No it sure isn't. It's about courage, an unwavering determination and a fighting spirit.
I've spent my life racing my bike, from the back roads of Austin, Texas to the Champs-Elysees, and I always figured if I died an untimely death, it would be because some rancher in his Dodge 4x4 ran me head first into a ditch. Believe me, it could happen. Cyclists fight an ongoing war with guys in big trucks, and so many vehicles have hit me, so many times, in so many countries, I've lost count.
At the age of 25 Lance was the picture of health, and begining to look the picture of wealth. All troubles seemed to be behind him, but the feeling was short-lived for fate had other plans. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer which had already spread into his lungs, he was in stage 3, and there were only 3 stages.
I thought I knew what fear was, Until I heard the words 'You have cancer'. Real fear came with an unmistakable sensation: it was as though all my blood started flowing in the wrong direction. My previous fears, fear of not being liked, fear of being laughed at, fear of losing my money, suddenly seemed like small cowardices. Everything now stacked up differently: the anxieties of life- a flat tire, losing my career, a traffic jam- were reprioritized into need versus want, real problem as opposed to minor scare. A bumpy plane ride was a bumpy plane ride, it wasn't cancer.
Immediate surgery was needed followed by an intensive chemotherapy, but the tale took another twist, the cancer had spread to his brain, his chances were slim, as slim as 3%, this information was somehow withheld from him, and he believed he had a 20% chance, whereby he started researching the disease, trying to strategise how to beat it. The game plan!
Brain surgery was called for to remove the malignant tissue. Followed by months long Chemotherapy.
The question was, which would the chemo kill first: the cancer, or me? My life became one long IV drip, a sickening routine: If I wasn't in pain I was vomiting, and if I wasn't vomiting, I was thinking about what I had, and if I wasn't thinking about what I had, I was wondering when it was going to be over. That's chemo for you.
The sickness was in the details, in the nasty asides of the treatment. Cancer was a vague sense of unwellness, but chemo was an endless series of specific horrors, until I began to think the cure was as bad as or worse than, the disease. What a casual bystander associates with cancer- loss of hair, sickly pallor, a wasting away- are actually the side effects of the treatment. Chemo was a burning in my veins, a matter of being slowly eaten from the inside out by a destroying river of pollutants until I didn't have an eyelash to bat. Chemo was a continuous cough, hacking up black mysterious, tar like matter from deep in my chest. Chemo was a constant, doubling-over need to go to the bathroom.
Despite the odds stacked up against him, he made it. And the cancer made him a different man.
People think my comeback as a triumph, but in the begining, it was a disaster. When you have lived for an entire year terrified of dying, you feel like you deserve to spend the rest of your days on a permanent vacation. You can't, of course; you have to return to your family, your peers, and your profession. But a part of me didn't want my old life back
With the help of his friends and newly found wife, he fought the depression and did get back on the bike. His previous contract with the professional cycling team "Cofidis" was withdrawn while he was in hospital. They didn't beleive he was going to make any more money for them. As Lance puts it, "The rug was pulled from beneath my feet" ,and "they let me there to die"
They searched for months for a team who would be willing to risk signing in a weakened ex-biker, until a new organization, the US postal services team decided to sign him up. And he didn't let them down.
Lance Armstrong went on to win 7 Tour de la France Tournaments, considered one of the toughest sporting events in the world. He established the "Lance Armostrong Foundation" which continues to raise funds for cancer to date.
