Great story about Novlene Williams-Mills

[Mosiah]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/oth...and-love-.html

Posted already? Sorry!

[Islandman]

Very inspirational read. All the best to her.

Just another reminder that often we don't know what our athletes are dealing with personally and how it might affect their performances.

They are humans not machines.

[Jangle]

How did this story miss our local journalists?

[Don1]

Wow! Exceptional story. Novlene is a real champion in all aspects

I smell a documentary

[Don1]

because they're merely local das why

[Assasin]

big up to the young lady. Wish her all the best.

[MdmeX]

Wish her well. I know the feeling when it hits home.

My mom was diagnosed last August with breast cancer; but she is a tough, "ole" gal!

[Karl]

Williams-Mills: After breast cancer, I just hoped my husband

Williams-Mills: After breast cancer, I just hoped my husband would still love me...

By Laura Williamson
PUBLISHED: 19:26 EST, 30 June 2013 | UPDATED: 19:51 EST, 30 June 2013

On June 25 2012, Novlene Williams-Mills was diagnosed with breast cancer.


She told no-one apart from her husband of five years, Jameel, family and friends and then won the 400 metres at the Jamaican Senior National Championships that weekend in 50.60 seconds, booking her place in the Olympic team.

Williams-Mills finished fifth in the 400m at London 2012 and won a bronze medal in the 4 x 400m relay.


Courage: Novlene Williams-Mills won a bronze medal at the Olympics after being told she had breast cancer


Three days after the Games surgeons removed a small lump in her breast. She then had a double mastectomy, a further operation to cut out the remaining cancerous cells and reconstructive surgery. Her final operation was on January 18.

Last week Williams-Mills lay on the track as the Jamaican 400m champion after qualifying for the World Championships in Moscow this August by running 50.01secs.
‘I’m back,’ she thought. ‘I’ve still got it.’

Until now, Williams-Mills has told nobody outside her close circle about her devastating illness. She did not want any sympathy; she just wanted to concentrate on winning the most difficult race of her life.


Williams-Mills is 31 years old, a five-time world and three-time Olympic medallist. Athletes like her are not supposed to get breast cancer.


She just happened to mention she had found a small lump at a routine gynaecologist appointment and her life changed for ever.

‘It feels like your own body has betrayed you, like I’ve been stabbed,’ she says, tears forming in her eyes. ‘I’m an athlete. I work out, I train. It can’t be possible.’



Still going strong: Williams-Mills finished third at the Birmingham Diamond League behind Christine Ohuruogu


Ovarian cancer also took Williams-Mills’ older sister, a mother of three, at the age of 38 in 2010.

Cancer is a word the Jamaican utters rarely, when she spits it out in disgust.

She thinks competing must have been a welcome distraction; an injection of normality in a suddenly chaotic world.

Williams-Mills talks about the Olympics in the same detached way, describing it as the outsider looking in on a remarkable woman fighting not just to win a race, but to wrestle back her own body.

‘I competed at the Olympics, I got fifth in the 400 and third in the 4 x 400,’ she says. ‘Was it crazy? Yes.

‘That’s everybody’s dream, to run at the Olympics. But I was thinking about my hurdles that I have to come back to fight. I was thinking: “Am I going to survive this?”


‘My team-mates in the relay did not know. But I was standing on the podium and I didn’t know if I would ever run another race.’

There is no training programme for fighting cancer. Williams-Mills, a ‘stubborn, competitive’ spirit, can only laugh at the lack of control she felt; an uncomfortable journey for anyone, let alone an elite athlete.

It was dread that convinced her to have both breasts removed when the initial lumpectomy returned inconclusive results. She could not live in fear of ‘what if?’.



Third: The Jamaica 400m relay bronze medalists at the London Olympics


Yet even then the ordeal was not over: she had a further operation to remove more cancerous cells; a moment when she felt like ‘the devil had control’.

‘It’s a very high-risk, aggressive cancer and I had to approach it aggressively,’ says Williams-Mills.

‘A double mastectomy eliminated my chance of getting it from 99 per cent to maybe three per cent.

‘They said I could have six weeks of radiation or maybe an hour and a half of surgery. I take the hour and a half. I wanted to win and I had to fight with every single possible thing that I have.

