Martina Navratilova’s health is improving. The Czechoslovakian tennis legend, who became an American citizen in 1981, announced this in an interview broadcast by TalkTV on Tuesday. With journalist Piers Morgan, the 66-year-old former player said she was in remission from her double breast and throat cancer. The winner of 18 Grand Slam singles tournaments revealed that she suffered from the disease in January.
“I noticed that my left lymph node had swollen and I thought it was due to a shingles vaccine I had had a week before. But after two weeks it was still swollen so I called the doctor,” she told Piers Morgan. The results showed a double breast and throat cancer. A test already experienced in 2010 since breast cancer, still at an early stage, had been diagnosed.
To cure her double cancer, the treatment endured by Martina Navratilova was very heavy. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. The first week was chemo and radiation at the same time. When you start to feel bad, you don’t really know if it’s because of one or the other. And then, the effects of the rays were felt from the third week when your mouth became sore and your throat began to clog. »
The champion is better
In total, the former champion lived three weeks of daily radiation and three cycles of chemotherapy. But her efforts paid off and she is now doing better: “According to the doctors, I am cancer-free. Martina Navratilova also admitted to Piers Morgan that her past had allowed her to better understand this ordeal.
“Giving up, quitting, that’s not an option for me. Growing up in a communist country toughens you up. You do not have the choice. You’re stoic in a way because you can’t feel sorry for yourself or you’ll be crying all the time because you’re not free. So I took this opportunity that I had, my only regret is having had to do it, ”explained the former tennis player.