Roddy Piper (hodgkin's lymphoma)
Ed Varner
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from the wrestling observer website:
11/27/2006
Sad news involving one of this generation's biggest stars Roddy Piper
posted on his web site this afternoon that he has been diagnosed with
Lymphoma.
Piper, 52, underwent a biopsy for a growth in his back after undergoing
disc surgery last week. Piper had been in tremendous pain on the
European tour, thought at the time to be due to kidney stones.
Ed Varner
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Canadian wrestling legend (Rowdy) Roddy Piper battling non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma
Tue Dec 19, 1:18 PM ET
TORONTO (CP) - For years, (Rowdy) Roddy Piper has insisted that, if not
for the support of wrestling fans around the world, he would probably
be dead.
Now, through a serendipitous twist, Piper's words resonate louder than
ever. The Saskatoon-born wrestling legend is fighting non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma, a cancer that attacks the body's blood-filtering tissues.
Doctors discovered the cancer while performing back surgery after Piper
suffered an injury while touring with World Wrestling Entertainment in
Europe last month.
Piper, 52, wasn't even supposed to be wrestling - he was expected to
tour Quebec City, Montreal and selected southern Ontario cities by
train to promote a WWE/VIA Rail partnership for Wrestlemania 23 next
April in Detroit. But Piper was forced into extended ring duty at the
world tag team championship at the Cyber Sunday pay-per-view event on
Nov. 5.
There, in a unique promotion, fans voted the popular Piper into the
match with Ric Flair - he earned 46 per cent of the votes, compared to
Dusty Rhodes at 35 per cent and Sergeant Slaughter at 19.
That bout led him to the European gig, where he suffered the back
ailment that led to the discovery of the cancer.
"If the fans hadn't voted me in (at Cyber Sunday), I wouldn't have
discovered this," Piper said in a telephone interview from Portland,
Ore. "I would have gone three to five years and never known it. And
it's in my lymph glands, so it wouldn't have taken long to go through
my entire body."
The cancer wasn't Piper's only problem. The surgery also revealed a
damaged disc that threatened to end his career.
"This doctor put me on the slab, and it turned out, I had a bone about
the size of a potato chip, and about that thin," said Piper. "And it
was starting to cut the nerves inside my spine."
"It was just a matter of me moving too much one way or the other, and I
would have been paralyzed."
Piper began undergoing radiation therapy immediately ("I glow in the
dark now," he joked), and because the lymphoma was caught early,
doctors say his chances for recovery are excellent.
"I've got a 30 per cent chance of (the radiation) not working," said
Piper. "Well shoot, those are good odds to me."
Well wishes are pouring in for Piper, who remains one of wrestling's
most entertaining characters in a career that has spanned four decades.
Those in the business are eager to see Piper return to action as soon
as he's able.
"I'm so impressed with Roddy's incredible fighting spirit, and I'm
confident he will beat the challenge he's facing," said Carl DeMarco,
president of WWE Canada. "He has an incredibly positive attitude, and
is an inspiration to others who are fighting the same thing."
Piper went public with his cancer fight for that very reason.
"I'm going to beat it, and that way I can go back in a cancer
survivor," said Piper. "I think I can help a lot of people if I was
myself a cancer survivor, because then I'm not just blowing smoke. I'll
know what they've gone through."
Piper, who is married with four children, said he feels terrible for
putting his family through such a trying ordeal.
"I love my kids so much," Piper said, choking back tears. "Me, I don't
care so much about. They don't deserve that kind of worry, especially
around Christmas. I think that's the hardest part."
Piper is no stranger to adversity. He left home as a young teenager,
expelled from junior high school and on the outs with his father. He
wrestled his first professional match at 15, and wound up a beaten
mess. He's had sprains, strains and broken bones in every place
imaginable.
In other words, Piper is ready for his toughest battle yet.
"This radiation treatment, it kicks the stuffings out of you a little
bit," said Piper. "But I'm a fighter. It's picked on the wrong guy this
time."