‘Like Angelina Jolie, my chance of having it was way high. But I had choices to make. A lot of people don’t.’ The tears start to fall.

‘The mastectomy was scary because this is what makes me a lady. What am I going to look like?

‘It was very difficult. I want to have kids one day and you see all those mothers out there nursing and I’m not going to be able to do that.

‘There were days I didn’t know if I could make it. I was in so much pain. I cried because they tell me that tears are a language that God understands.

‘I hoped my husband still loved me the same. We met when I was like this and now he’s seeing a whole different person. But I didn’t have to worry about him. He was my nurse, my rock.’

Williams-Mills’ sassiness suddenly returns. She laughs mischievously as she notes how people who do not know about her illness have commented that her breasts are now ‘a tiny bit bigger’.


Role-model: It was highly commendable that Williams-Mills competed at all in London


‘I run the 400,’ she says, smiling. ‘I can’t carry no extra load. I’m a little petite girl.’

An athlete’s kit offers no hiding place, but Williams-Mills is relaxed about performing in front of a public audience. She ran 51.03secs in Birmingham on Sunday to finish third at the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix and insists she ‘doesn’t feel any different’. She giggles: ‘They’re not shaking! I feel great. If people ask I just say it’s a push-up bra.’


Running, after all, is what Williams- Mills does. She missed it, and found herself edging back towards the track, returning to full training in March.

Her first competition was on May 5, when she finished third in Kingston in 51.05secs and smiled as people criticised her relatively poor start to the season.

Williams-Mills knows she will get ‘some heat’ for keeping her illness a secret, but insists she did not want people feeling sorry for her.



Humble: She kept her illness a secret, but has received praise for the way she has handled herself


She is bravely speaking out now to stress that early detection is what saved her life. This competitor wants to show that a disease that has no respect for age, fitness or talent can be beaten.

‘My friend, a breast cancer survivor, said, “So you’ve just run in front of how many millions of people at the Olympics? And this is what you’re afraid of? Just think of your competitors that you hate the most and love to beat.”

‘For some people, being diagnosed with breast cancer means their world ends. But you’re still that same person. A piece of you is taken away but it doesn’t mean life is over.

‘I’m still one of the top 400m runners in the world and I want to see what I can do. Moscow will be for all the breast cancer survivors out there. I want them to know it’s still possible.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/oth...#ixzz2Xp9pxy88
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Don1]

Williams-Mills: After breast cancer, I just hoped my husband would still love me...

By Laura Williamson
PUBLISHED: 19:26 EST, 30 June 2013 | UPDATED: 19:51 EST, 30 June 2013

On June 25 2012, Novlene Williams-Mills was diagnosed with breast cancer.


She told no-one apart from her husband of five years, Jameel, family and friends and then won the 400 metres at the Jamaican Senior National Championships that weekend in 50.60 seconds, booking her place in the Olympic team.

Williams-Mills finished fifth in the 400m at London 2012 and won a bronze medal in the 4 x 400m relay.


Courage: Novlene Williams-Mills won a bronze medal at the Olympics after being told she had breast cancer


Three days after the Games surgeons removed a small lump in her breast. She then had a double mastectomy, a further operation to cut out the remaining cancerous cells and reconstructive surgery. Her final operation was on January 18.

Last week Williams-Mills lay on the track as the Jamaican 400m champion after qualifying for the World Championships in Moscow this August by running 50.01secs.
‘I’m back,’ she thought. ‘I’ve still got it.’

Until now, Williams-Mills has told nobody outside her close circle about her devastating illness. She did not want any sympathy; she just wanted to concentrate on winning the most difficult race of her life.


Williams-Mills is 31 years old, a five-time world and three-time Olympic medallist. Athletes like her are not supposed to get breast cancer.


She just happened to mention she had found a small lump at a routine gynaecologist appointment and her life changed for ever.

‘It feels like your own body has betrayed you, like I’ve been stabbed,’ she says, tears forming in her eyes. ‘I’m an athlete. I work out, I train. It can’t be possible.’



Still going strong: Williams-Mills finished third at the Birmingham Diamond League behind Christine Ohuruogu


Ovarian cancer also took Williams-Mills’ older sister, a mother of three, at the age of 38 in 2010.

