New England Revolution striker Charlie Davies announces cancer diagnosis, now in remission
New England Revolution striker Charlie Davies was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer earlier this spring, but is now in remission, the team announced Saturday.
The Revolution said they kept the matter private so that Davies, a 30-year-old New Hampshire native, could “concentrate on his family and treatment during the past few weeks.”
“The club honored his wish for privacy,” the team said in a statement.
According to the Revolution, Davies shared with team officials that he had been diagnosed with and was being treated for liposarcoma, a form of soft tissue cancer.
After reportedly battling a hamstring injury since the beginning of the season, Charlies left an April 27 game against the Portland Timbers after pulling his groin. In an interview broadcast Sunday afternoon on Fox, Davies said that it was when he went to get an MRI on the injury that doctors found a tumor and he was told he would need to go see a specialist in Boston.
“That’s when it hit me: I have cancer,” Davies said.
In order to operate on the tumor, doctors had to remove one of Davies’s testicles.
“Yeah, you here that and you’re thinking that’s your manhood, at least half of it,” Davies said in the Fox interview. Fortunately, following successful treatment, he was able to joke about his situation.
“The first thing I asked after I kind of knew I’d be in the clear was just like ‘Am I going to look deformed? I have to shower with guys from my job, you know?'” he said. “Let the jokes begin. I said I guess I’ll just be ‘One-Nut Chuck’ for the rest of my life.”
Fellow Revolution striker Teal Bunbury told Fox that, all things considered, Davies has handled his recovery well.
“I think it’s great that he can have a light-hearted attitude of something that could have been so serious,” Bunbury said.
Davies missed a total of 15 games in all competitions, but team media reported Friday that he had returned to full training and could return to the field for the Revolution’s game Sunday night against Orlando City.
Cancer was something I never expected. But having beaten it, I’m that much stronger for it. Pumped to be back with the squad!
— Charlie Davies (@CharlieDavies9) July 30, 2016
For Davies—a Manchester, New Hampshire native who played college soccer at Boston College—the disclosure of his diagnosis is another episode in a career defined by comebacks.
After bursting onto the scene with the United States national team at the 2009 Confederations Cup in South Africa, Davies was nearly killed in a late-night car crash in Washington, D.C., in October 2009. Davies sustained a broken femur and tibia, several facial fractures, a fractured left elbow, a lacerated bladder, and bleeding on the brain.
The injuries sustained in the crash, which killed another passenger in the car, resulted in Davies missing the 2010 World Cup and more than a year of club games. He has not played since for the U.S. national team.
Davies joined the Revolution, his hometown team of sorts, in August 2013. In November 2014, he scored two goals in the second leg of the Eastern Conference Final to send the Revolution to the MLS Cup.
This past March, Davies’s wife gave birth to twins three months ahead of schedule. For more than a month, the two prematurely born boys, Rhys and Dakota, were unable to leave the hospital due to constant monitoring.
“I didn’t know if he would ever get to bring them home,” Davies said during the Fox interview. “And then, a few months ago, we found out that I had cancer.”
.@NERevolution striker @CharlieDavies9 beats cancer and is ready to take his life back and return to the field. https://t.co/Soq2kOBc1V
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 31, 2016
“After this news, I thought this be the last test, right?” Davies said, looking upwards. “I mean how many tests does one have to endure? But, with that being said, all these points in my life that I’ve had—all these different types of adversities—have helped me with the next one, and the next one.”
The Revolution are slated to play Orlando City in Orlando on Sunday at 7:30 p.m., with Davies included in the game-day roster for the first time since April.
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