Chris Cairns has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Cairns, who was discharged after being hospitalised with a heart attack and paraplegia last week, revealed the latest diagnosis on Instagram.
‘As far as weeks go, I thought that Tom Brady retiring was going to be the low point this week... but as it turned out, TB12's retirement comes a distant second,’ wrote Cairns. ‘I was told yesterday I have bowel cancer... big shock and not what I was expecting after what was supposed to be a routine checkup’.
‘So, as I prepare for another round of conversations with surgeons and specialists, I keep remembering how lucky I am to be here in the first place... and how blessed I am to have all that I do in my life. Another fight ahead but here's hoping this one is a swift uppercut and over in the first round’, he added.
Cairns, a veteran of 62 Tests and 215 ODIs for New Zealand between 1989 and 2006, suffered a heart attack and subsequently an aortic dissection, leaving him on life support in a Sydney hospital last year. Subsequent complications resulted in a stroke in his spine that left him paralysed from the waist down.
However, Cairns did make good progress in his rehabilitation. He even chronicled his recovery on social media. On 28 January, he announced that he would head home for good after 141 days as an in-patient at the University of Canberra Hospital.