Auckland Blues lock Cameron Suafoa reveals cancer battle / Photo: William WEST - AFP/File
Auckland Blues lock Cameron Suafoa reveals cancer battle
Auckland Blues forward Cameron Suafoa has cancer and will take a break from playing after suffering fatigue from radiotherapy.
"I've recently been diagnosed with cancer," Suafoa said, without disclosing details, in a video posted Sunday by the Blues on social media platform X.
"I've been going through radiation treatment for the last month and a bit."
The 25-year-old lock has continued to take the field in Super Rugby this season after a tumour was removed from his back late last year.
Suafoa was a fortnight into radiation treatment when he started in the defeat against Super Rugby leaders Wellington Hurricanes on March 9.
He made his 20th Super Rugby career appearance a week later as a replacement in a win at the Waratahs in Sydney, just a day after one of his weekly radiation treatments.
"In the mornings, I am normally pretty good, because I just woke up, I'm full of energy," he explained.
"It's normally after 12 or one when I tend to decline, fatigue-wise. I get real tired easily," he added, with the tiredness meaning he would have to take a break from playing.
"Right now, it is what it is. I can't change the fact I am going through this.
"Hopefully I can come back from this fitter and stronger."
Suafoa said he had been in a busy period of training, with full contact, when he was first diagnosed.
"Physically, I felt fine. Looking back on it, I probably wasn't ready to admit, even to myself, that I was going through this. I guess I was in the denial stage," he said.
"It was a few weeks before I told my family."
The Blues are second in the Super Rugby table, five points behind the Hurricanes, who have a perfect record of seven wins.
D.W.Robertson--EWJ
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