgery had successfully removed the cancer from his body.
Bi-monthly blood tests are still essential to make sure Greg remains in the clear but his life is slowly returning to normality.
And triathlon has played a major part in that rehabilitation by giving him something to focus on as well as tangible goals for the future.
Greg has seen many improvements after getting back into training but still gets frustrated with the slow and gruelling process.
"The surgery’s taken a long time to get over. I said to myself ‘I’ll be back in training within a month or two’ but every time I tried my body slapped me back down.
"When you’re fit and healthy you can do what you like, but after something like this the frustration side of things is hard. Just wanting to get out and do things but I physically can’t.”
Thankfully though, Greg says the last few weeks of training have gone very well and he finally feels like he’s getting back to normal.
He pays tribute to his local club, Triathlon Tauranga, who have been extremely supportive and helped him start again practically from scratch.
"Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is important, everyone was really positive and encouraged me when I went back to training.
"The people at my tri club helped me keep battling on and made a big difference in my recovery.
"You could just sit there and dwell on it and beat yourself up saying ‘poor me’ but I’ve found the experience has made me a lot tougher mentally.”
Greg is hoping to once again build himself up for a world champs bid, hopefully in 2012 or 2013.
And given the determination he’s shown through his ordeal with cancer, you’d be crazy to bet against him.
