In July, former Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver, John Metchie, shocked the world when he revealed he was diagnosed with Leukemia.
At only 22 years of age, Metchie had just months prior been drafted as the second-round pick to the Houston Texans, and completed all of the pre-season OTAs.
He had been recovering from an ACL injury and completing some therapy in that area, but he noted in an interview that everything felt good at the beginning of the pre-season:
“Everything felt great. Everything was on track after the draft -OTAs, recovering. I was coming off an injury, training… getting ready to come back.”
It wasn’t until later that, John Metchie revealed, that he began to feel less like himself:
“I think it all kinda started post-OTAs, right when OTAs were done and everybody was off. That’s kinda when I started feeling more fatigued, sick, had aches and stuff, migraines.”
“And I knew I wasn’t feeling well, but I kept working out for a couple weeks, because as an athlete and as a football player we are so used to kinda toughing through a lot of things.”
“That was my biggest hurdle. Kinda getting to the point where I was like ‘Damn, I really don’t feel well…”
John stated in a recent video release by the Texans that he tackled the diagnosis much the way he tackles football season, switching gears to face his newest battle off the field.
Luckily, his form of Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia is one of the most treatable with recent advancements in medicine, and instead of the death sentence the diagnosis used to entail, John Metchie looked at only a few weeks to a few months of treatment ahead.
And on Monday of this week, after completing his preliminary chemotherapy treatment cycles, Metchie surprised the other patients in his unit or his “hospital family,” including medical staff to an evening at NRG Stadium.
In a video shared earlier this week by the Houston Texans social media, John Metchie is seen hugging members of the hospital staff, and they looked relieved to see the star wide receiver looking healthy and strong. He shared with them:
“I’ve been back, working out and stuff!”
Unfortunately, quick recovery is not the case for many of Metchie’s hospital family members who are still in the middle of their battles.
But seeing him interact with the kids he made friends within the videos is truly endearing.
“In the hospital, we’re all there together – patients and nurses, and just everybody that works there.
We’re all kinda in that same grind together… it was cool to be able to bring them to my field and show them what I do.”
John was on hand before the game today as well:
