Wassell 'has so much to fight for' after tumour scare

BBC News

24-04-2025

Guinness Women's Six Nations: Scotland v IrelandVenue: Hive Stadium, Edinburgh Date: Saturday, 26 April Kick-off: 14:30 BSTCoverage: Watch live on BBC Scotland, iPlayer & online, follow live text and watch video highlights on BBC Sport website & app
On the face of it, it's not the most exhilarating of news stories - 'rugby player returns to training, now hitting tackle bags' - but in Emma Wassell's case it's as close to a sporting miracle as you are likely to get.To recap the story of the 30-year-old, 67-times capped Scotland lock - last September a tumour (mercifully, benign) was discovered in her chest, then there was a bleed on the tumour, then there was the first surgery to remove part of the tumour, then a second surgery to remove the rest, a procedure that involved the collapsing of a lung.She wanted to call out for her mum, but Pauline had sadly passed away suddenly earlier in the year. Whenever you hear 'rugby family' being used in the parlance of the game the temptation is to brand it a cliche, but in Wassell's case, it's not. Her team-mates rallied round her in, and out, of hospital like a large gang of protective sisters.And now here she is at Murrayfield, the picture of health and talking about the comeback, which she hopes will happen before the World Cup in England in August."The health is very good," the second row said on the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast."I've been running for four weeks now. I'm able to hit bags and hit the deck. I feel ready to keep pushing on. Mentally, I was worried about how I was going to feel doing contact, but I'm ready to get stuck in."The last thing that really needs ticked off is bone-on-bone contact, which we might trickle into very, very soon. We're honestly a few weeks short of playing. I tried very hard to push for the Ireland match [on Saturday] but there was no need to risk it. Focus on the World Cup. There's so much to play for and I'm just so excited."
She was only 29 when all of this was happening. Her energy and positivity, her absolute love of the game and her appreciation of what it's given her, is a sight to behold."Everyone's like, 'how did you get through?' I do believe everyone would be the same," she explains. "You don't have a choice. When it's happening to you, you have no choice other than to get through it."I'm in a fortunate position. I have so much to fight for. For me, a huge motivator is playing for Scotland."The surgeon heard it many times. When I got told I was going to need a sternotomy, I went, 'I'll be able to play rugby again, right?' They're like, 'just be grateful you're alive'. Yes, I had a very serious operation, but I believe I've been really lucky in this whole situation. I don't know how you get through it, but you do."I always had this bigger picture of, 'I have been given this shot again to be able to play again', which I thought at one point was going to be taken away. There was a point where I thought I might never play rugby again. That's what broke me."
Getting the boots on again was the driving force. There's no naivety here. She knows there's still a distance to travel between getting well and getting back in the Test arena.She doesn't just want to come back, she wants to come back as a better version of her old self. That alone will be a challenge. Wassell played 54 consecutive games for Scotland at her peak. Beat that. "Hopefully this thing has given me a few extra years," she laughs."Sometimes you cannot control your health but everything I've been able to control, I believe I've done. The goal is no sweeter than a World Cup, is it? That's the ultimate. Some of the girls have given me a bit of stick. 'You're just wrapping yourself in cotton wool to get there!'"The details of her treatment is the stuff of nightmares. "The scariest bit was when I didn't know what it was and they didn't know how they were going to operate so I obviously had to get all these biopsies," she explains."They initially went through my neck to get the biopsy and they couldn't get enough cells so then they had to go through my ribcage to get under my sternum to get into the main part of the tumour to get enough cells to be able to get a biopsy."When you're going through the rib to make sure that you don't cause any damage, you have to collapse a lung to get there. When I woke up after these biopsies, I would say that was one of the hardest moments. My body was in all sorts of pain. I couldn't understand why I couldn't breathe properly, I had chest drains in which were extremely sore and I was in the high dependency ward in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary."There was a lot of very, very sick people in there and that was when I was scared. I'm almost crying out for…well…I didn't have my mum there. She was a ray of sunshine in a room, a typically embarrassing proud mum. She was always watching me play. Honestly, with binoculars, couldn't bloody see a thing. Didn't know the rules. Didn't matter. She was there, a constant."A lot of the reason why I wear a headband was so she could spot me. It was hard enough telling my brother about being sick because I didn't want to put him through that. I would have hated putting my mum through it."Enter the Scotland team as auxiliary nurses. "I live my life with a lot of humour so even when I am lying in my hospital bed with tubes coming out of me, please crack a joke," she says."And they did and sometimes I would crack the joke and they'd be like, 'can we laugh? We don't know'. We've been through a hell of a lot. It's not just me. We've been through a huge journey together."Wassell joked with them that she'd be back in time for the Ireland game and the reaction was hilarious. Don't even think about it, was the hysterical gist. They weren't emotionally ready for her return. They wouldn't be able to cope.So, a warm-up game ahead of the World Cup is the hope and the plan. No matter where it is and no matter who it's against, it will be special. The thought of it got her through the most awful time in her life and it feels more real now than at any point since illness got her.If she keeps the tears at bay that day then she might be the only one.