Cancer is a word the Jamaican utters rarely, when she spits it out in disgust.

She thinks competing must have been a welcome distraction; an injection of normality in a suddenly chaotic world.

Williams-Mills talks about the Olympics in the same detached way, describing it as the outsider looking in on a remarkable woman fighting not just to win a race, but to wrestle back her own body.

‘I competed at the Olympics, I got fifth in the 400 and third in the 4 x 400,’ she says. ‘Was it crazy? Yes.

‘That’s everybody’s dream, to run at the Olympics. But I was thinking about my hurdles that I have to come back to fight. I was thinking: “Am I going to survive this?”


‘My team-mates in the relay did not know. But I was standing on the podium and I didn’t know if I would ever run another race.’

There is no training programme for fighting cancer. Williams-Mills, a ‘stubborn, competitive’ spirit, can only laugh at the lack of control she felt; an uncomfortable journey for anyone, let alone an elite athlete.

It was dread that convinced her to have both breasts removed when the initial lumpectomy returned inconclusive results. She could not live in fear of ‘what if?’.



Third: The Jamaica 400m relay bronze medalists at the London Olympics


Yet even then the ordeal was not over: she had a further operation to remove more cancerous cells; a moment when she felt like ‘the devil had control’.

‘It’s a very high-risk, aggressive cancer and I had to approach it aggressively,’ says Williams-Mills.

‘A double mastectomy eliminated my chance of getting it from 99 per cent to maybe three per cent.

‘They said I could have six weeks of radiation or maybe an hour and a half of surgery. I take the hour and a half. I wanted to win and I had to fight with every single possible thing that I have.

‘Like Angelina Jolie, my chance of having it was way high. But I had choices to make. A lot of people don’t.’ The tears start to fall.

‘The mastectomy was scary because this is what makes me a lady. What am I going to look like?

‘It was very difficult. I want to have kids one day and you see all those mothers out there nursing and I’m not going to be able to do that.

‘There were days I didn’t know if I could make it. I was in so much pain. I cried because they tell me that tears are a language that God understands.

‘I hoped my husband still loved me the same. We met when I was like this and now he’s seeing a whole different person. But I didn’t have to worry about him. He was my nurse, my rock.’

Williams-Mills’ sassiness suddenly returns. She laughs mischievously as she notes how people who do not know about her illness have commented that her breasts are now ‘a tiny bit bigger’.


Role-model: It was highly commendable that Williams-Mills competed at all in London


‘I run the 400,’ she says, smiling. ‘I can’t carry no extra load. I’m a little petite girl.’

An athlete’s kit offers no hiding place, but Williams-Mills is relaxed about performing in front of a public audience. She ran 51.03secs in Birmingham on Sunday to finish third at the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix and insists she ‘doesn’t feel any different’. She giggles: ‘They’re not shaking! I feel great. If people ask I just say it’s a push-up bra.’


Running, after all, is what Williams- Mills does. She missed it, and found herself edging back towards the track, returning to full training in March.

Her first competition was on May 5, when she finished third in Kingston in 51.05secs and smiled as people criticised her relatively poor start to the season.

Williams-Mills knows she will get ‘some heat’ for keeping her illness a secret, but insists she did not want people feeling sorry for her.



Humble: She kept her illness a secret, but has received praise for the way she has handled herself


She is bravely speaking out now to stress that early detection is what saved her life. This competitor wants to show that a disease that has no respect for age, fitness or talent can be beaten.

‘My friend, a breast cancer survivor, said, “So you’ve just run in front of how many millions of people at the Olympics? And this is what you’re afraid of? Just think of your competitors that you hate the most and love to beat.”

‘For some people, being diagnosed with breast cancer means their world ends. But you’re still that same person. A piece of you is taken away but it doesn’t mean life is over.

‘I’m still one of the top 400m runners in the world and I want to see what I can do. Moscow will be for all the breast cancer survivors out there. I want them to know it’s still possible.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/oth...#ixzz2Xp9pxy88
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Is this the version of Mo's post for the vision challenged??

Anyway...Thanks Karl!!

[Karl]

My years later...The Daily Mail's broken link will not affect us...

[Don1]

My years later...The Daily Mail's broken link will not affect us...

Brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!