“Everything is possible”, insists high-level athlete Mathieu Thomas. However, at the age of 17, his life hit a snag: a sarcoma (a cancerous tumor) deprived him of the normal use of one of his legs. This barely visible handicap, this man, now 39 years old, puts it aside and moves forward in his life, like a madman. At 30, as he glances in the rearview mirror, a question torments him: “What’s the biggest thing I can do?”. Why not become a Paralympic champion? He is a few weeks away from living his dream. While one in five people will develop cancer during their lifetime, according to the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer), he gives us an edifying testimony on the occasion of World Cancer Day on Sunday February 5.
franceinfo: At 17 years old, you are 1m92 tall. You are athletic, you play basketball. What do you dream of ?
Matthew Thomas: I competed for fun, not to make a career out of it. I was very curious about everything. I was more of an observer of life, let’s say. I was hesitating between studying architecture or engineering. This is what I had in mind at 17 years old.
And you are diagnosed with cancer. What is your reaction at this moment ?
I had a cancerous tumor in my lower abdomen. Knowing this is not a relief, but almost. I had been having pain for a very long time. The doctors said it was due to growth but deep down I knew. It was really because we saw that there was atrophy of the thigh that my general practitioner made me take the test for patellar syndrome. He sees that I really don’t have any reflexes on that leg and therefore that the nerve is affected.
Were you immediately informed of the consequences?
The day I meet Professor Tomeno in Cochin, we haven’t done the biopsy when he already tells me about cancer. I understood the gravity when he told me: “We’re scheduling the biopsy next week.” My first reaction was to say: “No, I have class. We can’t do that on vacation ?”, which were three weeks-one month away. And he answers me: “Young man, there are more important things in life than the baccalaureate.”
“It’s scary because at 17, the only thing that everyone tells you is: work at school because there’s the baccalaureate at the end of the year. It’s the only adult person who tells me the opposite.”
Mathieu Thomas, parabadminton championat franceinfo
It was a shock but it allowed me to digest it. When a week later, the cancer was confirmed, for my parents it was a tsunami arriving. I was already at the point: what’s the next step? What the professor didn’t know was how the tumor was compressing the nerve. When he opens it, he sees that the nerve is literally going through it and he has no choice but to cut it. When I wake up, still intubated, my mother is at my bedside. She had asked to tell me the news herself. I’m just sad, I’m crying.
When you wake up from the operation, you have lost the proper use of one leg. ?
I’m super angry because I wasn’t prepared to be disabled. For me, it’s a failure. I had truly faced cancer in battle mode. I told myself: we remove the tumor, it will be behind me. The doctor had prepared me well for the cancer announcement, but not at all about the disability. I think it’s even more taboo to talk about that or it was me who was rejected.
“I have the feeling that he missed his operation, that he didn’t do his best and he tells me: ‘I saved your life’.”
Matthew Thomasat franceinfo
I see everything I can no longer do and he adds another layer: he tells me that I will never be able to run again and that I will walk with a limp. It was a source of revolt for me. First of all, I don’t want to be told what I can’t do and I’m going to show you that you’re totally wrong. I don’t want to be in a chair and I don’t want it to show. I had the image of someone diminished and I wanted to show that I was a strong person, that I could walk normally again, even have recourse, and have a completely normal life. And I succeeded. I was in denial about the disability. In the end, it helped me surpass myself. But on the other hand I was not at all yet in acceptance. And that only happens at the age of 30. It was definitely something I was hiding. I didn’t at all want to have that look of pity and didn’t at all want that to be what defined me. I didn’t consider myself disabled at all.
You built your life, became an engineer. And at 28 years old, you started badminton… Among the able-bodied?
I discovered badminton by pure chance. It’s the only one that “fitted” into my schedule, which was a good fit, on Tuesday evening. A beautiful romantic encounter because I loved it so much that I wanted to compete, and I took lessons. It’s very disabling. The land is too big for me. But we adapt. I realized that there was still a lot of technique in this sport and that even overweight people could beat me easily. It’s not just the physical, there’s technique, tactics and that makes the difference. Even with a disability, I manage to beat a lot of able-bodied people today.
What led you to consider para badminton then ? You didn’t yet know that it was going to become an Olympic discipline in Tokyo in 2021 ?
At the age of 30, I had a full-blown mid-30s crisis. I want to give a little more meaning to my life. I moved so quickly from the age of 17 to the age of 30, saying to myself: “Life can stop, go for it, move forward as quickly as possible in everything you do, undertake as much as possible”, that I was doing a lot of things, but without really knowing why I was doing them. I asked myself : “Me, all alone, what great thing can I do? ?” And it was at the end of this journey that, as a big challenge, I took on the Paralympic Games. I don’t know if the planets were aligned at that time, but when I got interested, they announced that there were the first French parabadminton championships. I therefore contacted the federation.
Champion of France from your first participation, you accumulate medals internationally but miss by a hair the qualification for the first Parabadminton Olympics, in Tokyo, in 2020. Never mind, your goal is Paris 2024 ?
I told myself that the most beautiful Games I could experience were those in Paris. Firstly, because my children would be older to understand, and secondly there was my family, my friends. I wanted to prove that I was capable. For the Games, you have to be in the top 6. I am 7th today, so in the same position I found myself in Tokyo. In Paris, they will normally take eight. There is still one deadline. In three weeks, I have the world championships in Thailand. I still have this chance of getting back to 6th if I get back in front of the Thai who got back in front of me in the last competition. Otherwise, I have to wait until May 16 to have formalization. There is a commission which defines whether they take six, seven or eight.
What is the dream of the Olympics for? ? See bigger ?
In fact, it’s a real self-discovery, of all these possibilities, of what drives me, of why I do all this. I really need to feel alive.
“In the end after this climb, I discover that I still have many other dreams behind which will make sense.”
Matthew Thomasat franceinfo
I want to set up a foundation around invisible disability. I want to convey everything I have experienced and everything that is possible, this liberation that also comes with accepting a disability. I see disability as a singularity and we are all different. We talk about a disability situation but in the end, we will all be disabled as we get older. As we get older, there are things we will be able to do less, we will be able to move less. Seeing my grandmother, I said to myself that there was a lot to do both on accessibility but also on acceptance of this situation. The foundation that we want to set up with my partner will be called “JeTeMeVois”.
‘I see you’, you exist, you are no longer alone, and ‘I see myself’ means I finally accept this situation too. Society still has a distorted outlook, very pathos. I said to myself: “I’m not disabled enough.” But many people are in this situation, only 20% of disabled people have a severe disability. For others, it is invisible. With the Foundation, we want to free speech and obtain more kindness from society. I am very much into setting an example. I want to say: this is what I managed to do and this, above all, is what I am doing. Everything is possible.
In March, Mathieu Thomas published Dream of Games (Testimonials collection at City Editions)