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Adam Thomson opens up on journey from Japanese hospital bed to Chiefs Super Rugby squad
By Online Editors
By Christopher Reive, NZ Herald
When Adam Thomson was struck down by a spinal infection in late 2017, he had no guarantee that his life would ever go back to how it was.
The former All Blacks loose forward was admitted to hospital in December of 2017, during his stint playing for the Canon Eagles in Japan, after experiencing excruciating pain that left him unable to walk.
His ailment initially had doctors stumped, before he was eventually diagnosed with lumbar discitis - an infection in the intervertebral disc space.
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Thomson spent 57 days in hospital, mostly bed ridden, and had to learn how to walk again. Speaking to Newstalk ZB's Martin Devlin, Thomson said it was the biggest challenge he had ever faced.
"It was hugely scary. There were some pretty dark moments. In my life I've had a pretty cruisy run in terms of major obstacles, injuries and what not, so for me that was the biggest challenge I've ever faced," Thomson said.
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"I was on my back for six weeks, couldn't get out of bed and had to teach myself to walk again going through major bouts of pain.
"Things came up life quality of life and will you even be able to live a normal kind of life again…that's the level it was at, it was never really can you go back and be a professional rugby player again. There were some really dark times and I had to ask myself some pretty big questions. I made that decision pretty early on that I was going to get over it and get back to it.
"It was step by step…I just had to keep moving and work really, really hard."
"It's quite the journey to think back on it now, even seeing some of the footage of the shape I was in in hospital and now getting a crack at club rugby, Mitre 10 (Cup) and now Super Rugby, it's pretty unreal.
"I never thought I'd be back playing Super Rugby, to be honest. Rugby was there in the back of my mind, it never went away. To me, that was never going to be the end of my journey even with doctors' recommendations and that. I'm a pretty stoic sort of guy and I wanted to go out on my own terms. Right from day one it was about getting over that hurdle, getting myself back on my feet and getting back onto the field.
"To me that was probably club rugby, at a push maybe get back to something a little bit higher. But to get back into a Super Rugby jersey, especially a team as amazing as the Chiefs, it's a dream come true.
"I've got a lot of gratitude for where I am and I've got that love and passion for the game again. You tend to lose that when you play season after season and it kind of grinds on. For me that was a huge wake up call.
"To have that passion and burning desire to get back into footy for the love of it again is something I don't take for granted."
This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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